This article will discuss the introverted thinking (Ti) tertiary function of INFJ and how their extraverted feeling (Fe) auxiliary function is often bypassed to engage in an indefinite search for some magical piece of information that will solve the puzzle. This search is largely illusory and fruitless for INFJs who instead need to engage the exact opposite function of Fe in the auxiliary position as an antidote to this. I give a couple of practical methods INFJs can take to ensure that Fe is engaged and Ti is minimized.
Needing More Information
An INFJ is in full-stop. Why? Information. Need input. I don’t have enough understanding of what I’m doing.
And in today’s day and age it is so easy to get information. You don’t have to go anywhere to get it. It is there at your fingertips ala the invention of the computer and the internet connectivity that resides on it.
The internet. Wow. Talk about the INFJ temptation par excellence. It is like this internet thing was designed to take INFJs down. And it all starts as a heaven of possibilities for them.
Yes, that is how the tertiary function goes. It is akin to a delicious dessert that one partakes of as a fitting end to a meal. It is experienced as titillating, stimulating, refreshing, the air of the heights, remove from the vagaries of the human suffering in existence (Fi id). O, how INFJs love their Ti tertiary function. And it is so perfect in them. It is like that perfect rounding out accent that is given to a work of some exquisite piece of art.
And this is exactly how is should be – a rounding out, a finishing touch, the touch of formalism and elegant reduction.
But, the problem is when INFJs start treating the cookie jar like it’s the main course. What happens from eating too many cookies? Sugar sickness.
It doesn’t seem serious, this sickness. And it isn’t at first. It is only after long periods of time of getting in the habit of binging on sweets that the effects take their toll. Malnutrition. Decadence. Desiccation. A lack of vitality. Effeteness.
So, what is the antidote to all this sweetness and decadence of the tertiary Ti?
It’s exact opposite function-wise – extraverted feeling. Fe is the main course, the still exquisite banquet that consists of luxuriant and hearty foods. Or fiber-rich foods. Protein. In other words, something an INFJ can live and thrive on. Here is another way to look at it for the dessert-inclined: Fe is the cake. Ti is the icing on the cake. Get it? Can’t live off of icing.
Anyway, that is how information is to an INFJ. It is the icing on their cake. Their cake is so humdrum and plain without the icing.
But, you need to have a cake first before you put icing on it. Dig? Icing means very little in and of itself. It is only the fact that it is slathered on a cake to dress it up and make it look super yummy that makes it something of any note.
Same thing for Fe auxiliary. Gotta have that Fe bulk there first before you prance it up with delicious icings.
Then you can have your cake and eat it too (Sorry, couldn’t resist).
Hey, let’s go into the world of color theory
There is some rule of correct proportions in the world of choosing color palettes for artistic/design projects.
It goes something like this: There are two main colors that form the bulk of the design work. And you really need these two colors for some sort of contrast and context. One color by itself is often boring and lacks in dynamism.
But, even these two colors need a little livening up and contrast. Here is where comes the concept known as an accent color. That is the tertiary equivalent – an accenting color. That is its appropriate function and amount.
Like an after dinner mint. Getting the picture?
O, I was talking about information
So, yeah, INFJs will often be writers or creators of some sort. Or at least they should be in some form or another to have some measure of sanity in this world.
So, in the act of creating something – picture, painting, essay, resume, composition, novel, journal, choreography, etc. they will run into this specific and highly predictable problem. It goes something like this: “Wait a minute, I don’t know enough about the formal aspects of this domain in order to justify creating within it.”
And herein lies the subtle shift from Fe expression to Ti analysis of some portion of that expression that seems to be lacking in something REALLY FUCKING IMPORTANT.
And the whole works will come to a grinding halt until the INFJ can understand what it is that is lacking somehow. And this is the start of a world of troubles for our innocent INFJ protagonist who is simply acting in the best and most noble of intentions – to provide some measure of objective truth to the proceeds. To not ignorantly misinform or lead astray others who they are communicating with through this work.
Now, whether this is true or not in any particular case, here is what the INFJ will often do. They will be working at a computer of some sort. There will be internet access somewhere in the background. And they will be very tempted to keep reaching in the cookie jar by going onto Google or Wikipedia or wherever to make sure they are right in what they are saying. Furthermore, while they are in the process of doing this, they will notice other bits of information that they weren’t necessarily looking for and will get drawn into this lovely and emerging web of infinite information.
When this begins to happen (often very subtly) the INFJ will slowly begin to lose the context of what they were saying in the first place and realize that what they were saying is woefully inadequate when compared to all the gleaming webpages chock full of very formal and well-put together information.
Why can’t they sound like Wikipedia?
The INFJ will begin to feel bad. How can they hope to compete with all that objectivity? Or they may feel good. And forget what they were doing. And go off surfing onto a sea of information. Whatever the case may be, they will have stopped expressing something.
And INFJs need to express something. This is the Fe auxiliary function. Need to express. Need to ouput something. Fe does not need more information, more input. It needs to get rid of the input that it already has. But, INFJs will get stuck because they don’t want to output unless that output seems clothed in some kind of formal (informed) sheath.
However, INFJs need less information. On average.
And in any event, they often have put the cart before the horse. They are approaching things in the wrong order.
They think if I just get this one bit right, then it will solve the whole problem. But, that is exactly the wrong order of thinking for an INFJ. They need to get the whole right before they can even see what the bits are. The INFJ needs to get the main gist of what they are driving at right before they go about picking at it. The reality is that one word, line, paragraph etc. is not that important compared to the whole picture they are painting. And that is what INFJs are really good at – painting a picture. The whole of the picture is greater than the sum of its parts. This is the mysterious and incalculable nature of the Fe auxiliary for INFJs. And when they get stuck on one of the parts of the whole in trying to find the most perfect expression at that level, they lose the expression of the whole.
The ironic thing is that if INFJs would just lead with the Fe auxiliary expression, they would get the Ti perfect parts as a natural reaction or byproduct. They will just fall into place elegantly of their own accord. By not focusing on them. The cart will follow the horse. You’ll get your dessert when you finish your meal. Etc.
Information will be given on a “need-to-know basis”
So, here is my suggestion for INFJs locked into this Ti loop. Work away from the computer and internet as much as possible. Treat them as lovely things that you like but as things that also threaten to take you out of your star. Simply, treat them with respect.
We have become used to in this age of the convenience of computers and all the time-saving software created for them, to rely so heavily on them that we almost forget how to function otherwise.
Look at the convenience of word-processing programs. You use a keyboard to input words into Microsoft Word or some other word-processing program and you can easily manipulate the text in various magical and time-saving ways. Couldn’t do this on a typewriter for example.
You can delete/insert whole sections of text. You can format the text. And you can send the text to alternate dimensions via special ports that are unknown to the average user of these programs. In those alternate dimensions your text can interact with other alien texts in a sort of galactic social media for texts. In your chosen font. Etc.
But, do you know the font that is most important when you want to be in this Fe expression that I’m talking about?
The font of your own script. Your own handwriting. Your hand writing on a page of some sort. That is a subtle yet important component of creating Fe flow.
Are we beginning to get a feel for how simple this whole Fe business is? When you are in a word-processing program you are going to be assailed with tons of options and functionality that are all distracting from the business at hand (nice unintended pun) – expressing yourself.
It is comparatively harder to do this whole expression of oneself on a computer. A computer is the Ti device par excellence. Even look at the way punching letters on a keyboard encourages this Ti expression. Did the letter event of “a” occur or not? If so, output the letter “a” to the screen. This subtly encourages the Ti tertiary in INFJs, to use one example.
I have a radical idea. Try working with pen and paper more. Turn off your computer if you don’t need it to write something. And you need it less than you think. You don’t really need it in most phases of work. It is just habitual and convenient. Start breaking the habit a bit. You’ll like it once you start doing it. I promise.
Write in your own fucked up handwriting. It’s yours and yours alone. It encourages expressing what you have to say in a very subtle way. Fe is infinitely subtle. Shades, variations. Punching a key on a keyboard is the opposite of subtle. It either happened or it didn’t. The operating system in your computer is looking for a proscribed event. Did you press a specific letter or didn’t you?
Now, on to the fucking internet.
Get off it.
I say that as a total thing, but, in reality what I mean is spend more time offline. That’s all. You are not liable to see it now if you are engaged in some form of internet addiction (most people nowadays are), but, trust me, we spend too much time on the internet at the expense of our local environment. And ourselves.
For INFJs, what this often amounts to is a fascination with the amount of information available to them at the click of a link. They go into a sort of ecstatic swoon over the vast possibilities that this entails. This is where the illusionary temptation of the tertiary Ti is activated like a motherfucker. And it often has the exact opposite effect in reality than the one INFJs were dreaming that it would have in their fantasy worlds. INFJs dream of knowing everything and being so completely informed in all domains that they are like superhuman encyclopedias of information. The internet offers them this very real prospect. God, has the internet fucked over so many INFJs. Really.
