Well, hello there Stellar Mazians! I would like to say I was very impressed and enthralled after the last type challenge of Russell Brand and everyone’s comments justifying their answers (mostly ENFP and ENTP it seems…which is wrong… but anyhoo)
So, interestingly enough an old comment thread thread on my INFJ vs. INTJ article has sprung back to vicious life with the current controversy between two erudite commenters over whether St. Vincent (Annie Clark, the musician) is an INTJ or INFJ (Follow the above-linked thread down to where Alejandro comes in and then Piggie responds. The thread starts with some Kate Bush exploration, then on to Bjork, and then finally to St. Vincent).
Here is the first interview I saw St. Vincent in:
Here is the second interview I saw her in:
I find her to be an interesting subject for a type challenge and I now have a definite opinion of which one of these two types she is (in the old comment thread I link to above, I responded that I could see either INTJ or INFJ).
Personally, I find INFJ and INTJ two of the hardest types to go “either/or” on. To this day, I still have examples of well-known figures that I have much familiarity with, but, am still unsure whether they belong wholly to the INFJ or INTJ designation.
Now, Annie Clark (St. Vincent) is a woman that I have next to zero familiarity with. Prior to the two comments from the commenters I mention above, I have seen maybe two interviews with her on Youtube (the ones that are embedded above).
Today, due to this interesting controversy, I took the time to familiarize myself with her more at length, which means I watched more interviews and watched four of her music videos (embedded further down this page) and a few brief excerpts of her live performances.
So, now I have arrived at a decisive conclusion on whether she is an INTJ or INFJ.
Now that I have familiarized myself with her case, I don’t feel that she is a particularly difficult to type into one of the two of these Ni dominant types (INTJ or INFJ).
And that’s the thing! Sometimes, it is very difficult for me to arrive at a decisive conclusion on which of these two species of Ni dominant any given Ni dominant would fit into.
For example, in this case, it is VERY OBVIOUS that Annie Clark (St. Vincent) is an Ni dominant type. I mean, there is no question in my mind of that.
But, yes, it is a lot less obvious which of the two Ni dominant types she is: INFJ or INTJ.
Notice that the first commenter, Alejandro, has made an appeal to my INFJ vs. INTJ article by quoting a noticeable difference I made in the artistic productions of either of these types. I basically say that INFJs are capable of minimalism as well as extreme lushness and color in their art, while INTJs are basically confined to minimalism in their art (due to their lack of Fe primarily). Alejandro compares her productions to another two artists that he insists are INFJs and that St. Vincent is basically lacking on the lushness front (read his full comment in the aforementioned comment thread I linked to above to get the full substance of what Alejandro is saying).
Then Piggie, the second commenter, comes in with an insistence that St. Vincent is an INFJ because she does show color and lushness of a certain variety in her artistic productions (music and videos, but read Piggie’s entire comment to get a feel for what she is saying).
And, of course, some of this is open to interpretation. Some people can see lushness and color in the most void of places, and some people, unless they see rainbows shooting out of someone’s ass, will stick to the “minimalistic” label.
However, I present it to you fellow Stellar Mazians to make a decision on whether St. Vincent (Annie Clark) is in fact an INTJ or INFJ.
So, in the comments, per usual, declare whether you think she is an INFJ or INTJ and what your reasoning for that may be according to her demeanor in interviews and/or her artistic productions (ie her music videos, particularly Digital Witness, Cheerleader, Cruel, and Marrow, which I will list in following).
Note: If you for some reason think she is something besides an Ni dominant type, I will just tell you before you go about justifying yourself in this regard, that you are wrong 🙂
So, if you for some reason think this, then, refrain from commenting. It will make the comments too murky and unfocused.
The reason St. Vincent is interesting for a type challenge is because she is obviously an Ni dominant type, but, not obvious as to which of the two Ni dominant types she is.
This kind of means pay attention to the other functions and positions besides Ni dominance with all the implications of Se inferior.
Pay attention to whether she is exhibiting the hallmarks of all the judging functions in particular, and how she is doing this. The “how” would be more related to the “position” of the judging function.
The judging functions are Ti, Fi, Te, and Fe.
Possible positions of these functions in either INTJ or INFJ is auxiliary, tertiary, id, and superego.
It pretty much comes down to which of the judging functions is in what position to make an ultimate decision on which of the two types an Ni dominant person would belong to.
If you do not see her Ni dominance, it would be pointless to discuss what her other functions may be and in what positions and so on (at least for the scope of this challenge, which is not to say it is pointless otherwise).
You would first need to see her Ni dominance. St. Vincent is a clear case of Ni dominance.
Anyways, on to clusterfuck heaven!
She is INFJ. Shows Ti when answering questions + her visual signature (reconnects to external environment). She also shows Fe human element when attaching metaphor to her music (instead of a Te systems element) That said, I watched two minutes of the first video. Then again, maybe I’m an INTJ, but probably not.
Yey! I am the first 😀
Sooo. I will just say what feelings I get from watching little bits of the material above.
I feel unsettled. It is something too cold and unfamiliar in her, she offers no comfort and everything is rationalised and retained. Reminds me of Bjork who I can’t listen to either. Simply can’t. She makes me feel icicles in my stomach.
Her face has no real expression and no real emotion. She is too aware of what is happening and what she is doing. She is too smart and calculated, too busy pretending to be human and emulating (without success) this pitiful race 🙁
Even the light in her videos is so artificial and creates a barrier between us and her. Not to talk about the music itself… so uneven, so disturbing and discordant… it makes me very sad.
Maybe there is something more to say. But… I would be sad if she were an INFJ. Maybe she is a very depressed INFJ. But I don’t think so.
Also, “I want all your mind.” INFJs feed on souls 🙂
I think she is INTJ. My brother is an INTJ as well. We are connected in some way, but we have opposite strategies for everything. I feel it would be the same with me and her. She scares me. She also scares the interviewers. There is no juice in her dignified performance.
And now I have to think what Ni is in both types and what unites us 🙂
Thank you!
You’re welcome!
And thanks for chiming in 🙂
Ni dominance for sure. That is obvious. I will say INTJ. There is a sharp edge quality to the sound. I only could listen to a little bit as it irritated. Maybe I would find something else if I had listened longer, but I could not handle the noise. She is absolutely beautiful though. Completely stunning.
INTJ, enneagram type 9 (the people pleaser)
I take the fact that in one of her songs the chorus is “I don’t want to be a cheerleader! to be an expression of her not wanting to be this people pleaser anymore, a role in which she feels she is forced to use Fe, something she abhors and is very unskilled at as are all INTJs.
She repeatedly shows her awareness of her inner feelings and talks about these in an abstract fashion like an Fi does.
-Second video, 4:20, she mentions how she got jealous, quite comfortably and matter of factly Fi)
-Second video, 4:36 she responds to a question about breaking a guitar, by simply confirming that indeed she broke the guitar (Te). She doesn’t realise that she has to or is unsure how to explain this story further with grace and not looking like a show off (and has to be guided by the interviewer), because of lacking Fe awareness. (My interpretation is that the Fi does inform her not to be a show off). She actually describes her inner state of becoming ‘a bit of a maniac on stage’ in contrast to her current emotional state, another abstract description of inner state (Fi).
-Second vieo 3:42 “I love him” approving of a certain singer. The way she says it, in a serious fashion, she shows Fi
-Second Video 5:25 People pleasing, or a very thin attempt at people pleasing, as her response is pretty clearly insincere. More lacking or even making fun of Fe, this is a typical INTJ sarcastic snare, which is actually kinda dampened in the case of this particular INTJ, maybe because she’s an E9 and, well, smart and female and so on.
-Second vid, 5:53, the situation requires her to emote (or so she interprets it) and she does as the people pleaser that she is, but she doesn’t do it with pleasure, the smile seems to take a lot of effort. The thought in her head during that final glance that she gives (5.56) i interpret as something like “please dont make me do more of this” (Lacking Fe)
oh and the shaking no at 5:42 as she mentions how those other singers are phenomenal is interesting : )
INTJ, enneagram type 9 (the people pleaser)
There’s an oxymoron if I ever saw one.
Hahaha. A ‘thanks for chiming in’ for someone yapping the same thing that’s on your mind, but when you don’t agree you reply like this. Silly INFJ, if you haven’t seen it it doesn’t exist, right! I will have you, benevolent enneagram and MBTI god know that your personal understanding of the world doesn’t change the definition of an oxymoron.
INTJ. Color theory aside, “Black Rainbow” tells you all you need to know about Annie Clarke. Since I claim that song as my superego anthem (think: Death tossing handfuls of seed into salted fields while the world burns) and, given what we know about active/appropriate expression in the types, Te would therefore be her auxiliary. But that’s hardly solid evidence!
Some more solid Te aux justification – she likes to express reference to established others in her work. Notice the comments on choreography in the BBC interview (~1:26). I’ve witnessed this in other INTJs I know. They love, love, LOVE to quote scientific studies or specific precursor examples/influences as a means to justify or explain their thinking.