While your Ti is operating, your Fe cannot. It is that simple. If you are in the process of taking in more information you cannot be in the process of unloading information. And that is much of the function of Fe for INFJs – getting rid of all that has built up inside. This is the basic dilemma of the introvert, but, especially INFJs who need to express some vision they have. Their whole life and identity is tied to the necessity of expressing that in some form. If they don’t do it, they have few other avenues to discharge their unwieldy dreams and impulses.
So, keep a tight tourniquet on that need for more information. The best way I know to do this is just to limit your easy access to it.
Take an hour a day where you would normally be working/entertaining yourself on a computer with the internet beckoning in the background (or foreground) and just close your computer. Close the laptop. Exit the windowing program you use. Put the computer in sleep/hibernation mode. Maybe even shut the entire system down. Whatever. The point is intentionally set aside an hour a day where you would normally be on the Ti beast and heroically abstain from it by definitively limiting your ease of access to THE DEVICE.
You might be surprised at what you do in the absence of the stimulus of the computer.
If you really want to get jivey and do the exact opposite to staring at your computer screen, stare at a flow fountain
But, that’s the point.
Listen to the sound of running water. It’s simple. It’s easy. And it works.
And while you’re spending some time in your local environment, you might take a good look at the elements in it and note how they make you feel. Are they conducive to your flow or deleterious to it? More on this next time.
Other articles in INFJ Fe Solutions series (in chronological order):
INFJ: Fe is Magic
INFJ: Got Flow
INFJ: What is Fe? Ask Te.
Note: I offer consulting services to INFJs who are blocked in their flow via Ti or otherwise. Check it out.
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I happened upon your website last week, in a set of weird synchronicities. I’ve never been fully sure what to think about MBTI (although I also think that wisdom can be contained in the metaphors of any system, I’m not sneering at any ideas you present here!) but your descriptions of INFJ people, even the brisker aspects, are somewhat horrifyingly recognizable to me. (Although I still have a nagging voice saying “yes, but you see all these people being insulted by the descriptions, or verbosely smug about how glorious and superior their INFJ brain is? You don’t have any of those things. You’re probably some other, more doubt-prone type.”)
I’m a professional writer going through an extended blockage period. It’s dumb and terrible and I can’t fully untangle myself – I can feel the inspiration, it’s right at my mental fingertips, but remains just out of reach. I think it was originally caused by a period where I had significant professional success and then started to listen to other peoples’ opinions about my work because they were important and fancy and said things in authoritative tones (fyi to young artists reading: never listen to anyone about your work. Just make what you make and be done with it.) – but however it started, it’s still here. I’m eagerly obsessing over your website now in hopes that within it is contained the perfect piece of information to turn the tap back on. (Yes. I see the irony.)
I could go on for a million boring words, but lord, I got to the part about an INFJ writer hitting the place in a project where they think “I don’t know enough about this to write in this world and not mislead people” and getting seduced by the internet and the many googleholes you can fall down, and I just had to scroll down and tell you that you are describing, very precisely, a problem basically no one I’ve ever read or talked to has been able to capture accurately.
What a trap! The things I have become a lay expert on so I could write the next couple of scenes are so numerous and so fucking dumb. Ugh. Now I’ll go read the rest and try to bury my burning “what if he has the magic” drive! Thanks for your content. You’re a smart weirdo.
‘Googleholes’. Ha, I love this!
Googleholes~~>worse than K-holes.
Not that I’ve ever fallen into a K-hole. Seen it though. Yikes.
I
Nicely put, Blake, this article really hits the spot. Unfortunately, it’s a bit too late for me, because I’ve spent a lot of my precious teenage years digging for Ti information online in order to make sense out of the world. I do have personal experience in Ni-Ti loop, so I’ve got to say that although this loop is maddening (from 17 to 19 I pretty much spent all days on pot/acid/mushrooms and read a lot about all sorts of subjects, from economics to occultism), it ended really well for me. At 19, I was getting to the point of breakdown, which is the point where the existencial questions and really deep psychological trips started kicking in so hard that my inner world was by far the only reality I was living in.
Suddenly, one day, it was all clear in my mind’s eye: the divine conection between the inner world (microcosm) and outer world (macrocosm), the universal flow towards ultimate freedom and infinite bliss, the sacredness in every aspect of human existence (including sexuality), the beauty of a matriarchal approach on life (cultivating genuine, selfless love and practicing dettachment) and so on. I could’ve gone insane in this process, or just got lost in theories and paradigms, but I happened to find my philosophy (Tantra) in my darkest hour and nowadays I’m guided by this vision of the whole, undivided, supported by the awesome books I’ve read these years which led me into the actual practices.
I think one of the most awesome features of the INFJs is our ability to accept the Truth, epistemologically paradoxical, instead of picking up a side just for the sake of logic. In that sense, I agree with Blake’s advice to turn Fe on (obviously it’s the healthiest thing to do), but Ni-Ti loop can provide a hell of certainty about what is life (well, it did for me), and it actually saved me from a linear, power-oriented, ego-based existence.
And when I was sure about the journey, I realized I had to abandon Ni never-ending contemplation and Ti hunger for information in order to actually thrill the path (Fe, but mostly Se matters). There’s no secret: turn off the computer, go work your body-mind-spirit consciousness, quit porn (if you’re a man), connect with people, engage in art, flow, flow, flow. It won’t be easy, but, whatever, it’s worth it. Love always pays back in the best way: with more love.
The Ni-Ti loop made the same thing to me. But I’m totally oblivious to socializing. I’m already 23 and I can’t relate to people. I don’t have friends and trying to talk to people is a waste of time. And, since I never had any type of relationship with people, I don’t know who I am and what I like. I’m an empty canvas. Like you, the Ni-Ti loop provided me a vision of life. But, what do I do now? Ican’t connect with people, I can’t engage in self-expression…
Filipe, I’m hearing a lot of “I can’t do anything. I’m helpless” type talk. And if you are determined to remain in that mindset you indeed will not get to a better place. And likely when you are in that mindset, you don’t want to get to a better place. You want to indulge in all the negativity of the world, the people, and your local environment.
Please expand on what you mean when you say that the Ni-Ti loop provided you with a vision of life. What is that vision?
I think I am going through this phase right now.. Have been going through this phase for the past couple of years.. I’m not quite sure what triggered it.. Maybe it was disenchantment caused by the impermanence of all emotion, or it was the sudden realisation of the inadequacy of the range of learning experiences one is capable of going through in a lifetime.. Either way.. I’m driven by this need to ‘know’.. To develop a philosophy of my own.. Something that I can believe in and hold on to.. Something that won’t change, irrespective of the experiences i go through (although I know it’s impossible to reach a state of ‘no change’ where the mind is concerned, still, there is such a thing as a qualitative threshold beyond which an opinion cannot digress).. Cause if there’s one thing that annoys me, it’s inconsistency.. Not in people, or in the world (inconsistency there is exciting).. But inconsistency in self.. I would hate to endorse a belief that hasn’t been tried and tested, because there is always the possibility of experiencing something that renders it wrong, and then, anything I had said under the influence of the initial belief would be misleading.. By anything I ‘said’ i don’t mean regular conversational expression, but qualitatively concrete forms of expression, say, an essay, or a poem, or a story.. For who am I to make an attempt to influence someone else’s thought process without being certain about it myself? That’s a messed up Ni-Ti loop I’m in i guess.. But I know I’ll get through it eventually.. In the meanwhile, I’ve made it my life’s mission (for now) to absorb, analyse, appreciate and finally, to set aside (yet, be aware of) or incorporate various ideological inputs, in my personalised philosophy.. The sources range from books, to movies, to music, to art, to conversations with people and, of course, entanglement in the Web of infinite information..
Anyway.. The reason I felt compelled to say something was because some of the words you used struck a chord.. ‘universal flow towards ultimate freedom and infinite bliss’..’cultivating genuine, selfless love and practicing detachment’.. ‘guided by this vision of the whole, undivided’.. Hell.. Pretty much the whole of your comment.. It’s kind of like the process I’m going through and some of the conclusions I’m coming to.. Good to see that someone went through it and came out on the other side with their sanity intact.. Hope the time comes for me soon too.. And that my words resonate with another’s thoughts and make them feel a little less alone.. That’s the point of existence after all.. To notice and be noticed by humanity..
Blake’s advice has helped me a lot in keeping my expression flowing.. If not in concrete forms (yet), atleast in more flexible (and sometimes, more meaningful and helpful) forms of expression like daily conversations and notes-to-self.. 🙂
” But, what do I do now? I can’t connect with people, I can’t engage in self-expression… ”
You seem to be doing so on here.
Blake, I Haven’t Even Read This Article And I Know I’m Going To Love It! The First Time I Ever Read About The Damned Tertiary Loop, You Confirmed Everything I Already Knew To Be True: Do Or Die. And I’ve Been All Holed Up For The Past 24 Hours Stuck In The Fucking Loop, Researching How To Get Out Of It And What Do You Know? This Article Was Posted Today. And I’m Sure It Says Something Along The Lines Of “Shut Your Damn Laptop, Close Your Notebook And Just Go Be.” Or Maybe It Doesn’t. But Either Way, I’ll Save All That Until At Least The End Of This Article. (:
All I can think to say right now is who the fuck are you and who let you in my brain! Deep exhale! I am learning to express my self and to go with it! Scariest thing I ever did because like you said I am always having to circle back and check if I am right. And if I can research some more to make sure am right and what’s that…into the information loop I go again! So now…am not sure if this makes sense, but am slowly learning to focus on only what’s right before me and the next thing I have to do, and not on all this information overload that I seem to think I need… is what I seem to be learning slowly…ever so slowly! It’s killing me. I want my information and I want it now all of it is what my modus operandi is. (I couldn’t resist it…had to make sure I got the spelling right). But the upside of it is that my life is beginning to feel richer, thicker and full of mystery like it did when I was younger and happier. Best feeling ever!
It’s completely normal and appropriate to check the spelling of a word. I don’t want anyone to get the impression that I am advocating being anti-informed or something like that. The crucial issue here is one of balance. There is a time and a place for information-seeking. And there is a time and a place for saying “that’s enough.” The tertiary function is that “just the right amount” function when used correctly. Like a dollop of sour cream.
Sorry, I can’t stop with these food analogies. Fuck.
Lol…I don’t think I know what that one, “balance” what it really means. I know it in my head what it means, but not in the action sense! Frustrating, but I will get there. I know “practice”, that one I can do, so am sure I will eventually get to balance! It is always either/or with me am discovering! Thank you!
Your welcome!
“And while you’re spending some time in your local environment, you might take a good look at the elements in it and note how they make you feel. Are they conducive to your flow or deleterious to it?”
What if EVERYTHING in my environment is deleterious to my flow and I can’t go to another place? I don’t have choice. Any suggestions?
It is unlikely that EVERYTHING in your local environment is blocking your flow. And even if that were true, YOU CAN still do things to start changing it. And if you really want to start feeling better and get out of your current victim “woe is me” state, then you can start with small actions in your immediate environment. Anything to start the momentum. What do you like? Anything. Start with the smallest thing that you can grasp onto. You are responsible for your life. Not anyone else. It is up to you to take the actions to change that. If you blame the world and people around you for why you can’t be happy, then, you will never be happy. Claim your own power to start creating your life.
Now, I know you are a Libra. So, you had mentioned that you are like a “blank canvas” in another comment. I have noticed that Libras tend to have a need to work with visual elements and design. I can’t tell you how many Libras I have known that are into painting and visual arts. You’re an INFJ. You’re a Libran INFJ. Start painting. If you are a blank canvas, then start creating who you are.
Language is very important and I listen for these type of things. Blank canvas? Fill it up with contents of some sort.
I hope that in a month or two I have the money to consult with you, because I desperate and nothing is working…
Let’s just say that everybody says that I need to act and stop being “the victim”. I know that. But I don’t have ANY idea what should I do! You say “What do you like?”. THAT’S THE PROBLEM! I don’t know what I like and trying a lot of things to find out what I like is an experience that is killing my hope in myself. I lost the energy to try new things. I tried the method of remember childhood passions and I ended up crying. Looking at my happy childhood I just figured out that I was crying because my inner child was scared with the adult I became…
Yes, I have a vision of life. I had a nervous breakdown in November 2013 and started a self-knowledge journey that clarified my mind. Astrology, psychology, spirituality and MBTI helped me. Now I know my values. But I still didn’t find my “cause”, a reason to act and change my world, a motivation. I think I’m a broken person. My eyes can’t see that force that everybody says that I have. I JUST CAN’T ACT!!!
I think I can’t star create who I’m right now because I’m in the middle of a revolution in my life and nothing stands still. I started a journey to find myself and now I lost the course.
The biggest problem is: I don’t have any reason to change because I lost hope that I can do anything. I know that I need to create my own life. But I lost hope and it prevents me to act…
I would like to be able to grasp my problem through self-expression. Like you said, go write something, go paint something… But I empty. I don’t have nothing to express. Because I never had any proper interaction with the world and I don’t know who I am.
I hope I can consult with you in September, or after that. I’m completely lost and powerless. I’m very certain that I’m an INFJ. I feel the urge to socialize but I think I lost the ability to just do it anyway.
Your posts have helped me a lot. But I’m still very sad with my situation. Excuse me for being such a child on my posts. I’ll try to act like you said.
Filipe, I have sent some information to your email address. We can continue there.
“What if EVERYTHING in my environment is deleterious to my flow and I can’t go to another place? I don’t have choice. Any suggestions?”
Live with family? In the military? What’s restricting your choice? Maybe what you need to work on is not improving yourself, but improving your worldly situation such that you have more choices.
No, it’s not family or military. The problem is myself. I lost hope. I think I’m not able to do anything.
It’s all fucking true. Good god. But will I be able to actually do any of the recommended actions? Probably not.
INFJ: The type most likely to be fully aware of how they’re standing in their own way while still being completely incapable of getting themselves to move.
Blake, can I outsource my Fe expression to you? You seem to already know what’s in my head.
No, you can’t outsource your expression to me. And enough of taking refuge in this INFJ thing. “O, I’m an INFJ, therefore, I can’t take action.” That’s why I’m sick of this whole type community thing and appeals made to a person’s type to justify why they can’t do something. Yes, it is harder if you are an INFJ, and sometimes very hard, but, that is still an excuse.
Just keep telling yourself that you won’t be able to do any of the recommended actions. It will be predictable the result you will get.
I understand that. I’m a totally antisocial person. And I’m a INFJ Libra. Relationships, diplomacy, socializing….It looks like I refused to deal with the challenge of socializing and that is the reason I’m broken. OK, I can’t use the fact that I’m an INFJ as an excuse to my behavior. But…what should I do?
I have sent some information to your email address. We can continue from there.
Handwriting thing: so true. Every time I turn on my computer to write, my inspiration flees for the hills. Want flow? Get a pen and some paper, put the computer and the television in the garage, and plant yourself somewhere with no distractions. You can always proof-check your work later. Let books be your references; they’re much less immediate gratification-friendly. That said, I will never apologize for pursuing information.
Good advice.
No apology necessary for pursuing information. This is information. But, it is really a matter of the degree to which pursuing information interferes with an INFJs ability to self-actualize.
Your posts have motivated me to do what I know I should have done a long time ago ( well, since I closed my shop last year ) and that is , pack up all my shit, my hooks, and yarn, books and pens, paints and paper and head for my tiny off-the-grid-hovel in the country. Cheers, see y’all on the flip side!
Have fun!
Woohoo! Go Jen!
I’d be interested to hear your opinion on this: I agree that too much information-seeking contributes to a perpetuous cycle of existential contemplation and very scary and despairing paralysis. I guess all INFJs experience that at some point. Now, at the same time, I devour novels and fiction and it doesn’t seem to have that loop-effect on me. Is that because of the artistic element, because it doesn’t scream for Ti to analyze it to death? On the other hand these books are obviously not devoid of information – but I guess it’s the somewhat elusive character of it, which I find suits me a lot better and often doesn’t need to be ‘translated’ to my mind, if that makes sense.
I find the same thing. Books are fine and good for me, they make me feel better and pull me out of my loop, and I use movies to get out of my head as well, but I can binge on them too and do. Both of these can really have an impact on my mood as well, so I need to choose wisely. And it is easy, especially liking foreign films, and independent, to slip back into the human condition study. Honestly I think we are just designed to torture ourselves.
INFJs will be tortured unless they use Fe to express something of all these things that they constantly absorb. No way around it and it is as simple as that. They gotta put out.
Yeah, novels and fiction are more of a feeling-based thing with intuition. They are an especially INFJ thing. Too much reading of other’s novels without putting out some kind of expression of your own leads to paralysis and just feeling bad about yourself. INFJs are happiest when they are expressing and creating, not just consuming other’s creations and expressions. Gotta put out. That’s the other end of the equation. But, for sure, INFJs are definitely highly inspired by pivotal novels and works of fiction that have moved them, had an effect on them etc.
Your articles are a real inspiration! Truly interesting stuff. But I would like to know what you think about Jung and his views on extraverted feeling. According to Jung, an extraverted feeler would see a painting as beautiful because it bears the signature of a famous artist or love somebody because he/she has the “right” social status. So it is more like living according to objective criteria and in harmony with the outside world. But if an INFJ started to paint pictures, write songs or poems, wouldn’t the end result resemble examples that already exist? I think extraverted feeling according to Jung can’t be really creative (Ni might be creative though), it would just create something that follows the established rules of “beatiful”. But can it come up with something truly original? Extraverted feeling seems too conventional for that purpose.