Besides this, there has always been a certain…. robotic quality to St Vincent’s music, wed to a profound but sterilized pestilence. Like a marvelous porcelain clockwork containing vacuum-packed spoiled meat. The resulting distance to the viscera – that plastic TV dinner veneer – leaves an impression of someone who is only able to demonstrate emotion that they’ve witnessed via a third party (say, a David Lynch movie watched from between second-floor bannisters as a child up past their bedtime) and then dissected and served cold. Simulachrymology. Tertiary Fi expressed through Te. The emotion is real… it’s just… too stylized. Framed by familiar tropes. But that domineering Ni keeps shit all tingly urgent.
As for Fe superego… in the first 15 seconds of the Makers interview, we hear that she “had to overcome” the people-pleasing expectation of being a woman from Texas. It’s also interesting to note that her body language in the BBC interview shows a certain guardedness that does not change one iota throughout, though she emotes for the hosts’ comfort when discussing the possibility of being given a Brit award (ergo – recognizing the weight of approval by a ruling industry body), and yet fails to emote for their comfort when discussing the destruction of a guitar on-stage… she talks about this in a completely matter-of-fact manner, almost as if providing a shopping list, whereas both hosts (heavy Fe users) appeared to be seeking a more apologetic/humorous reaction (“Yeahhhh, I’m a kooky but loveable rock star with some harmless and theatrical antics!”).
Annie Clark is deadly serious and methodical yet playful and endearingly earnest and inventive at the same time. But maybe that’s her astrology coming into play? I don’t really understand the astrological side of things but figured I’d look up her chart for the sake of putting it out there for others as I’m guessing it will come up in this discussion. FYI, she is a Libra sun with Sag rising and an Aquarius moon (whereas I am a Libra sun with Sag rising and a Taurus moon).
The interviews: I don’t see Fe. Her facial expressions, demeanor, affect, sharpness of enunciation, posture, hand movements and language seem to express NiTeFi. Not a lot of expressiveness although friendly and personable. It was crisp and cool. The “people pleasing” was referenced from the point of view of gender awareness and colloquial expectation and something to be overcome. That aligns with the language of an INTJ with whom I am acquainted who said he was a “reformed people pleaser.” His motivation to people please was because of perfectionism and always wanted to be perceived as competent (if I understood him correctly). The alien subject matter reference seemed INTJ. Is David Byrne an INTJ? She referenced him as an influence and I heard that in the music before listening to her comments.
I’m too awful at typing to even guess, so I’m just going to absorb others’ thoughts.
@Blake, you’ve mentioned that it might be fairly typical for an INFJ artist to work with the darker, weirder underbelly of sexuality in her work. Would that also in translate to how she is perceived in the outside world? I ask because I find St. Vincent very beautiful and very striking and interesting, but cold and sort of desexed somehow, like an alien. There’s no heat coming off her, she has transcended the muck. E. above mentions Bjork – I LOVE weird people, so I naturally like Bjork a lot. I find her really excellent. There is a famous video of her talking about her television, I will link below. It’s spectacular. So otherworldly, like a forest elf. Half adorable-compelling, half-super-freaky. It isn’t actually cute – it seems cute on the surface, but it’s very Other, so strange, so inhuman. “You shouldn’t let poets lie to you.” Like the cuteness is a trap or a mask, and underneath is a weird elven queen. In spite of the adorableness, I get a similar feeling of desexedness in her presentation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75WFTHpOw8Y
I guess I’m wondering – is this a thing you would also see in INFJ-type people? In spite of maybe a personal or artistic interest in sexuality, would they also tend to present as otherworldly/asexual aliens? Or would this be a difference between INFJ and INTJ people?
Now I want to speculate about another famous person’s type BUT I don’t want you to yell at me. Can there be, IDK, an open thread for tangents off posts?
It isn’t actually cute – it seems cute on the surface, but it’s very Other, so strange, so inhuman.
Yeah, that’s Ni you’re seeing. I type Bjork as an ENFJ, so she would be a good example of what Ni in the auxiliary (persona) position looks like. Strange, other, inhuman. Ni is the most visible in the auxiliary position as a personality emanation.
ENFJ also has Ne id. I think we see some of this from Bjork too – lunarized Ne.
Very childlike yet very dangerous those ENFJs.
Now I want to speculate about another famous person’s type BUT I don’t want you to yell at me. Can there be, IDK, an open thread for tangents off posts?
No!
🙂
Okay, I have an argument for INTJ after all. In the first interview, she talks about her tendency to want to put something beautiful next to something creepy or harsh. That seems quite INTJ to me for reasons I can only explain by saying that I think that INFJs, in their deepest secret places, want to make art that isn’t actually a post-modern shocking combination of contrasting opposites. They want to make art that is just beautiful, emotionally intensely engaging, maybe very sad and painful art, but – I think – alienating art is probably not what they’re drawn toward. I think INFJs have a tendency toward intense earnestness, even though probably they feel really pained by earnestness and associate it with the mediocre.
A lot of the images she is drawn to also don’t seem INFJ-y to me. They aren’t emotional sturm-und-drang, they’re cold and precise.
From information I’ve forcibly extracted from Blake in comments here, I feel moderately comfortable thinking that the science fiction writer Ursula LeGuin is an INFJ. Here’s an interview with her by Bill Moyer: obviously, it’s hard to contrast women in different professions in different life stages. But I notice that LeGuin is much – hmm, looser? In her presentation. Annie Clark feels very controlled to me. LeGuin, and this is sort of surprising given how deliberate and serious her work is, is kind of freewheeling. She’s very conversational, less deliberate, more free and open. Her emotions show on her face, in her body movements. Maybe “personable is the word I mean. And quite jokey! There’s some back and forth joking that is very relaxed. It’d be hard for me to imagine Annie Clark being this way in an interview.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1bZe7bdXMw
Then after that I watched some young Bob Dylan interviews, but they pretty much torpedoed my burgeoning theories about INTJ vs INFJ artists in interviews, so I’ll pretend it never happened.
Bjork’s Ne is the auxiliary Ne of an INFP. Ne id doesn’t come out as a direct intuitive, ‘rambling’ form, but rather in the form of suspicious/’too good to be a coincidence’ timing and correlations between – if taken at face value – Fe/Se behaviours
Oh my god I am dying. I am on a road trip and can’t do this right now. But I want to do it NOW:) can’t wait for this new typing challenge.
That’s the spirit!
INTJ.
She gives off more of a “cool, dry” vibe rather than the “wet” INFJ vibe (see the article INTJ vs INFJ).
I think she’s an INTJ. I don’t really know how to use functions to explain this but I just get the feeling she’s an INTJ. She’s like a really hot alien.
Piggie and Alejandro’s comments were excellent, but I did not read them until I glanced at each video, although none completely. I thought I’d come from a clean slate first. I may have missed a lot, I’ll admit because there were constraints to listening to any of the videos in their complete form. Piggie has really thought a lot about this and broken down the lyrics which I would not know otherwise. So, I ventured INTJ without too much examination. I could be very wrong from a few cursory glances at a person I have not thought too much about. Her music (what I heard) was pretty grating to me just from a sound standpoint.
Brings to mind one of Blake’s metaphors of INFJ’s and their hard romantic nature: “blood on snow.” This artist wants to create those kinds of images, but an INFJ would also want to wallow in it while it’s still warm. She would rather stand back and take a picture of it with her Polaroid. I don’t get that Fi id thing from her at all–very calculated. She likes the discord and chaos, but she doesn’t feel it — she studies it.
Looking at the videos without sound, the following adjectives come to mind: stark, clinical, disconnection, geometry, linear, diagonals, triangles, corners, edges, and separateness. The people in the videos seem to be devoid of humanness and rather like objects, tools, or drones who live without connection. The people do not seem to have purpose or meaning. Other people seem to be of a hive mind while she is separate and other than. Alone. Lack of connection. Aquarian Moon? Isn’t that how Blake describes INTJs experience on planet earth where they are “visitors?”
INFJs have that “other than” quality also, but they are less like a visitor from another planet and more like participant anthropologists in my mind. Some remove but still in the game even though they are never really completely become a full member of the group in some ways.
Some quotes I read of hers were a lot about the production of music, the instruments, her confidence (it’s high she says), need to have independence and control over her music, and says she likes being a solo musician.
A lot of it points to INTJ for me still. I will listen to all of the music and the interviews when I won’t disturb others or my headache. 😉 Maybe then, I’ll see something that points the other way.
I’d never heard of her before, but upon seeing the first music video, she felt like INTJ and that is what I will state. I listened to all four of them in full and still the same. I am going with feeling on this one. There are similarities to INFJ, The expressiveness with her hands felt similar. Her art feels abstract, what she is saying is Ni interesting, she appreciates the surreal and uses the word.
She uses words and phrases I would, like ‘In and of itself’.
But can I say she feels more capable in the world than I do? I’d say this is her Te.
Her focus and forward mobility suggests Te.
I didn’t see the kind of Fe I see on youtube with INFJ’s [those I am sure of]. I guess Fe could be bypassed, but the way she goes about her music career makes me think she wants something and she takes steps. She is enthusiastic about her work, seems really to be enjoying herself. This feels like my friend when she talks about what interests her.
Her music is harsh to me though. I like intense music, like the Kongo’s ‘Come with Me Now’. Hers doesn’t move me to a spent calm. That sounds odd maybe. It is not restorative to me, more the opposite.