That is more Si with extraverted feeling, which is mostly how extraverted feeling is described. But, Fe with intuition (fire) of some sort. Look out! That is some seriously artistic and original shit. There is a big difference between Fe in service to conformist values and Fe in service to otherworldly visions. Fe is artistic effects more or less. The ability to clothe a vision in some kind of consensus formal values. To make that vision intelligible using whatever the elements of the medium you are working in is. And guess what? INFJs are the best at this. They are the true artists of this world. And much of this is due to their Fe in the auxiliary. As a matter of fact, INFJs often have little choice but to put their vision into artistic form (vs. a scientific/systematic one).
Fe in itself isn’t necessarily original, though it can seem to be because of its ability to to come up with a ton of different variations on the same theme, though, this isn’t true originality. This can also be frustrating to an INFJ in other contexts where they would desire to have the ability to “repeat the feat”, so to speak. But, Fe will often not do the same thing twice and the user of Fe won’t necessarily know how to make that same thing happen again. But, that is the beauty of this highly variable and flexible feeling function. It’s got all the flavors of fanfare. So, Fe will usually look phantasmagoric with intuitive backing. It just blazes off every color of the rainbow in hot procession. With Si…no. With Si backing, Fe is more the way it is described in popular parlance. And Fe is very popular in general. People like and are charmed by Fe users. Great art has the ability to charm people into the artist’s way of seeing.
I have recently been coming to the same conclusion.
If I let myself, I will swim in information all day. It’s like mentally floating. Pretty serene unless I have something way more important in my face like, oh, my child! I have a 6 month old son and I can’t sit and float away into the world of information on the computer for hours and hours anymore.
So, upon having a tiny baby in my arms a lot, I started floating away for as long as possible into my phone’s search function or instagram or pinterest or ANYTHING. Then, I started to feel like a totally disconnected person. I’m at a new juncture now: I deleted the search apps from my phone, including safari, anything I could scroll, even un-linked my email. So, I’m at the mercy of life a lot more now. It’s interesting! It’s not easy, but it’s what I want. I want to figure it out. I don’t want my son growing up having to rip my attention away from my phone all the time. And I don’t want to always be dreaming all day. Only sometimes. 🙂
I find parenthood v hard for this very reason. I just want to drift from thought to thought rather than make smalltalk about legos. I don’t really like engaging with people unless it’s something I’m interested in (I can do it if I have to, I just don’t enjoy it very much) and the things I’m interested in tend not to be the things very young children are interested in. Motherhood feels like it’s not my natural mode, because even when I’m not sunk into chasing the information dragon, my natural mode is more moving from thing to thing I’m interested in, or coalescing ideas/art and outputting them. It never feels very natural to me to be with other people and casually socially chatting. (I can do it, it just feels like a pair of ill-fitting shoes, and it’s boring and tiring.) If I need to be with other people and in social mode, I think I want it to be either an exchange or development of insights and frameworks – connecting ideas and images – or some sort of exchange of inner thoughts and emotions. I like to be with really funny people. That often feels natural and good to me, to be funny with others with quick minds.
I really related to Blake’s earlier bits about INFJ people basically being solo-types. He seemed to think it applied more to men, but I quite struggle with this myself, and I’m female. I think I realized too late that I’m not really a marriage and motherhood kind of person, and it’s sort of amazing to me that so many other people seem to find these things really fulfilling instead of agonizing. (It isn’t that I don’t love my spouse and child, but in various fundamental ways it often feels like a poor fit to me. And it doesn’t have anything to do with wanting to stray, sexually – I don’t think I have that issue. It’s more that I wish I could go live in a cabin and then go into the city once a month for literary salons and parties with sarcastic people.)
Hi SeetheElephant,
There is no doubt that marriage with children is very hard for a person of the INFJ type. And it isn’t due to any lack of love. It’s just that they aren’t domestic and filial duty type people. They are the typical artistic/bohemian type that, as you so aptly said, wants to live in a cabin and then go into the city once a month for literary salons and parties with sarcastic people.
Discussing the finer points of legos? Not so much.
“I don’t want my son growing up having to rip my attention away from my phone all the time.”
Yes, I think that is a wise decision. Either be on your phone or be present with your son. I think smart phones especially have destroyed the social spaces around us. But, yes, even in the house many people have devices on and in easy reach. When they get bored they take the path of least resistance and get online in some form and tune out. Collectively, this is having a horrible effect on society. But, in the personal sense, yes, be present with your son. I know it can be boring and sometimes extremely boring but take that boredom and make something active out of it rather than passive.
Glad to hear that you have taken action on this. Congratulations!
Hi Blake… I must ask, sir.
How does an INFJ meditate, you know?
It’s one thing to take all of the information, find a format of expulsion, express, reach for more, then repeat the cycle.
Any advice on just… Being, As opposed to just going?
I think INFJs can meditate the same way as anyone else but perhaps with more active visualization engaged, or attempted to be engaged.
And yes, I agree that it is important for INFJs to create a safe space (as much as possible) completely away from the world. And in that space, to begin to use it to create what they want. This often involves visualization of the dreams and visions they have manifesting in the world. To imagine what that would look like. This is very powerful for INFJs who usually have had this sort of thing going on inside them since they were children. But, a lot of them have allowed the world to turn their dreams off. But, they are still there. So, meditation that is a form of active cultivation of these original pictures, ideas, images. I stress more the visual ideas rather than mental ideas. The mental talk and chatter is what meditation is trying to move away from. INFJs can have a lot of this mental chatter and clutter. But, underneath it are pictures and images. I think getting back in touch with that is a good goal of meditation for INFJs.
I actually wanted to write more about this as part of the INFJ Fe solutions series. It starts with taking a look around your local environment (your loft) and noticing what resonates with you and what doesn’t. What do I really like? Colors, objects, shapes, etc. Simple stuff. But, all this is really important because it is the stuff of your life. And it is around you all the time. And it has an effect (that is often forgotten). To meditate in a space that is really your own, and that you have made your own with all the colors, shapes, textures, icons, literature etc. that is truly yours. I think that is part of effective meditation – the space you do it in. A lot of this is Feng-Shui type principles. I think I’m gonna write about that soon.
Anyway, I hope that answers your question to some degree. Feel free to ask more questions as the need arises. I will try to answer them best I can.
Wow… That went so above and beyond anything I could have ever hoped for. Your articles and comments are a perpetual wellspring of hope. Thank you.
When I was little, I always put on little performances for my stuffed animals, haha. So embarrassing to admit, but it’s true. They, naturally, always gave me the feedback I craved. The feedback I never got from my family because I was very swiftly labeled as “weird.” I find myself trying to meditate how you described, but drifting from meditation to critical self-analysis. I slip back to the, “you’re too smart for these visions” perspective. All I heard growing up. Always having to buck up and be better.
What’s funny, is that even still, there was always a part of me that held on to the expressive, soulful components. I never let them get *too* far away. That’s why I asked about meditation. Looking back, I feel like people saw this, even as I appeared to successfully ascertain my more Ti/Te driven aspirations… Something was always percolating beneath the surface. I feel like people have always treated me like, it was only a matter of time before I was ready to blow. Like I needed to be tempered, like I needed curtailing, lest I forgo my “smarts” and follow the ember of the ever increasing spark. They were right. I have a very long fuse. That fuse was lit… It was going to find the point of ignition.
I will continue contemplating this. There is a lot here in what you have said. Thank you so much 🙂 you are incredible.
You’re welcome 🙂
I have a question to other Infj’s. When you say you are overwhelmed due to the naturally taking in a lot of information (not seeking out information but the kind that naturally comes to you without looking for it), have you experienced people not taking you seriously and thinking you are overreacting, wanting attention, a “special snowflake” (not sayin it but perhaps thinking it) etc, and if so, how do you deal with that ? I find the amount of information that can come in absolutely overwhelming that it has an effect on my physicality and sometime energy is so depleted that I find it absurd having to deal with people that don’t see a very real issue.
What are your thoughts and experiences ? And how do you handle it ?
I suppose part of the answer lies in this (and other) articles.
“have you experienced people not taking you seriously and thinking you are overreacting, wanting attention, a “special snowflake” (not sayin it but perhaps thinking it) etc”
EXACTLY! Maybe I just need to find an outlet to express my feelings and it’ll be over.
Well, I think people would be hard pressed to claim I want attention, since my modus operandi is to disappear into my casa for as long as I can get away with it. And if some people at some point thought that is what I was going for, that I’m ‘away’ to get attention, I think they’ve been disabused of the notion when I don’t want to talk their ear off about it. In fact, I don’t want to even answer the phone, and if I do, I’m brief and to the point, so much as I will often ask what their call is about, in other words, get to it and let me off. And I wind up being nice and talking longer than I wanted most times anyhow. But I make the same brief calls when I can’t get someone else to do it for me. Texting yay. Who knew I’d love the invention of texting? Brief, and to the point. Ahhh. Bring milk, bring ice cream, where are you? Okay.
As for being a special little snowflake, yeah, I’d prefer not to bring that up ever. I don’t try to explain things like exhaustion to people unless I think there is some chance of them understanding. I think my experiences with people up till now have led me not to explain much, unless it is to family, and then I don’t explain why.
This sometimes has a worse effect than special little snowflake though. More like, princess won’t get her hands dirty. However, even if I have good reasons, explaining seems impossible in these cases. I guess I’d rather come off as a distant and detached person than feel pathetic, trying to explain my weaknesses in a way that someone won’t just say ‘you’re whining, get over yourself’.
And this I guess is in it’s own way one of the reasons I go to immerse myself in information. While I love people and am so interested in the human condition, dealing abstractly is just so much simpler than having people get their panties in a bunch over what they think others can handle or should be doing. I feel like Atlas, but no one can see what I am holding up. And they all want volunteers.
Another question would be, how assertive are you ? Say you have answers and solutions but you are hesitant (is that the right word ?) to execute the idea and answers because maybe there is something you haven’t throught about, and ethics !
Do you have a set of questions you ask yourself to go through or not go through with the idea ?
(I think an Infj may not have a set of questions but maybe you do and maybe it helps others determine if something can get the green light or not)
I’m just throwing thoughts out there but find the answers may be of help.
I always have that set of questions. It looks like I just need to act anyway? OK, I’ll try to be assertive.
I got unexpected insights, from non linear connections reading this.
Thank you!
Blake,
I felt very clearly that I would like to share my case with you. Incidentally, I have come to value you as I would Jung, and so I submit my story. You may be interested in it, or you may be not. I will only mention that which seems worthwhile relative to the points you raise in your articles, but it might turn out to be rather long. You can do whatever you fancy with it.
I am 24 years old. I grew up between Russia and the States, and my psyche imbibed both. In me Russia is the benthos. I was raised on Russian writers of the 19th and 20th century. America then feels like the neritic zone where all is Sargasso seaweed and sunlight comes through. I can push America around a bit, make it perform tricks, but not Russia. In truth I have no feelings for either. They are contingencies of my psyche. I used to refer to this as the Divide, the primary source of my all my contradictions and fluid identity, but I see now that the isness of my type likely precedes all that.
Since the age of about 10 I knew that my greatest delight was being left alone somewhere. For hours. I would go where my parents had to go, and I would wait for them in the car or the lobby, and I would sit and observe my mind. I was enthralled and, to use a word of your own, enmazed. It was like a stochastic dance of all human categories, and the angelic leer of arbitrariness. I called it Dimension S (c’mon, I was like 13). Since then I hung out in DS all the time. All the cars and the lobbies.
(Rarely as it may, but it happens: a totally uncool chill wave washes over me at the thought that this innerscape may be taken away).
As it happens, I was also quite trapped. How I jerked off to closed systems (and still do occasionally). Most of my family are mathematicians (applied and…pure). I was thirsty for those icy streams (ice stream tastes good in the afternoon, ice stream tastes good if you eat it soon), and, indescribably intoxicating at first, it alienated me more and more, and there was such black self-hatred there I wouldn’t care to describe it in this letter. I know that you know it.
In school each hunt for Te and Se ended in a further degree of isolation. That was some really fucked-up shit. It did not feel good but for a fleeting moment, yet I believed the worse I felt the closer I was to my truth. There are 3 words for ‘truth’ in the Russian language. E.g. I remember once having a discussion with a very close friend on the nature of happiness. I think we were 16. The friend said happiness was to her the joy in the little things of comfort, as well as beautiful (she meant safe) art, and tender love. I also remember being repulsed so deeply by that reply, and that was and is my closest friend by external accounts. She then asked what happiness was for me, and I said I didn’t care what happiness fucking was because all I wanted was the truth. I wasn’t haughty at all, I was more like a very ill person. I’ve known this friend since I was 7 years old, and she loves me, but I feel like I do not love her at all. It’s always the same. I fall in love with people for the intonations of their face, the faded emerald of the eyes, the idiosyncratic speech, and then I enter a different mode of living, and I can’t get back to the mode in which I fell in love as much as I would like to. That is so shitty.
I wanted to study biology like mad because there was perfection in those empirical ways and days. I had visions of myself filling all those spaces once and for all with crystalline finite science. Then after the PhD I would relocate to a forest cabin in Norway and there I would be suspended in perpetuated perfection (like Wittgenstein…for madmen only). You know all that. Suffice it to say that when Fall came along I found myself studying English literature, linguistics and philosophy. But I was only getting worse. There was enough icy zeniths and first-rate beauty in there to satisfy my wet dreams, but somehow that got painful quickly. I loved human beings, and would extend my care and sacrifice to everyone, but nobody could give me the kind of treatment I needed (like that would stop me). Nonetheless, I think everyone who knew me at university (apart from a couple of terribly insightful profs) thought I was the most agreeable chick in the universe. I gave’ em my best loving while some part of me, the core of me, was not there at all. I identified with Prince Myshkin (The Idiot) and Seymour Glass (a creation of JD Salinger’s) so much at that point, I couldn’t physically bear anyone mentioning them. And all that time I was obsessed with finding out if I had the right to exist on the same terms as everyone else. I was loved, and quite madly at times, and have been infatuated myself on numerous occasions, but couldn’t bear it for more than a short while. I fcuking hate holding hands. There was one guy though who could hold hands properly. He would take my hand so nonchalantly and lead me to his own domains. But I switched modes and escaped.
In my fourth year I spent almost the entire spring semester engaging in revolting Se antics and just generally torturing myself with all accessible means. There were days of solace where I would starve myself (to stop the input) and clean my immediate environment to physical exhaustion. I could breathe in those milliseconds of clarity and also write (the only thing that gave me the will to live), but then the grip would only tighten.
Anyway, that was one cute rollercoaster ride through ever-multiplying hells. I managed to graduate with honors (more like horrors) without actually realizing what I was doing at all, ditched the graduation ceremony and went home to stay at my parents’ temporarily unoccupied apartment in a state that was the blackest in all of my life. In the 2 months that followed I ventured outside only to buy the most horrible junk food, pills, whiskey, and books that I couldn’t read. I couldn’t read a single word without feeling flayed alive. I would just drink and physically hurt myself. That was last summer.
In September 2014 I accidentally got a job teaching English to all sorts of people. I started to feel better when I realized I was helping real human beings grow and enjoy life. I invented my own teaching methods, and wrote stories and poems and designed exercises for them. I made them feel happy and uniquely cared for. I rode the waves. It was therapy. September to May I was more or less stable.
In the last couple of months it’s been like a faint yet pearly sunrise in me. I’m not entirely sure how, but I think I’d managed to analyze myself out of the above-mentioned, and found my Fe. The only boon to all the shit is that I know how the human psyche works, always have. Then I took the test (it was actually the second time, but the first time was in the thick of Fi), researched the hell out of it, but was severely turned off by most INFJ-related stuff. Then I found Stellar Maze. I’m now above the surface. I respect your work very much, and though even the words ‘thank you’ sometimes make me feel imprisoned in a conventional interpretation, I trust you know what I mean when I say it. Thank you.
If you’re at all interested, I am type 4, Sun in Virgo, Moon in Scorpio, and Cancer ascendant.
P.S. Will donate when I get paid. What you do is priceless, and whatever you need, you should ask for.
Be well.
I feel very honored that you have shared your story here. Thank you. You express yourself beautifully.
Thank you. And so do you. I’ve been thinking about the nature of the genuine therapeutic effect your writing has on me, and I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s that gentle, fluid mix of the lucid and the delphic in it. I feel it does full justice to the vital/lethal (or – no shit – Abraxasian) ambivalence of the human condition. It’s like communicating with you via your texts I sense that there is no need to rearrange myself into a context-compatible configuration. Which is neat.
Also, some of that cosmic laughter should be prescribed to INFJs as a tonic.
Alternatively phrased – do carry on, please.
O my! and indeed I will.
“You’ll get your dessert when you finish your meal.”
But trying to get the dessert in the middle of the meal is what makes eating the meal FUN !! ^0^ it feels like I’m being a spy~! It lightens the way with purple, blue, and magenta !
Problem is when I’m doing it excessively… ._.)
I wonder if this is what they called as procastination, or the laziness every man inherently bears…
Hi, author~
Hi Blake,
I was going to write you an email and update you on writing my dissertation in Bioengineering, but I thought it fit as a comment on this article. Some of this reiterates what you’ve said but in a different manner.
To exercise my Fe in my personal writing, I focus on how I want to make someone feel, but in scientific writing, I need to focus on TEACHING the idea. TEACHING is key.
What this does: makes you forget how you’re coming across. INFJ’s get too worried about how they are coming across because they are so judgmental themselves. This is another reason why they get caught up in the research you discuss in this article. Focusing on helping the audience understand gets rid of this and you realize what information is superfluous. Usually the extra information you want to include is just so that you make everyone else think you’re an expert.
This works for writing and giving presentations.