I appreciate her art as I appreciate artists, for their thought provoking contributions, but it is not my cup of tea.
Watched the two interviews plus maybe five more, went on youtube and listened to BluSkyLine, a female INTJ for a reference. My irl INTJ friend was also a reference as I considered differences.
And she is stunning, in a non touchable way. Like, a look if you will but don’t touch me way. I could see her discomfort having interviewers so near her. She wore sunglasses several times that had little if anything to do with the sun in my estimation and everything to do with giving herself space she couldn’t ask for in another way or hope for in an interview and her interviews are part and parcel of what she wants, but is taxing. Her heady and intense touring life has to be taking a toll on her, but she is also aware of her needs and will vacate if necessary, as soon as is feasible.
As for Fi, I felt the gentle but definite redirecting she did in one of the interviews was the only example I can remember to give. She didn’t want to go there and wouldn’t be pushed.
Sorry, spelled a name wrong. BluSkyeLine. She was playing similar music and like St. Vincent, her artistic flair is a side you would see less frequently on an INTJ. I know they have it, but it is not necessarily expressed on their person.
Alright, never mind all this above, except where I was seeing similarities. Ack, I can be blind. After further reading and research, I believe INFJ. Art is honest and not comforting necessarily. I should have known that. I will get better at these. I love the learning.
What a convoluted bag of confusion I am.
Everyone is saying INTJ, so I’m gonna say INFJ just to be contrary.
Just kidding. This is mostly going by gut and surface impressions, though, since I’m a huge novice when it comes to functions. I’m mostly going by her smile; she generally looks cold, but has a really warm, make-you-feel good smile when it reaches her eyes.
Also something about the way she talks about dropping out of music school seems more INFJ to me.
Alright to start my response I’d like to re-cap what led me to write that first response on the INTJ vs INFJ article. Firstly with respect to Sufjan and Joanna Newsom, yes I do insist on them being INFJs and on them being 4w5s. Their Fi id is quite clear in all their work. Essentially what they do is through bombastic choruses, voice alterations, mixes of ancient and modern instruments, and of course lyrics deconstruct the reality around them and then despair in it. This is clearly the Fi id and it is from this expression that they are able to reveal universal insights. In analyzing the speaking and style patterns of these two Sufjan shows tremendous Fe in his communication with the audiences at concerts and any video of Joanna Newsom makes her seem like she could be a classic ISFJ with great control over her Fe (make no mistake though Ni-Se is the driver here.)
Now St. Vincent to me is different. She is not connecting AT LEAST IN THE SAME MAGNITUDE in a heartfelt way to her audience. She also does not seem fazed by anything she says. She is not fazed by her truths…instead it almost feels she chuckles at them in an observant way. For certain a 5w4. I realize there are INFJ 5w4s. I myself am a 5w4 INxJ and though I tend towards thinking I am an INFJ, I know my Fe is much less engaged than Joanna Newsom’s or Sufjan Stevens’s. Using this principle I could assume St. Vincent might be a 5w4 INFJ who is more detached and consciously showing her Ni than the two examples I used above.
But if that is then true I’m going to be looking for an Fi id of some kind. And not just an Fi id, but an Fi id that is being expressed through Fe. So let’s take a look at the music videos above:
1) Digital Witness: How multi-chromatically monochromatic! All the rooms in each picture are the same color. Everything feels and looks in this world that she has constructed like perfected gears in a clock. And now let’s focus on her: Again, St. Vincent looks like she has no emotional reaction to what is happening around her. In a way it’s as if she is not there, but just observing this perfect world and seeing where it all fits together. This looks like Ti id. And does it sound like it? Yes, to me it does. Where is the sadness, happiness, or concern in the voice? It’s not there. Is she there, or is this just her mind piecing it together?
2) Cruel is almost the same way. Everything is happening around her. She is being buried yet she does not seem to show much emotion or a desire to gain anything from this emotion around her. INSTEAD it seems she wants to observe this world and understand how it works…MAYBE so she can leverage it to her advantage? (Te anyone?)
3) Let’s look at the lyrics of Marrow. Please don’t tell me “H E L P M – E” is part of Fi id. It’s not. She’s screaming for help because of the Ti id which is her anything but “gentle mind” which is deconstructing exactly what her body is made of. I have an INTJ friend who first harped insanely on her Fi to the point she fell victim to her Ti id. She became mad and suicidal and asked for help because she was disturbed by things like “the way her teeth fit into her gums.” And it only got worse when she fell into Si as Blake has mentioned is possible with INJs. Thankfully she recovered from that BUT I would say this song is very reminiscent of that to me.
4) Now I want to do some video comparisons between St. Vincent, Joanna Newsom (INFJ), Lana Del Rey (ISFJ), and FKA Twigs (ISFP).
a) At the end of Cruel, St. Vincent simply looks normal as her head is being covered with dirt. Ni is still visible. So is in my opinion Ti id. Now, let’s compare this to Joanna Newsom’s video for Divers:
b) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48xlgXqQKLA Notice how Joanna does things like closing her eyes and holding them there. As opposed to blinking in a rather machine like way as St. Vincent does? Joanna is FEELING what is around her in this Ni reality of hers. And as she feels it she is expressing this feeling through despair in what she is realizing: “Tell me why is the pain of birth lighter borne than the pain of death?”
c) Lana Del Rey’s video for ride https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Py_-3di1yx0 (btw I think an entire discussion could be made on the craziness of this video.) I’m using this video to show how a sensor using auxiliary Fe and an Fi id looks to show that it’s quite different still from St. Vincent. Here Lana Del Rey is living in this very Americana Si world and she’s really feeling it all out before making statements which close out this video. It’s fair to say Se is explored here too…
d) FKA Twigs’s video for water me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFtMl-uipA8. Is somewhat detached in a way St. Vincent’s videos are too. This is a stretch but because FKA Twigs is an ISFP and that is a rearrangement of the cognitive functions of INTJ, it does not surprise me that at least visually what Twigs and St. Vincent express look much more similar than to the two other Fe aux users presented above.
5) Moving back to interviews. I think the best interview I have seen is her track by track explanation of her St. Vincent album: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gE1cjZ13uG4. The most important statement she makes here is the following: “Rattlesnake is sort of like a creation myth. But it’s a new creation myth. Because you really are alone in the universe and you didn’t come from somebody’s rib or you didn’t listen to the snake and cause the downfall of man or anything like that. It’s just actually how it is. You’re alone in the world. And I thought ‘well that’s a way to start a record.'” Now St. Vincent said this all through incredibly calmly and sometimes laughing about it. An INFJ would likely feel something from this realization and go on to say “because we are alone we must live for one another.” But St. Vincent on the other hand keeps it where it is, almost as if she’s saying yes this is it, this is how it is, I am me and let’s fucking start the record this way. Very INTJ to me. Later she explains the song Birth in Reverse and says that this to her sounded “like death” and “cool.” She is exploring and experiencing and forming thoughts on these things but she is not feeling them and trying to connect them to some outer way of communicating how to live for others.
6) Back to her music and production. No it’s not completely gray but man is it very mathematical sounding. It’s beautiful yes, but is it swooping and something you can lose yourself in emotionally, no? Instead I would say it’s very dissectible, which is another thing that points to Ti id for me.
Ultimately all these things point me towards Annie being an INTJ. Blake, going back to what you said about INTJs previously there IS really just something so “other-worldly” about her. To me she seems like a superconscious observer of our reality. An incredibly smart INTJ 5w4 who does understand that emotions and feelings and morals are part of the equation of life too as she sings about in songs like Prince Johnny and I Prefer Your Love. But at her core she is still the ultra-scientific observer creator. In fact just to throw in a few last quotes she has previously said you sometimes have to be “a bit scientific” about music. And one last thing: Annie said “structure is liberating.” Sure, an INFJ could have said this but I think they would be more likely to say “emotion is liberating,” or the “emotional structuring of the world is liberating;” not that structure in general is. St Vincent seems here to be the INTJ to understand the world using Ni analysis, break it down, and re-structure it her own way. That is how she produces her individuality and her creates.
Ah! Last sentence should read: “That is how she produces her individuality and creates.”
Enneagram 4 correlates with Fi-dom rather than Ni-dom.
Enneagram 5 correlates with Ti-dom rather than Ni-dom.
@fbag most of the time yes this is true…but certainly not always. I’m not sure what Blake’s take is but I have seen Nietzsche typed as a 5w4 many times. And anyway if you look at what you just said, knowing an INFJ has Fi id why would it be surprising to see a 4w5 INFJ. If INTJ has Ti id why would it be surprising to see 5w4 INTJ? Also look at this source: http://thoughtcatalog.com/heidi-priebe/2016/01/mbti-and-the-enneagram-2/18/. Most Ni users here type as 5s. Now my honest belief is most “Ni dominants” out there are not actual Ni dominants so this could be a bit of a skewed result…
Only 10% of those who claim to be Ni-doms are actually Ni-doms. Most of them are either Fi-doms or Ti-doms.
And yes, INFJ has shadow Fi-aux and INTJ has shadow Ti-aux and enneagram 4 INFJs and enneagram 5 INTJs might be associated with that. Yet in case of enneagram correlations, I believe Ni-dominance correlates specifically with enneagram type 1.