I have to remember that emotions are messy. Understanding information can be messy. INFJ’s want control and to understand how everything works, but conveying and creating human emotion (including a feeling of understanding), is something that is inherently messy and flawed and isn’t something that you can do in a step-by-step process. At least for an INFJ. It’s going to be organic.
I write to explore thoughts. From my experience, INFJ’s like to do a random walk of thoughts and connect everything (i.e. daydreaming). Writing is like putting together a puzzle, a puzzle of all of the thoughts I want to convey and then the main idea comes out after I write in pieces. Then I can put that at the beginning.
Trying to write perfectly the first time won’t let you do this and get caught in the Ti. We like to absorb large amounts of information because it helps our intuition work better, but processing all of it and making meaning out of all of it is overwhelming. I have to remember that it’s okay not to include every single fact.
Thanks for the update. I remember you said that “telling a story” was important in making your dissertation coherent and not just overloaded with facts, evidence, and supporting data for your basic claims. I think that teaching is particularly important to the teacher in truly understanding the material they are presenting. The teacher learns more than the student etc. Can’t go wrong with that.
Well, cool. Happy disserting!
Hi,
Thank you I so needed to hear that! Thank you!
Holy JEEZ is this all true. This is so helpful, and to be honest it’s all stuff I kinda knew in the back of my mind that I’ve been needing to do anyway. It’s starting to sound to me like this is an INFJ thing: kinda knowing in the back of your mind what you SHOULD be doing, but not really trusting your own intuition (and also just being too spacey) to actually buckle down and get to it. Anyway, I don’t know if I’ll actually follow through on this info seeing as I have the impulse control of a two year-old, but it’s definitely a motivating push. Thanks for this post, Blake!
Gah…get out of my head, sir!
Once again, incredibly accurate. I cannot tell you how easily I “fall into the well.” Time ceases to exist. It might be 10am when I go searching and 7pm when I realize I’ve spent the whole day looking for more information to help me understand better so I can write/draw/plan more perfectly and completely.
Speaking of which, I was supposed to call my mother a couple of hours ago. Internet sucked me in…
On the advice to work away from the internet. I studied for a semester on top of a mountain in a commune-ish setting that had dial up internet in a shack and a pay phone for calls. So 99% percent of the time was spent exploring the outdoors, building fires, reading, playing music. It was definitely one of the most intellectually fruitful and productive times of my life.
How would an infj studying engineering take this? “Do not think express” 😉
Fe expression and engineering are mutually opposed. If you are an INFJ in an engineering field, you’re gonna have to find other avenues for expression – basically something that involves some use of feeling values – creative writing, music, visual art, dancing, singing, acting etc. The engineering domain entails heavy use of Ti, among other things. It is basically one of the fields least suited to this Fe expression I’m talking about.
So, you have to use your best judgment. Obviously, if you are in a field/endeavor that necessitates a lot of logical thinking and minimization of people’s feelings about those thoughts, then, it ain’t a great fit for expressing yourself. It might be for an ENTP type, for example, who has a Ti auxiliary and who would likely approach the field of engineering in a very playful and fluid way. They have a natural gift for understanding how things fit together at a basic level. INFJs don’t. They have a similar gift with understanding how people fit together. Or in creating things that affect the emotional life of people. Like the arts. The humanities. Social sciences.
Get out of my Head! This is too spot on…
[Sorry for my English, it’s not my native language]
I’m an INFJ and I totally relate to this article – the information addiction, the problem with the formal aspects of arts (I stopped playing music for more than ten years because I was never good enough to play in public – a real nightmare of a loop. Even today I can manage to play but I don’t think about going public), the envy towards sooo many other people’s writing so that I stop writing, the constant search for the last bit that puts it all together, all the package is there. And I got more determination to fight the Internet addiction, of which I thank you.
Still, I can’t help asking for some advice and talking about myself. As an INFJ can be, right now I’m in hell.
I’ve been in the so-called Ti loop for almost all my life (now I’m my early 30s). That creative vein that led me to make dozen of comics when I was in my early teens has totally dried out and I can’t seem to grasp it anymore. When I fell in love the thing was so totally disturbing I dismissed it and came to the conclusion that being in love is like having an illness – it happened some other times, and always decided to make nothing out of it. My sexual drive is so scattered I often think about some sort of monkhood (very INFJish, I reckon), alternating it with dreams of having a harem or calling a different escort every week, things like that. I built a fame of being solitary and harsh, although I could never get off me that sort of involuntary charisma that seems to attract people.
After being a terrible student in high school, I chose to studi Philosophy simply because it was easy for me, I lacked the energy for studying harder subject (I felt some attraction for hard sciences, but that wouldn’t have ended well, I have to admit), stayed there a lot s that I didn’t have to look for a real job, got a minor degree with a totally absurd effort and now I have just contempt for that choice. Changed some jobs, never managed to keep one. Always obsessed for money and economic independence, which is right now the one and only thing I desire, not being capable of obtaining it.
After a period (2012-13) when I seemed to being able to be really well, in the last two years or so I lost a job which I gained by an incredible streak of luck and seemed ideal to me (it required thinking, writing, I could do it at home, it was reasonably well paid… what else could I ask for?), for causes external to myself, but still I felt it like an almost fatal blow. And then I lost the love of the deepest friend I’ve ever had, and I see just one friend who is engaged and most of the time has other, and better, things to do. I cannot even begin to think of a next move, because I have no purpose anymore. I’m totally lonely and lost.
So, what can I do? So modest studies, and I’m getting old, and I don’t feel capable, and a harsh arrogance is the one thing that enabled me to live. I’m meditating, I’m seeing a therapist, I often manage to relax and cease thinking about my issues so much. I have obtained some resources to cope with such a frail emotivity as mine. But I still can’t grasp a way out of this.
What can I do? I don’t know anymore.
Hi Franklin,
Basically we would have to consult for me to get into these personal issues with you. I don’t know what you can do until I can talk to you more at length. I certainly cannot deal with it in the scope of comments section. If interested, check out my Consulting Services tab.
This is soooo me. What a fantastic article.
I have one serious but about it. How do you think I found this article in the first place?
Umm, I’m guessing you found this article by invoking the lords of the four quarters.
If anyone has the leisure time, can they please follow these links and tell me whether or not Stana Katic is an INFJ? She’s interesting, but I’ve seen her typed all over the place and was wondering what the people here think. She’s behaves quite differently depending on the situation. Feel free to skim these clips! And if anyone does type her, please explain how you came to the conclusion. Thanks.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZC2P4puuOA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFsCnwviNk4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1W9x2N2TL0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuzpY0k5YP0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xG0S8GpTL6U
Hi,
I see Stana Katic as ESFJ. May I ask what makes you think she is INFJ ?
Why don’t you go ahead and state your reasons why you think she is ESFJ. Just stating types doesn’t get us anywhere. Let’s hear your reasoning.
My apologies for late response.
Here is what i can see from her apperance. She has vivid facial expression, gestures. She is cheerful, trying to create positive atmosphere with those around her. Caring person. The good mother.
This is my primitive and insufficient take on Fe dominant. With Si auxiliary. I do not know much about Fe dom and Ni aux dynamic. I like to think of ENFJ women as true feminists. Or is there other type which would fit it better?
I apologize, but i need to make a confession. I have been thinking about myself a lot and the truth is that I came here with a mindset such as : “I’m here, appreciate me!” I thought how smart i was… (I am 22, inmature, no experience).
Luckily, you don’t remeber my first comment (I hope) but I’m sorry nevertheless.
Well, ugh…
I hope you do not hate me Blake.
Peace 🙂
Hi! Sorry for the late reply as well! I thought I posted earlier. I agree with your views on the Fe. However, in the Zlin video and many others, I see her using Ni-Fe rather than Si-Fe because she’s scanning the audience and picking out their behavior. It’s not only in the part where she talks about picking out behavior. Several times throughout the video, her eyes meet the camera- when it happens, she quickly looks away. It seems to me that she’s trying to watch the audience without alarming them. While this is very Fe, it seems very Ni because why would an Si user store such information about people that they don’t have personal contact with?
The most puzzling piece of the puzzle is that she seems to have a very good handle on Se. It might be that she’s very well developed- and I think this is evident- but it leads me to wonder whether why people are saying that they see Fi. It looks more like Ti for me. She’s well read and extremely intelligent but she seems very content to observe rather than assert.
She’s extremely private in a way that an Fi usually isn’t. The truth of the matter is, she gives so much behavior but there’s so many pieces of the puzzle missing. I think INFJs are hard to decipher without knowing how they think. ISFPs live in a very present word, and while I think she does, I think Se can’t be one of her top 2 functions because there’s so much watching and noting. She’s not utilizing this information by comparing it to herself. She comes off as she’s amused by it to me.
In the Google Talk for her environmental charity, ATP, she doesn’t assume that she has the answer- although I suppose that she’s also having fun playing around with, what I imagine, is the notion that the people in the room with her are extremely well-educated. While the presentation has a lot of Te statistics, the in-the-moment answers aren’t very Te. She doesn’t have the data that most of these questions require off the top of her head. Although she seems to be repeating itself, I think she’s utilizing what she knows, analyzing, and extracting information that could be shared-all very quickly- and then acknowledging that her audience is more than qualified to answer their questions themselves.
What she seems to be emphasizing is that LA exports lifestyle. I think that’s very, very Ni-Fe. She’s studying the system with the intent of affecting a large audience– a system of people, nonetheless.
I also think she’s rather skilled at Se-Ti— and has proceeded to embellish it with Fe. As she points out, part of acting is identifying behavioral markers and utilizing that to project a personality.
(The Zlin Interview), and her overall demeanor in the oldest one with Beverly Hills Playhouse.
However, I think the interview with Maude Garett, albeit playful, and her overall quiet contemplation in most situations, mark her as an introvert over a true extrovert. She’s engaging, but even more than that, she’s watching, and she’s very, very skilled at it.
— sorry this is tangential but regarding your specific ESFJ– I don’t see the Si and Ne. I think her playfulness is Ti-Se— because she more often connects the dots than draws the dots, as exemplified by her recount of her experience of change- (DePaul) very Ni-Fe ish
I think the caring Si-ness is the result of her being the oldest of her siblings. She’s very respectful of personal space (or privacy??) of her family etc. I think that SFJs and guardians in general, are much more hands on and feel more defined by their role to someone else than NFJs and idealists in general.
My first guess would be a very very very savy INFJ
Then it would be a mellowish ENFJ
Then very wise ISTP
Then chameleon ESTP
Then ISFP- although I don’t see the functions myself, I see her typed as this most frequently.
However, I maintain that Fi is more about the values than the system. Her charity concerns the environment (Ti to me) which affects people in the future (Ni) that she leads (Fe) by example (Se)
However, she says that she was very fond of organic chemistry in school and calculus. That throws me off so perhaps I’m completely wrong– if it’s Ne-Te, that she uses
Blake, if you could cast some light on what type you think Stana Katic is, it would be greatly appreciated. The puzzle really keeps me up at night. Could you explain how you arrived at your conclusion? Additionally, could you let me know whether I seem to be an INFJ or an INFP? I thought I settled on INFJ but after reading “The Culture of Like”, I’m all confused again. I attribute most of my career ambitions to Fe whereas I also really desire to belong to something or someone. Or could that be an enneagram thing instead? Your thoughts are always greatly appreciated. Thank you so much– your responses to all of the questions I’ve asked in the past have clarified a great deal.
Well, it took a bit of time and a roundabout and rather random way of arriving there. Stana Katic is a type 3 ENFP.
I arrived at my conclusion in a way that would be impossible to explain in any linear and logical way. Perhaps, ask me some specific questions to explore the topic further.
In a nutshell, yes, there is an Fe thing there. But, it ain’t INFJ Fe. She isn’t an ESFJ, though she is using the form of Fe that ESFJ uses as a dominant -Fe Cancer. ENFPs use this form of Fe as an implied Moon position (id function).
So, yes, I will say that there is definitely an Fe thing going on with her. She does not have the hardness of INFJ. She has a certain smoothness that isn’t INFP. Type 3 ENFPs have a some lack of a definite character. It is more like they are this all-around character. Sort of perfect.
Some other women that I think are type 3 ENFPs: Heather Graham (whom Katic bears strong facial resemblance too), Penelope Cruz, Cameron Diaz, Claire Danes, Salma Hayek, Tina Fey (whom Katic also bears strong resemblance too facially), and Katie Holmes (again, facial resemblance).
Do you see the continuum?
This is sooooooo relatable to me.I always find myself in the dark when I don’t know a thing about sth.Later,ended up feeling guilty for it.The need to know everything on the Net is fun but exhausting since we need to pour it out.My friend even teased me by saying I know everything and treating me like some sort of information counter.
Wonderful article.
I have just got into the whole typology thing, which is apparently the next logical stage of desperate self-searching. What I am wondering is, if I have spent the first day out of the four I have been into this topic for on taking lots and lots of tests (in all my languages), and the next three trying to figure out whether I am an INFP or INFJ by GOOGLING LIKE CRAZY and feeling more and more confused because if I only figured out my type things would get oh so much easier for me..!, does this mean that my wavering between the two is automatically resolved in favor of the latter?
I am definitely an introvert, definitely an Intuitive and I am quite certain that I am a Feeler because, though I do feel drawn to certain scientific areas, sciences do not come to me with the same ease as languages and music, and my life revolves around feeling stuff quite a bit.
I suppose the functions are where it can really get clear, but that is exactly where my digital hell started….
Would highly appreciate your opinion 🙂
“What I am wondering is, if I have spent the first day out of the four I have been into this topic for on taking lots and lots of tests (in all my languages), and the next three trying to figure out whether I am an INFP or INFJ by GOOGLING LIKE CRAZY and feeling more and more confused because if I only figured out my type things would get oh so much easier for me..!, does this mean that my wavering between the two is automatically resolved in favor of the latter?”
Probaly 🙂
I don’t know why but your articles are kind of arousing. I’ve been in a funk and I’m going to try this and hopefully get my Fe groove back. I once spent a month offline, except to check emails. It was wonderful. I’ve been looking for a new job and have been getting lost in possibilities and consuming information. I find it increasingly difficult to disconnect now that Internet is everywhere, phones included. I’m also going to try the 40 drawings in 3 hours. Over the past 6 years, I’ve drifted from expressing my creativity and focused on administrative nonprofit work. While i felt fulfilled helping others, I felt completely unfulfilled with this pent up creativity. Hope this works!
Hi LM, curious to how your Fe work is going. Any updates? 🙂
This article not only caught me in my addiction and current topic of interest, but tickled my INFJ tendencies with spot-on and mind-melting insight into the problem. By the way, I found it under the search query, “INFJs and addiction”.
I went through a rough time recently and found myself drinking, in order to sleep. Totally aware of it though, obviously. That hasn’t made me stop, but suddenly after reading this, I’ve realized how my job has enabled the very addiction that has stolen my creativity.
Blake, does it make sense for an INFJ to be so used to being concerned with what others are doing and with “learning” in the form of information addiction, for years, to have no fucking clue what they actually like? Can INFJs essentially block themselves out of their own genius/creativity? I have a few ideas on what paths / interests I have but when I try to engage in them, they feel like a chore, or I have to be drunk or upset with life for them to be explored. One example is dump-writing my feelings. I do easily after a night of drinking and dancing but when I try to do morning pages, I stick with them for awhile and overtime I (for the millionth time) end up giving up the habit to checking Facebook/Twitter for updates and sleeping in.
I am feeling a bit lost. Also, after a few months of unemployment, finally got a job, but it’s yet another detail-oriented one. I review customer service tickets and have to memorize a bunch of policies (that are constantly being updated) in order to take action on them. I have to review over 2,000 tickets a day and tickets are pulled and assessed by our superiors for quality. It’s only been a few weeks in but based on my gut and what I’ve read from you about INFJs, this is a poor fit.
It sucks to compare myself to others that started at the same time, but I also feel it’s helpful to assess my progress, and the truth is, I’m working my ass off and despite being the first one in the office, I’m still the last one to leave because I can’t finish my work fast enough. I know it’s because my brain is different.
The problem is, I don’t know what other kind of job to do. Looking back in life, it seems that I’ve always done detail-oriented things well enough, like in school, but in the backend I’ve really just procrastinated and memorized at the last minute because I was never really interested in the material / format and forgotten everything after the test, or when I have to really work hard (for tests that aren’t just multiple choice) and start studying early, I’m working harder than everyone else for what seems like way less ROI, compared to my peers.
I guess my main question is, I know I’m smart, but why do I feel that in a way, maybe because I am an INFJ, that I’m dumb? In this world?
I really want to just live a life where I’m not worrying about money but it seems I have to take jobs that pay me just enough to live paycheck to paycheck and that drain me just enough because my true gifts aren’t being utilized so I can’t pursue or try to figure out what out there might be a better fit. When I get home, I just want to sleep or watch TV or talk to my friends so I can feel some sort of connection. I love human connection. Not possible with my new job. If I talk or get to know my coworkers, ironically, I don’t have enough time to finish my work. It’s a neverending cycle. I’ve had so many jobs…I’m a good employee because I’m on time and I work hard and I finish my work and communicate effectively…so usually, people feel inclined to not fire me. But damn, lately it feels like I’m living life for someone else who is not authentically me. But it seems almost impossible to be myself and make a living and feel like a real adult. I’m so tired. But I want to fucking succeed by my definition.
Any thoughts out there? From anyone? Maybe someone understands?
Thanks for letting me share here.