Therefore any Ni-dom would need to have a very strong enneagram 1 presence, with fuels their idealism and perfectionism and their desire to achieve optimum Fe or Te systems, respectively.
Very interesting. I definitely see the INFPs and INTPs trying to be INxJs, but I also believe there are likely some ENXJs and ISXJs who do the same. My grandmother for example insists she is INTJ when she’s a clear ENTJ. My friend also insists she is INTJ when she is a textbook ISFJ (contrasting her writing with mine is very telling).
I’m fairly confident I’m an Ni dom after much research and what I feel is direct experience with Ni throughout my life. I just double checked my most recent enneagram result. One was highest, but taking wings into account I was 5w4 because those two were not far behind and right together. Especially in the artistic domains I would not find it surprising if the 5w4 and 4w5 correlations were more common in INXJs, even if the one presence is still strong.
A bit off topic but any guess as to the types of the guy, girl and the child in this clip?
Enneagram system, particularly the wing system is flawed.
Why not just concentrate on your three (or four?) highest scores (or inclinations so to speak)?
@fbag
Omg! I thought I was the only crazy person seeing that MBTI Enneagram correlation with Ni-dom is type 1, Ne-dom type 7 etc… type 9 worries me a bit though…what is it?
I’ve got no problem with the wing system so far though, why change it? If for example Ti-dom’s could be identified as type 5 for every single case, what sense would it make to have 3 or even 4 types, that’d be like having 3 or 4 MBTI types…
It’s not even funny, Te-dom’s and Fe-dom’s get identified as 8’s respectively 2’s quite often, but the other types play scrambled eggs pretty much. EJ’s just stick out to begin a pattern…
I actually found it much harder to find my own Enneagram type than the MBTI type, so that might be another reason why there’s such diversity in MBTI Enneagram combinations.
My understanding is that :
Enneagram type Correlated MBTI function-stack
1 Ni-dom
2 Fe-auxiliary
3 Fe-dom
4 Fi-dom
5 Ti-dom
6 Te-dom
7 Ne-dom
8 Se-dom
9 Si-dom
Aside from 6 and 9, I am pretty certain about the correlations.
@Alejandro
In Digital Witness i think she’s mocking Te and probably Fe too.. It goes against the mainstream by appearing to be mainstream (is that something Te does? more Fe than Te i think).. Everything looks the same but you see how everything is slightly off? The way the extras move.. They are marching in file but their arms are just not moving right.. Everything has become so mechanised.. Even people move like machines.. She is pretending to look unconcerned because she’s trying to show us that nothing is real anymore.. Everything is virtual.. I mean, even we are sitting and talking to people we don’t personally know and deriving a lot of pleasure from the virtual validation we receive from each other.. This just seems like Ni questioning to me more than anything else.. So i can’t really conclude INFJ or INTJ based on this specific song..
Cruel.. Again.. She looks like a stone in the video.. But her lyrics show her Fe concern.. “How could they be casually cruel??”.. She actually looks like an ISFJ mom here.. An ISFJ i know can be quite expressionless.. What i mean is, Fe aux might not always mean a wide smile or teary eyes.. An expressionless Fe dom might be weird, but aux functions are usually kind of understated..
Marrow is based on the physical effects anxiety attacks used to have on her.. I do agree that INTJs are highly likely to suffer from anxiety disorders.. But i think all NJ types could be prone to it..
And Wow.. Joanna Newsom is just Wow.. Thanks 🙂
Hmm i see what you mean.. But it could be that both are INFJs and Joanna is more Fe oriented and Annie is more Ti oriented.. That could lead to different styles of expression and different modes of connecting with others..
Ahh the Lana Del Rey video leads me to another question that’s been bothering me for a while.. Can a relatively extraverted ISFJ sometimes seem like an ESFP? What if the ISFJ was born in the second half of Gemini? Could that make them seem like an ESFP?
As far as points 5 and 6 are concerned.. If you compare the video you shared with this video https://youtu.be/pXbdUYShXWs which i have also shared in one of my other comments, you’ll see a rather different version of the same person.. The person in the track by track video is St. Vincent and the person in this video is Annie Clark.. There’s a marked difference in her tone, her body language and her confidence.. INFJs are chameleon types par excellence.. So, INFJ disguised as INTJ? Or is it actually possible to shake up an INTJ like that?
@fbag
Thanks for sharing your list, fbag.
Just when I thought you might have the same idea… even though, you’re not too sure about two types that I consider correlated differently, if at all. And the Fe aux is close too:
1 Ni-dom
2 Fe-dom (vs. Fe aux)
3 Se-dom (vs. Fe-dom)
4 Fi-dom
5 Ti-dom
6 Si-dom (vs. Te-dom)
7 Ne-dom
8 Te-dom (vs. Se-dom)
9 blank space (vs. Si-dom)
I think 3 and 6 are especially difficult to place when comparing to MBTI since the general descriptions in both systems don’t match each other very well at all, but from my own observation it makes sense now.
8 as Se-dom isn’t so far off for the ESTJ actually, Se id much? 🙂 The same goes for type 3, ESFP has Fe in the id. And type 9 with the usual ISFP mention and it’s Si id… My current explanation for type 9 is actually transcendence of type *shrugs*. Under that light I find ISFP quite fitting :D.
It’s ok 🙂
@ Piggie…I think it’s only fitting that we have a back and forth of some sorts on this!! 🙂 As I was reading your first section on digital witness my immediate thought was this is just Ni which seems to be what you think too for at least that part. I agree Te or Fe is too hard to tell here because it’s more her noticing something is /off/ and wrong with the way the world is working and is constructed. This is clearly something both INFJs and INTJs realize it’s just the way they approach them and feel or think them out that is different.
Moving on to Cruel. Yes I now see this and in fact what’s most telling of Fe and Fi behind that to me is the way she grinds her voice as she sings the word casually. And the way her voice flutters when she says cruel…there’s an almost uneasiness and dare I say sadness in there. This does seem indicative of Fi through Fe at least in some form. It’s been a while since I listened full through to Strange Mercy so my current picture of St. Vincent largely has revolved around St. Vincent, so thank you for highlighting the more minute parts of Strange Mercy that point towards a very different Annie developmentally.
Marrow. This song feels the opposite of Cruel to me. If anything it seems Ti through Te. Everything through the video and the lyrics appear very much like an uneasiness with the dissection of the world and the way things work together in her mind…but very much not an emotional uneasiness. Looking through the lens of her other songs though it could be interpreted as you say that this is understated Fe here.
I’m going to address the response to points five and six here first so that we can stay on the subject of Annie. I do think INTJs can get vulnerable, but only very well developed ones who are healthily in touch with their Fi. And it would surprise me that she would divulge such information in this manner to someone she does not know as an INTJ. All this said there is always a very pronounced assertiveness in Annie’s discourse. It seems controlled and calculated as you have said (not that Fe does not do this because it does…but the constant assertive tone is there). I for one do not know much about how the astrological signs impact how functions are shown. (I myself am an INFJ who can be very curt…perhaps this is because I am a Leo? ) If it is true that Annie’s sign makes her more assertive I could see her being INFJ because there is a certain softness to the way she talks, especially as she begins to answer a question that could be demonstrative of Fe.
Well Piggie…you have succeeded in making me question my initial analysis of INTJ at least to a degree. I will need more research and try and look for the things and counters to those which you have pointed out!
With respect to Joanna Newsom yes she is incredible. Her recent album Divers has what I would consider one of the most INFJ songs ever: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHAHgjL0YzQ. Again here the Fi through Fe is so noticeable in a way it isn’t in Annie’s music and so after listening to this album and “St. Vincent” it would seem highly unlikely that these two could occupy the same type, though they might.
Moving on to Lana Del Rey. Yes, she was born in the last degree of Gemini! Actually most people type her as ISFP but I have studied her a lot and concluded ISFJ. Her entire motivation is to create this dreamy paradise and it’s so based on Hollywood in this way of funneling what seems to be Se through this glamorous nostalgic Si in order to create something that to her feels like Home. I could elaborate much on this in a pm if you are interested but I feel it detracts too much from the subject at hand because it doesn’t concern Annie much save for the way I illustrated earlier.
@Piggie Big turn of events I have watched a video that has changed my view to INFJ (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kQ9ls46ueo). I think the reason this came across clearer to me in this video was the style in which it is taken. Because it is a conversation between Annie and one other person and not a simple ask and answer interview session, her Fe comes across much clearer and the Ni-Fe judgments become visible in the actual conversation: “The idea that OUR (points to tune yards this is so Fe of Annie) can heal people is just kinda the thing that keeps me going and that kids care and it’s not a passing thing but something that really matters to them and it’s been a voice for something they couldn’t necessarily express yet.” What a well developed INFJ. I still, however, think she is a very interesting case of this type at least in her presentation and the way she structures her videos.
https://youtu.be/xhm9EHVomuc
Shopping with St Vincent on youtube if my link doesn’t work.
Alejandro, I watched your video and now this on above and it is making me lean heavily the other way to INFJ , and I have to say both these videos bring out far more of her Fe to consider. The way she tracks his face as he speaks, which you can’t see with sunglasses, seems very INFJ. The way she used the words space and time. Hmmm.
I apologise if this video has been shown, I haven’t opened every link yet.
@Alejandro
“most telling of Fe and Fi behind that to me is the way she grinds her voice as she sings the word casually. And the way her voice flutters when she says cruel…there’s an almost uneasiness and dare I say sadness in there. This does seem indicative of Fi through Fe at least in some form.”
Yes! The vocal inflections.. She does this thing in most of her songs where she tries to embody what she’s talking about or to create a relevant vocal and sonic atmosphere.. Which is why most feeling oriented people find the St. Vincent album quite “grating” or “harsh”.. She’s giving us a taste of what it really feels like to live in today’s world.. A bit like how Blake uses different voices in different articles depending on which type or function he’s talking about..
“It seems controlled and calculated as you have said (not that Fe does not do this because it does…but the constant assertive tone is there). I for one do not know much about how the astrological signs impact how functions are shown. (I myself am an INFJ who can be very curt…perhaps this is because I am a Leo? )”
Hmm I guess Ni and Ti are quite assertive as functions in us.. I come across as more of an assertive thinker to most people at work cause there’s no place for Fe there.. But Fe will always show itself through small things like propriety and ensuring others do not feel uncomfortable due to the conversation.. And i’m not well versed with the impact of astrology on MBTI either, i’m just learning by reading astrology theory and trying to connect it to what Blake says.. But Leo could make you place more emphasis on Ni i guess.. That could make you more interested in your dominant function and your inner world and hence outwardly cerebral and relatively curt.. Annie does use Te well and along similar lines i thought it could be her Libra (Te) Sun.. And INFJs in general have the tendency to look like Thinkers.. Due to tertiary Ti.. In fact these lyrics of Cheerleader show the sometimes not so healthy Fe-Ti dynamic INFJs have :
“I’ve played dumb
When I knew better
Tried so hard
Just to be clever”
Joanna Newsom.. That song does have some of the most INFJ lyrics ever! Love it..
Lana Del Rey.. Haha well i asked that question cause it reminded me of someone else.. You said “Her entire motivation is to create this dreamy paradise and it’s so based on Hollywood in this way of funneling what seems to be Se through this glamorous nostalgic Si in order to create something that to her feels like Home.” This is exactly what i think of another actress who i think is either ESFJ or ISFJ but somes across as an SFP and is latter half Gemini 😛 I also have no idea why i enjoy her work and personality so much.. It’s pretty much everything i’m not and wouldn’t care to be.. But there’s something very attractively fragile and whole and warmly real about her.. And Lana Del Rey does seem to be a similarly interesting character..
And.. Oh my god! Finally a video where we can actually SEE Annie’s Fe.. Just the way her eyebrows are moving is so Fe.. And she keeps prodding the other woman on with reassuring um-hmmms and appropriately inserted reactions.. And the last part where she talks about how the fact that their music can heal people keeps her going.. That’s surely an Fe motivation.. Thank You 😀
@Piggie. I definitely see what you’re saying. Especially with the work part. There have been many people to whom I have shown absolutely no Fe on purpose to try to get them to walk away. Or in the case of many Fi doms who seem to think I am like them because I do demonstrate Fe and care for others, I will have a one on one with them where I completely forgo my Fe and show that I have absolutely no care for a standardized system of morals and be incredibly morbid and not upfront about why I treat people nicely. Then once I do this I’ll usually approach other people and dump a lot of Fe on them in a very sincere way in plain view of the person who I have just been very blunt with to try and get across that you can be kind without being rigidly moral like they are. I do this to hint at the point that showing compassion is one of the only things we have to latch onto, whether or not it is moral and that it really exists in a separate realm from that, since things are so fucked up and that it is one of the only concrete tools we have to make things slightly better for people. This has horrified quite a few of them (because they don’t see what I’m doing and view me as very inconsistent) and has caused them to walk, but at that point I just assume that they are so content and confident with their own morals and are acting in positive ways based on them that I have absolutely no business either pretending like I care about their morals or trying to dissuade them from accepting them full on and not leaving room for questioning, because I do realize there are people for whom that is EXTREMELY important.
The whole astrology thing is incredibly interesting and I like you am excited to learn more. What you say about Annie here makes perfect sense. Though I am young I will say that I have been a fairly introverted person (in terms of the functions) for a long time. It has only been within the past few years that I’ve really been able to wield my Fe to accomplish any goals or tasks. In fact, when I first took the mbti when I was about 15 I scored as an INTP, though I soon found this to be incredibly wrong. The growth of my extraverted side has put me much farther into that Je side than I could have ever conceived at that age. Perhaps this lower development of Fe as you suggest, could be a result of the Leo thing. Very interesting.
Back to Lana Del Rey. Yes she’s incredibly interesting. Very cool to hear your story about the SFJ actress. I much feel the same way about Lana Del Rey. Her whole focus on being comfortable and finding a home and on nostalgia is the polar opposite of what I usually explore in my own writing and music (let’s just say my views on nostalgia are pretty negative.) That said I’m pretty sure a show Fe function is being used here. While she could be an Ni dom who is satirizing all of this I don’t think she is because she seemed to be in it all to reach the comfortable place in Hollywood with a legacy.
And yup. Definitely Fe motivation there for Annie.
Last thing I’d like to say is that I think it would be really cool if we could contrast some different INFJs based on their astrology to see how that has impacted their art. Joanna Newsom, for example is a Capricorn Sun with Scorpio Moon. I see on one page that scorpio moon corresponds to Fi especially INFJs, perhaps this is why that function seems so present in all she does. Sufjan Stevens has a sun in Cancer, apparently this corresponds to Fe. Perhaps this is why he is so intent on connecting with the audience and really showing those insights of his in a clear and caring fashion. Check out his live performance of “Fourth of July”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=asCLMdrWuA0. If you go to 4:15 you will notice that the blue lights start finding their way into the crowd as he says “We’re all gonna die.” These lights at the concert touched everyone in the building as if to say “you will die too and it is okay.” To me this is very INFJ Fi to Fe, but in a way I could never imagine Annie or even Joanna Newsom really doing. Using Se to DELIBERATELY connect.
Anyway, this has been super fun Piggie! 🙂
@Alejandro
“I do this to hint at the point that showing compassion is one of the only things we have to latch onto, whether or not it is moral and that it really exists in a separate realm from that, since things are so fucked up and that it is one of the only concrete tools we have to make things slightly better for people. ”
I absolutely agree with this statement..
And i can relate to the Fi doms finding you inconsistent part.. That’s happened with me too.. In the trade off between subjective morality and the bigger picture we’d always choose the bigger picture.. That does not always make sense in their eyes, especially when it catches them off guard.. It probably appears rather shallow to them, even though it’s not shallow for a lack of feeling.. Hmm.. It’s kinda sad that we humans are built such that we can never really experience each other’s experience.. And it’s so much easier to hide than it is to explain..
I tend to indulge the introverted functions too.. Let them take me where they want to go, even when i know it’s unhealthy.. It takes a while to figure out that there are two levels of Fe.. The Default Fe, which is a bit of a pain in the ass and is so hard to turn off.. And the kick ass Fe, which makes things so much better, but is oh so hard to consciously turn on.. The cool part is that it can actually be controlled 🙂
I think you’re right about Lana Del Rey.. Even the way she looks.. It’s sexy, but that unattainable sophisticated sexy that you feel guilty about looking at with the wrong eyes.. I’ve come to associate that with Si.. I wonder what pisces moon Fi id feels like in ISFJs..
Also, the comparison thing is a really interesting idea.. It would make the whole MBTI-astrology dynamics so clear to see.. Same dish different garnish.. And the examples you gave already make so much sense! I see what you mean in the video.. This performance and a St. Vincent performance are miles apart in terms of aesthetic and intention.. Haha.. Absolutely fascinating stuff.. 😀
@Piggie. Sorry, just saw your comment!! I agree it is a sad thing that we can’t truly experience others experiences, though at least the process of interacting with them can be so liberating.
The two modes of Fe yes. This is such an important thing for all IXFJs to understand. I’ve tried to help my ISFJ friend (who is convinced she is INTJ) how to use that better Fe but she’s really imprisoned by the sucky Fe that was mentioned previously.
Lana Del Rey and the Si look. Yes it’s something painful inside there that is not intense but still heavy. That’s how I think I’d describe what I think you’re referencing.
About the comparisons. Yes the video comparison is so interesting especially because I think Annie and Sufjan use primarily Se to convey some Fe in these performances. Amazing how varied the uses of these two functions can be. And to think some write them off as shallow and meaningless…
I wanna be contrarian and say INFJ compared to the majority here. 😀
I just felt things were interestingly dissembled in more a Ti tertiary way than a Te aux way.
People saying they find her cold and scary and therefore INTJ seem to be off. I think INTJ have cold (seemingly mechanized for efficiency) outside and warm (or hot/simple idealisms) inside. INFJ are in contrast, often warm outside and eerie inside, but since she’s not necessarily wanting to project a lot of warmth, you will see the eerie twists more.