<3
I totally feel what you’re saying – besides, INFJs are renowed for their tendency to job-hop a lot. I did it too, being underemployed most of the time. Right now I’m getting out the addiction and extroverting a bit, also following a couple of little projects, but I feel I can’t do a thing in the world, I don’t know a thing in the world to sustain myself. I even feel like one day I’ll get it and find it so simple that I’ll call myself dumb for all tge wasted time. Still, it’s not happening.
hugs <3<3<3<3<3
I see..so that was an INFJ thing.XD sometimes it’s slightly disturbing for me to voraciously feed on the information available on the Internet and try to connect all the subtle dots in-between. Well, I can’t simply turn off my laptop ‘coz my work involves programming (I was an INTJ wannabe and currently trying to reach my INFJ full potential) but I do find it easier to write the gist of my program on pen and paper first before coding it. I tend to think of all the possible things that might happen and include them afterwards. Good thing that my senior programmer understands that we don’t all think alike but she’s somehow pissed off at my perfectionist tendencies. I keep putting off my projects ‘coz another possibility appeared. But I really don’t want to resort to “half-assed” work ‘coz I genuinely care for my customers and I don’t want to disturb them to fix the program or make them feel that I’m not my salary’s worth . 😀
Blake says:
“When [people] get bored they take the path of least resistance and get online in some form and tune out. Collectively, this is having a horrible effect on society. I know [reducing information input and being present] can be boring and sometimes extremely boring but take that boredom and make something active out of it rather than passive.”
My question in response:
Does anyone have any experience and/or tips with the aforementioned boredom? And perhaps, how to “make something active out of it”? I’ve been flirting with being on the internet less and honestly, overall it feels like death, like I’m going through intense withdrawals.
Time slows down to a crawl. I can only practice on my guitar so many times, take so many walks, hang out with so many friends, write on so many pieces of paper.
I feel the urge to surf the internet or my Facebook feed, or watch another episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm. It’s all the same bullshit, but I can pass time faster that way. But okay, I will admit, in addition to the boredom, I’ll tell you what…when I’m on the computer/phone less, I feel more grounded and less fucked up. I sleep better.
BUT I’M BORED WAH
So it’s a conundrum. It’s actually similar to my desire conundrum I asked about on the INFJ Woman In Love article now that I think about it. The fucking goddamn balance. Feeling a desire for something in an id-like sense that isn’t really that great for me long-term and puts me in a cycle of insane consumption over creation and ultimately stunts my spiritual growth.
What the fuck!
Ultimately, my intuition says I would do best to just lean into the boredom and see what happens and remember that I won’t die. UGH
Being an INFJ is interesting (I’m replacing “annoying as fuck” with “interesting” because I feel like being positive right now)…
A
One drastic way is if you go hiking/camping away from internet sources. Then it’s “forced”. It’s nice and strange that it feels so different from the norm. You might come back more determined than before to limit internet time.
Or at the very least, put some amount of time between internet and sleep so it doesn’t mess up your sleep.
I struggle with this big time. If it’s here and there at work it is alright, because my work schedule is choppy yet doesn’t allow me to stay online long. But if I do it at home it is very bad. That is time that can be shaped in all sorts of ways, and endless surfing is a terrible use.
“Being an INFJ is interesting (I’m replacing “annoying as fuck” with “interesting” because I feel like being positive right now)…”
🙂 Nothing like a good reframe. ^ Love this.
I struggle mightily with this problem as well. I at least used to be able to escape from computers at work for part of the day when at the lab bench (I work in a forensic laboratory) as our note taking and casefiles were paper based.
However a year ago that all changed with the rollout of a fancy electronic case management system. Casefiles are now virtual and note taking is done on laptops at the bench. The few remaining paper printouts are all scanned and uploaded into the system.
It was a huge change from traditional practice, and many of my colleagues are still struggling to adapt to the new system. I didn’t have that problem, as I’m a quick learner and could see the advantages straight away. The old paper system required a great deal of manual handing which used to drive my Intuitive brain crazy at times. We had to hand number and index and hole punch every single page, which was fine for small cases but a nightmare for when the page count ran into the hundreds! My inferior Sensing becomes a real issue for seemingly simple tasks like this, I found it almost impossible not to zone out when numbering lots of pages so page 50 would be followed by page 70, and pages 110 to 130 would be repeated twice! All the errors had to be crossed out manully, initialled and renumbered correctly, yadayada brain implosion!!
I even struggled to neatly fold a report to fit into an envelope for mailing, without scrunching it beyond repair, which meant printing and signing a new copy, tracking down the colleague who counter signed the original to resign the new one, taking further photocopies, and then attempting to fold the new report without mangling that as well. Talk about purgatory!
All that is gone now, no more page numbering and indexing and paper cuts and crying silent tears of despair in a dark cornet of INFJ Hell.
I rapidly mastered the new system, and even though it’s not perfect, it has made me much more efficient and organised and productive and I love it! But now I stare at screens all day every day, in the office and lab, at home and even while travelling on business trips.
This has completely reversed my previous attempts to limit and manage my information addiction and now my poor fried brain is so hyped up and overstimulated that it may soon explode in a fireball of epic proportions…..
Am at work.
This made me laugh…
Gosh, if I could sleep a thousand sleeps right now, I would be so happy…like a good baby.
I can’t imagine being among the younger people that are growing up with iPads etc. To get into all that as an adult must be different to getting it young. My students have had smart phones before they come to college. Also they have been using online homework systems. Those have advantages….but… I just don’t think it is the same as working on a blank paper and you fill the page rather than filling in blanks on an already full screen and with immediate hints popping up at you. Can’t prove that it is worse learning but my instinct says that it could be. One difference is getting a hint right away versus the next day at school. Well hints is good, but just trying it and staying with it has tremendous value. Value in being stuck and persevering. Reading the reference material and sorting it out for yourself. I don’t know what to think. I think persevering with the reference material also helps you appreciate communication of material and sets you up to learn how to communicate it yourself in writing or verbally.
You make a lot of sense, Lunar.
I’m reasonably tech-savvy and enjoy some aspects of modern communications, but others I avoid like the plague, like most social media (why on earth would anyone be interested in seeing a photo of last nights dinner plate?), and I only use my smartphone as a phone (is that even allowed these days?).
The smartphone phenomenon is truly extraordinary when you examine it as an outsider. I see more and more people squinting and furiously swiping away at the tiny gadgets in their hands while walking, running, driving (even though it’s illegal here), cycling (yes, really) and supposedly socialising with friends and family. The smartphone addiction is spreading like a nasty plague and it seems that no-one is immune.
I first became aware of the extent of the problem a few years ago, when my brother and his wife last visited us in New Zealand. We were on tour, and enjoying a superb evening meal in the restaurant of the vineyard where we were staying.
I was sitting opposite my brother, engaged in conversation, until partway through the main course we both became aware that the others had not spoken for some time. There was this magic moment when I exchanged glances with him as we simultaneously realized that his wife and my partner were furiously tapping away on their phones, food untouched and utterly oblivious to the outside world.
They were so deeply entranced in cyberspace that it would have been futile to say anything, so we simply shrugged our shoulders and carried on with our conversation.
And now there are almost daily news stories here in NZ of pointless deaths at railway crossings, when a pedestrian or driver is so absorbed in their smartphone or iPad that they completely miss the flashing lights and warning bells and the thundering sound of the oncoming train and meander blithely to their doom.
OMG! I’m an INFJ and this article is SO amazingly accurate, I can’t believe it! I’m, like, constantly searching for knowledge and information on the internet. Then, I’ll get distracted and go off on something else and then come back to the original thing I started with! I love your articles…you’re a frickin’ genius! (imho…lol) Anyway, going to take your advice and stay away from the computer and try to start journaling (been thinking about it in my head, but always put it off)! Thank you for the awesome insight into the INFJ psyche!
Theirs knowing and then theirs wondering. I’m somewhere in between the two. Hoping the knowing fishes me out. The back and fourth search becomes a ghost hunt. The ghost would be tangible and alive if found, but as of now it’s still a ghost. I find small clues beyond the scenses and the beneath the surface. Sometimes the pattern of searching for patterns ends at the beginning and I forget that I even began. I’ve also been thinking that I should stop thinking. Cause this ghost I’m chasing is starting to become a shiny dream with impractical value. Also, this time away from time is consuming my tangible relationships. This ghost is devouring the beauty of homosapien alignment. It is starting to become tangible…. I’ve been the ghost all along.
Happy Halloween!
Wow. Just wow. This is a very enlightening article about my functions, it fits. Except for a few parts that is somehow about INFPs, this fits! However the part that I don’t like is that you tell me I “don’t need that much information on average”. How dare you tell me what to do (triggered Polr Te :p)! But thanks tho! I needed this!
I found your site while searching about INFJs on Google.
This is so true. The louder my external world, the more I need to go online and research something or listen to YouTube on my phone with earbuds on. I’m learning more about getting my extraverted feeling function under control.
I agree INFJs tend to spend way too much time online, which makes us lose touch with ourselves and reality. If I need to be online for extended periods for something, I usually break it up by doing some weight-training or cardio work in my basement.
Take Care
Ironically, information addiction is what got me here.