I think her music is very interesting, but a bit on the artsy experimental side, which is more “high-art”/academia thinking, making it more suited for INFJ mind than INTJ mind. Not that I don’t think INTJ don’t play with deconstruction of themes, but I think INTJs have a different flavour when it comes to that kind of thing.
That said, it will be okay if she’s INTJ. lol
Probably going to watch the videos again. Am I literally the only person here who thinks she is an INFJ? I can see how she could pass as an INTJ – her love of alien pop, lack of dynamic expressiveness, etc.
I watched the music videos first and then the interviews. My impression from the MVs was that she was an INFJ. Violence juxtaposed to beauty – I immediately thought Fi Scorpio id. I understand that the music sounds a bit grating. She’s a bit experimental…but I can’t say whether that is a distinguishing factor for being an INTJ. After all, she had formal training in music…If you really know the theory and history, and you want to be inventive and a little bit experimental (in THIS era), the result will probably be something that sounds a bit grating. It’s a bit of the “trend” nowadays – well, I mean the trend excluding pop and other earworms.
In the first minute of the first interview, she mentioned letting go of pleasing people. Maybe I didn’t hear this correctly but I think she even said that she really liked/depended on pleasing people in the past. I can’t imagine an INTJ EVER…I mean, EVER, saying something like that. INTJs don’t give a rat’s ass what other people think of them. Even little children. But maybe I’m wrong…Well in any case, my justification is that tertiary Fi makes INTJs rather self-assured in what they want to do. (sometimes a tad too much)
After she said that very first line, I made my conclusion immediately. I’ll probably go back and listen carefully to the other parts again.
She doesn’t show a lot of Fe aux but a lot of INFJs don’t really reveal it, no? One would have to see that through artistic media. She’s INTJish, but methinks she is not a real INTJ.
If at all, she is showing tertiary Ti in her interviews. People above claim that she seems too rigid, stiff, and detached to be an INFJ. I think otherwise.
INFJs can be calculating too – when they’re overusing Ti. She doesn’t want to say anything that will upset the apple cart or get her in trouble. She seems fabricated. Super self-conscious by not revealing a hint of herself. It must be Ni-Ti. That super-politeness.
She abandons self-censorship through music, which vents her Fi id.
Went back to the interviews. I take back that comment about people-pleasing – it was only in reference to her background and not really anything intrinsic to her. In any case, it’s hard to tell whether she’s INTJ or INFJ from the interviews alone, especially because of her lack of expressiveness.
Some people mentioned that she seemed a bit off-putting or scary. Ehh, I didn’t think so. She just seemed really guarded. Maybe my impressions are a bit colored with my previous judgment (that she’s an INFJ), but the rigidity mainly seems to come from fear/anxiety of how she may come across. That combined with a struggle to verbalize her thoughts. I’m comparing this to the interview of Judy in the other exercise. Judy, too, clearly struggled to put her ideas into words, but I felt something far more self-assured in her than I had felt in Annie’s interviews. I just had the impression she was hiding something…also that she was very sensitive. Something a little edgy about her. Like something will break very quickly and you should back the fuck off. I think it’s the way she says things. It’s slow and rather inflection-less but kind of intense. Each word is like a step. There’s an emphasis on each word, and before each word she’s thinking which one is best to use. That conveys to me, overuse of Ti.
But to me…I think I see some Fe aux. It’s surprising how so many people didn’t see it. It’s there but it’s VERY guarded: there’s a limited range of warmth and lots of movements with the hands. When the interviewers asked about the BRIT awards, she gives a very polite answer devoid of any true, personal opinion about who should win the award. She corrects herself for mentioning her win at the Grammy awards…IDK, these small things pointed to the Fe-Ti axis for me – but I admit the evidence is quite weak.
I think when she mentioned juxtaposing violence/off-putting things with beauty, it reminded me of Fi scorpio id rather than an INTJ thing. I can’t imagine INTJs doing anything like this. Yeah, they’d experiment, they’ll work with unfamiliar sounds and create something new…but I don’t think INTJs are disturbed with emotional daemons or anything like that. Alienation, loneliness, yes, but tortured with evil/darkness? Not really…They don’t have Fi id. I’m thinking about Kate Bush right now. I’m not totally familiar with her work, but it seems like she likes to play with themes of love and utilizes myths/stories as a backdrop for her work. Looks like Ni/Fi to me, but not of the poisonous nature of Fi in the id position.
On the other hand, Annie seems to like to explore very dark and disturbing themes and, in some ways, glorify them via beauty. In Cruel, she shows images of herself standing in the pit of her grave, and her family members slowly covering her with dirt. Slow demise. In Cheerleader, she mourns about her amorous(?) affiliations with bad boys and later in the video, she shows a picture of her fragile self, crashing to the floor, disintegrating. These are not nice images at all – in fact, dark, but the manner in which she conveys them seems detached. Which makes her INTJish but not a bona fide INTJ. Underneath the weird alien pop-ness, experimental composition, and detached facial expressions, is a confession of her darkest thoughts/emotions …I feel like the ideas and lyrics are a projection of the self.
“I’ve had good times
With some bad guys
I’ve told whole lies
With a half smile
Held your bare bones
With my clothes on
I’ve thrown rocks
That hit both my arms”
“I’ve told whole lies with a half smile” – sounds like a classic INFJ line. In fact the whole thing sounds so INFJish. “I’ve thrown rocks that hit both my arms” – only an INFJ can say that. Sounds like Fi id to me.
“I don’t wanna be a cheerleader no more
I don’t wanna be a dirt eater no more”
Again, sounds really INFJish. Deep inside, INFJs want freedom above all. They hide these intentions behind a very warm/savior-like exterior. The whole song seems to remind me of that INFJ Woman in Love article. I can’t imagine an INTJ crafting lyrics such as this. INTJs are complex because they are naturally built in such a way that they can’t be understood. They don’t go to lengths to hide behind a kind exterior. Why the trouble? Lamenting over the whole thing won’t even occur to an INTJ. They do what they want in auto-pilot mode.
Then I read the lyrics of “Marrow” and “Cruel.” I don’t want to make my post super-long but I get a sense of a lot of emotional intensity and honesty. Few words. Not a lot of descriptive detail, but a lot of honesty. Admission about how she truly feels about things, that otherwise shouldn’t be said in public. It seems to come from the self, first and foremost. That’s pretty INFJish to me.
I have no time to really think it over 🙁 agony. I won’t be free until Monday.
@Schlopadoo
I absolutely agree with all the things you’ve pointed out..
She uses her Fe only in her art.. A lot of people on here are finding her music harsh.. I think the harshness is just a mask.. The top most layer covering layer upon layer of inner truth.. Her lyrics are deliberately abstract and can be interpreted in multiple, completely sensible ways.. Almost like she’s daring someone to decode what she’s really trying to say and if you aren’t into decoding her, okay she says, just enjoy the damn music today’s technology can produce then.. Of course the abstraction is Ni at base.. But the pattern of abstraction is an INFJ pattern not INTJ.. That kind of lyrical beauty is usually the output of Fi id and Fe aux in an Ni context.. Te is less playful and more opinionated with words.. Not that it isn’t capable of producing beautiful poetry, but the style and the aim is slightly different.. I find INTJ poetry to be rather Gabrielesque.. INFJ poetry is kind of Luciferian.. It usually has a fallen angel duality to it.. INTJ poetry is more righteous, in my opinion..
Even in her work, the Fe isn’t used to connect with people as much as it is used to express her Fi id.. I think the Fi id is quite obvious in her guardedness.. INTJs using their Fi almost tend to be showing off their ability to feel.. They are proud of their feelings and they want to express the emotions they have within themselves.. And as long as the one or two people they really value understand it, they’re happy.. Annie does not want to show anyone anything, except through her art.. This guardedness usually arises when tertiary Ti gets overly protective about some sacrilegiously sacrosanct Ni-Fi inner reality being misinterpreted by others (because it is not confident about this Fi belief unlike a dom, aux or tert Fi user).. She doesn’t feel the need to share her inner world with most interviewers, cause she thinks they wouldn’t “get” her Fi.. This uncertainty is a mark of the id not the tertiary.. And it could also be that she uses her Fe to absorb rather than produce during one on one interactions.. There is such a thing as being too aware of how the other person is receiving the information we put out there, which INTJs are not.. She seems to be only too aware and is hence guarded, but only about those things which really matter to her.. Things like her working methods and future career plans are things she considers technical details and does not mind sharing such information, quite confidently, during interviews..
From her London interview, I would def say INTJ.
She is articulate. She is stiff. She doesn’t use her arms to express herself. She sat rigidly on the sofa the whole time. She was quick to answer, but perhaps it was rehearsed.
I think one can’t use the interviews. Perhaps all the questions and answers were given to her ahead of time and she could have memorized them. That would help an INFJ.
The music. There is hardly any expression on her facial muscles on the up close scenes. It is hard for an INFJ not to show constant facial expressiveness. Unless they are tired.
She is difficult to analyze because she has some INFJ in her: people pleasing, and music that is ‘out there’.
But everything else about her is so INTJ.
So I go with INTJ.
Yes ^ to Femmy. These are my identical thoughts. Exactly.
The only difference is that I thought her people pleasing statement was more of a Te description of expectation that she is aware of from her gender and west Texas culture. “It just is” seems to be the attitude. Fi awareness that that does not work for her and a personally driven decision to reject that for art. Maybe not, but the way I took it. No apology, no evidence of struggle in coming to terms with that. Not that an INFJ would verbalize all that, but it seems to me there would be at least some non-verbal evidence of this at least. I don’t see it.
I also see she has some INFJ in her. I can see that too. The two types can seem very alike. They are like twins of slightly different expression.
I am not astute enough to know what is the Super Ego or always recognize the tertiary expression bypassing the auxiliary. Those things still confound me.
Because Blake likes to confound and not give straight up examples of people because “what’s the fun in that?” It may be that she is indeed an INFJ. If he had left the whole exercise a fill in the blank of her type, I would have said INTJ from the get go though, so I’m going with that.
So I have a thing for intjs…. Like a total thing that gets me and I can’t explain. In all their expressionless which I agree about with you about (I find their faces to appear to be made of clay sometimes!) I see so much expression and soul. It is icy fire. Annie has amazing moments of facial expression. In her mouth and elsewhere. Her face is mostly like a vast lake (cool temperature lake, pristine) but you can see flashes of emotion intense in some oddly placed smiles, bizarre stares, and just signs of life. There is much sign of fertile life under that smooth skin. Her spirit is very active as is her imagination.
@lunar
“I think I get now about the Fi id. It’s the nakedness. Infjs sometimes are suddenly naked it’s like they just melt and forget to put up a guard and it looks like they are blushing (sometimes I think they literally blush and can make you blush yourself in their presence).”
Oh Yes you’re so right.. I know i do that.. My body physically reacts when i consciously express any Fi.. My ears turn bright red.. Sometimes, if its something that matters too much, my facial muscles begin to twitch and my tongue dares me to stop what i started but my heart beats super fast and keeps pushing me on, whispering “you need this”.. And more often than not, it’s around INFPs or ENFPs that the heart defeats the tongue.. That’s when i feel anchored.. A true sense of being understood or belonging.. ENTPs, in my opinion, make me by-pass Fi altogether.. That’s kind of nice too, cause it’s like floating..
Sorry wrong thread! That response was for the next thread 🙁
Yayy! I’m excited about this 😀
This is the interview which confirmed INFJ for me :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXbdUYShXWs
Especially minute 6 onwards..
If she’s INTJ, where is the Aux Te? Whatever Te i see is definitely not aux Te.. It’s the kind of Te INFJs use (superego) and should be using (Te Minimums)..
And she likes being probed by him.. This is probably one of the few “intimate” interviews of her where you can visibly sense her Fi id.. This is not a cold interview.. This is her being vulnerable and being uncertain about being vulnerable.. But she’s enjoying it because his questions are filled with authenticity.. He’s not just asking her these questions cause she’s a celebrity but because he really wants to know.. Also.. She tends to take too much time to answer his questions.. That’s more Tertiary Ti than Aux Te, wouldn’t you think?
And Blake! Minute 15:45 onwards.. Another example of the romantic appeal past ideals hold for Melancholics.. Your ideas hold so much weight 😀
Piggie,
This interview convinced me that you are right. INFJ presentation in the interview. She delighted in being probed, voiced her vulnerability, struggled with verbalizing her self awareness. I did not see that before. Nice! I and other INFJs I’ve spoken to are this way when receiving therapy. We struggle with the words of our own experience. The tears thing too when she happens on or creates something that resonates and says, “this must mean something to me.” Yep! Enneagram 4 w 5?
Piggie, wow this interview you posted is making me doubt intj. But I know some intjs can look like infj just like vice versa …. Meaning that intjs are not cold…. However in this interview I caught a glimpse of her allowing herself to be made vulnerable which is a different shade of vulnerability I associate more to infj than intj. However I will continue to entertain intj until a huge alarm goes off that she cannot be intj. Good find of a video Piggie.
@ Piggie
Oh my I am so close to changing my mind to infj. I am rewatching this video you posted. So much nakedness. I find that intjs almost never are this naked. It’s like if this were an intj, this Gian Gomechi guys has the magic touch with her…. which I suppose is possible. I think I get now about the Fi id. It’s the nakedness. Infjs sometimes are suddenly naked it’s like they just melt and forget to put up a guard and it looks like they are blushing (sometimes I think they literally blush and can make you blush yourself in their presence). I imagine an intj is less likely to do this. When intjs are accidentally naked, they are more touchy, and liable to sudden irritation. Not seeing that here.
Oh my…. it’s looking like infj. I officially switch to infj!!! And am pretty sure that it turns out she is intj…. I will never develop the ability to tell types apart. It is too subtle.
Wait! But I watched an another minute and she got mildly touchy/awkward!! Makes me swing back to intj That Gian Gomeshi is fishing for it though….. he’s like give up the goods to me.
Back to intj my original guess.
Done for now. Will be waiting in suspense.
Omg. This is a beautiful interview. If I’m not mistaken it’s a beautiful example of the INTJ-ENFP dynamic.
Sorry to disappoint but I watched all videos at least partially (actually just the music vids, I couldn’t pass up the interviews) and I always see INTJ. She clearly processes Fi when she breaks eye contact, also Fe in the auxiliary would look fuller, breaking free, whereas Annie Clark has even overreached her emotional comfort zone in that last video from Piggie and yet there’s still much more room for emotional expression.
Also Te aux. For me not easy to see either, but I think whenever I expected her to answer with Fe, she paused and explained with Te, weird to watch, but hey.
I just love to watch the kinda hidden Fi of INTJ’s and I think with ENFP’s they can just let it show more, explore and experience, just like I like to think INFJ’s would gain more confidence in their Ti when together with an ENTP.
Also when I compaire Clark to a possible INFJ songwriter and her songs (Vienna Teng, interesting lyrics too), I just can’t help but see the difference in emotional expression.
@leanne
Can you go more into the enfp intj dynamic? I agree that she seems uncomfortable but that this interviewer has like a magic touch with her:) he makes her feel human! He is endearing to her. He taps into her inner self. I don’t know enfp infj or enfp intj dynamics.
@lunar
About ENFP-INTJ I can say in more practical terms that an INTJ I’ve known has uttered that the ENFP seems to wish other people well in a very generous way and that she (the INTJ) likes that a lot. It sounds surprisingly like Fe worship, which is the ENFP id. Below I’m actually trying to make a different point *lol*.
Also ENFP’s are very good at putting other people at ease with their laid-back style and that’s obviously working miracles on INTJs (and INFJs). ENFP’s have a daring way of pushing boundaries, not afraid to go beyond the norm, but also sensitive enough to dance back into the circle of accepted territory when they are told to back off. A very effective skill to push IN_J’s as gentle as possible to open up more in my opinion. The ENFP will get more out of the IN_J than the IN_J would have thought is safe to reveal, also by alternating between asking very good questions (listening skills above average, despite interrupting people quite often) and putting half statements up for the IN_J either to accept or deny and from there explain their situation.
Both can actually be quite intrigued with each other’s ways in the beginning, only to discover later that the F/T divide has not only positive sides. If not familiar with the MBTI they won’t even know it at first, but they might find out that their attraction was based on F/T differences (at least in my theory), namely that the Te aux of the INTJ was interesting to the Te ter of the ENFP and vice versa the Fi aux of the ENFP was drawing in the Fi ter of the INTJ. So both people will flip-flop between their Loop states and their auxiliary expression, just because it is so interesting to see the effect they have on each other. The ENFP rejoices that the INTJ also has Fi and the INTJ loves to see the Te emerging. It’s like watching a man wearing high heels or a woman throwing a punch. Intriguing yet kinda wrong (at least in my mind). At the same time the ENFP is enchanted by the INTJ’s Te and the INTJ by the ENFP’s Fi. And that’s actually the problem I see here: both trying to become more like the other person, which leads to the deteriorating loop state. Yet at the same time they feel overwhelmed by the amount of the auxililary expression of the other person.
There might even more going on but I think that’s enough to confuse somebody. I call it the perfect love hate relationship, because it’s not easy to resist such a great pull on the tertiary as this dynamic has. INFP-ESFJ would be another such a dynamic, just with S/N this time but I’ve got no experience there.
Sorry for the repost.
In the end I see three states of function stack usage:
1. Both persons are exhausting themselves by flipflopping as much as possible between auxiliary and tertiary function. This will possibly happen in the beginning stages of their relationship.
2. One person goes into the loop while the other stays in the auxiliary. This happens as soon as the first person doesn’t want to stay in her exhausting tertiary anymore. Maybe both people run out of fuel at the same time, then both go to state 3.
3. Both persons are exhausting each other by expressing their auxiliary. This is when they actually need a break from each other, because Fi doesn’t understand Te or whatever functions might be involved.
@Leanne
Can you describe the dynamic between INTJ and INFJ just as you did with IN_J and ENFP?
@Tatum
I’m sorry, no. I haven’t studied it, so I can’t give my confident description of it. EN_P – IN_J is just my thing.
@Rita
“I and other INFJs I’ve spoken to are this way when receiving therapy. We struggle with the words of our own experience. ”
Exactly! That’s what confirmed Fi id over Fi tertiary.. Fi id is so much harder to express because it doesn’t make sense internally.. The emotion makes complete sense, but the motivation or the idea behind the emotion is so blurry and undefined.. It takes so much effort just to be able to put those feelings into words that can faithfully convey the meaning accurately and appropriately..
What people don’t understand about Fe is that its a great tool for expression as long as the topic of conversation is universal or is at least pertaining to something external.. That’s why it works wonders for a performer.. Because performances are meant to put something out there for universal consumption, while leaving the interpretation open to the perceiver.. One on one conversations do not allow that gap.. They demand authentic expression and provide feedback in the form of valid or invalid interpretation.. Which for an INFJ becomes complicated, because immediately following the confession of one’s inner truth, Fe picks up on the interpretation and checks back in with Fi, which always overreacts to misinterpretation and while it’s being a drama queen, it gets pushed into the background and Fe and Ti take centerstage as they get into a tussle.. Fe tries to defend universal interests, while Ti tries to defend Ni and Fi, because obviously, they represent the inner truth and Ti always stands for the truth.. They then decide to call a truce and Ti starts nursing Fi, while Fe turns the spotlight away from Fi and turns it onto less problematic things, like someone else or something which doesn’t really mean anything.. After going through this process a few times, Fe automatically checks in with Ti before exposing Fi.. And when Ti thinks Fi is not capable of handling this situation, it puts Fe in lockdown.. Which is what leads to the hesitation, clarification, justification and sometimes just long periods of silence as we can see in this video.. But here her Ti isn’t completely stopping her because her Fi id likes this interviewer and it wants to make an effort to define itself..
Another thing which kind of showed her Fe-Ti axis was the way she spoke about the Marilyn Monroe inspired song.. She showed a clear understanding of what motivated Marilyn to make that entry in her diary.. At the same time, she kept prefacing her explanation to clarify the context.. So that people understood exactly what it was about.. That’s Fe-Ti for those who don’t see Fe in her..
And she said her fatal flaw is “hubris”.. I mean come on.. I doubt an INTJ would say that.. They wouldn’t believe they are excessively proud.. They would believe they just make more sense than others..
“Enneagram 4 w 5?”
Yes, surely seems to prioritize the development of her individuality and her search for subjective meaning contrary to the investigative search for objective meaning of a 5 w 4.. She also started the interview by talking about the Year of the Tiger.. I would find it easier to believe that a 4 w 5 said that than a 5 w 4.. I’m assuming she can be only one of those two enneagram types..
@leanne
“Also ENFP’s are very good at putting other people at ease with their laid-back style and that’s obviously working miracles on INTJs (and INFJs). ENFP’s have a daring way of pushing boundaries, not afraid to go beyond the norm, but also sensitive enough to dance back into the circle of accepted territory when they are told to back off. A very effective skill to push IN_J’s as gentle as possible to open up more in my opinion. The ENFP will get more out of the IN_J than the IN_J would have thought is safe to reveal, also by alternating between asking very good questions (listening skills above average, despite interrupting people quite often) and putting half statements up for the IN_J either to accept or deny and from there explain their situation.”
That’s very accurate.. I have an ENFP sister and an INTJ father.. Needless to say, he is way more comfortable talking to her than he is talking to me.. And that holds good for me too.. ENFPs are wonderful companions (not just of the romantic type) for IN_Js.. She gets him to talk about things i would never dare to talk to him about.. And she gets me to talk about things i would never burden others with.. I think ENFPs do a great job at making others feel like they’re genuinely interested in knowing them.. That’s probably because they actually are interested, in the moment.. Their Ne loves all these inputs.. Fe id makes them warmer and Fi aux makes them more genuine, on the surface, than ENTPs with Fe tert.. ENTPs just cannot exercise Fe the right way to ever make an INFJ open up.. But they make it easy to forget that there was something we needed to open up about..
@Piggie
Yeah, as an INFJ I can say that ENTP’s hardly pick up on subtle, deliberatly placed Fe cues, so communication is cut off on that level and INFJs know they can’t communicate properly without Fe in the mix. Since Ne to INFJ’s is like a beacon though, they often will engage their Ti to compensate for that communication hole, sacrificing their Fe/Fi really, which is always sad to watch. I think if INFJs would recognise their greediness for Ne, they could realise that NeTi just doesn’t cut it for them and could resort to enjoying it in small, digestable dosages. That kinda goes together with engaging the auxiliary more. I’d even go as far and say the ENFP’s functions encourage your auxiliary Fe to come out and play, while the ENTP’s have the ultimative loop encouraging function stack. Which would explain why the ENTP looks more intriguing than the ENFP but also why the ENFP is so much more rewarding to interact with for the INFJ in the long run. But that’s just my opinion.
@Piggie
A lovely, succinct description of the Fe-Ti-Fi merry-go-round there. Also of ENFP/ENTP-IN_J dynamics. Thank you.
Thank you, Stuart 🙂
@leanne
Oh yes i agree.. It’s the Ne-Ti combo of the ENTPs which is so fascinating.. I find i can listen to them speak forever because they make very keen observations and have a beautiful way with words.. Eloquently irreverent.. And theirs is a darker, more subversive humour than that of ENFPs because of Ti, which suits INFJs just fine.. But this is usually only with famous ENTP personalities like comedians or writers, where there is safe distance.. Those in real life, like you correctly pointed out, tend to reject Fe (if it threatens their tertiary Fe) and make me highly conscious of my tertiary Ti.. And if they happen to be looping, i find the Ne-Fe loop quite off-putting.. Maybe an INFJ can have a good relationship with an ENTP who is older though? The older they get the easier it is for an INFJ to feel comfortable around them.. ENTPs take quite some time to grow up in a sense..
ENFPs and even INFPs are surely way more emotionally rewarding because they share the same romantic idealism.. Hanging out with either of these types is the easiest way for an INFJ to loosen up..
I just wanted to inform you that I’ve seen your comment, but it has inspired some thoughts that I first need to think about more before I can write anything. Also I’m feeling sorry for a while for spamming the comments with other ideas and am trying to bring it to an end.
@piggie
I saw your comments about nfps being emotionally rewarding. I don’t think that is the case with infps. We are not emotionally rewarding. We cannot express what we feel and seem cold. Since we are not it makes us feel suffocated and miserable. We cannot breathe. We cannot be heard. We see and are unseen. This has negative consequences where we mostly are seen only when we erupt and it’s not pretty or emotionally rewarding for anyone. Enfp is a better bet for you.
@leanne
Looking forward to what you have to say 🙂
I think i said the older ENTP thing because i feel like with age they get drawn to Fe Si and that gives them an FJish flavour, in spite of themselves.. I’m saying this with no personal experience with older ENTPs.. All the ENTPs that i know are close to my age (in their mid 20s).. It’s just the famous ones.. Whose lives are already laid out in front of you as a gradient coloured by the modulated expression of function stack preferences..
@lunar
Oh my how you INFPs underestimate yourselves 😛
As an INFJ i see through the seeming coldness.. You are not unseen or unheard.. I do feel it is suffocating for the INFP to not be able to express themselves.. But they sort of don’t realise that they don’t need to because it has already been understood.. INFJs just do not put in the effort to let them know that they know.. This is equal amounts shame and fear of vulnerability as it is a sort of darker emotional ruthlessness in the INFJ.. I know i’ve hurt some INFPs very deeply because of this tendency to be unsure about whether i’m capable of giving them the sort of eternal affection they desire and deserve.. But i also love them for what they have given me in the form of freedom to express my Fi id.. I think an INFP allows this and makes an INFJ feel loved for it more than any other type (ENFPs allow more of Fe).. But it is also intimidating and confusing and scary for an INFP because they are always unsure about what the INFJ really thinks or feels about them.. In the end, it is more emotionally rewarding for the INFJ but not so much for the INFP i think.. Which is sad..
Hey lunar,
I’m an INFP too and I always read all the comments here and literally everything you say about being an INFP resonates with me so much, you’re really good at putting these things into words that I never could. A lot of the time when I do manage to put difficult things into words it comes out in a harsh Te way and I hate it :/ But I think some people do see us. I get the feeling that some people see something in me but they’re not sure what it is, but it makes them feel comfortable? Everyone always says I’m “chill” and calm but I don’t feel that way inside at all. I don’t know. I had an issue with an ESFP friend, of course she takes everything at face value and she pretty much thought I was emotionally dead, and she was always dumping her intense emotions and psychic energy onto me for that reason, until one day everything just erupted out from me as you say, and she was pretty much scared of me from then on. :/ I just wish I could learn how to express myself properly.
I think INFP’s are emotionally rewarding because we tend to validate people completely, I think that’s what it is, and we seek the same in return but don’t always get it.
@Piggie
Everything you said is kind of why I think it would be easier for an infj to be with a type other than infp overall. Like what you said infps struggle to feel content with others (=high maintenance, egg shell feeling). I feel like we are so much like those intj cats in the feeling of being cut off, but we are not like cats because we’re not even independent.
…. Infjs are pretty deep thinkers and so if they are going to have a tricky icky emotional business and not have those deeper conversations about all types of subjects, that will be undermining to them in a way. They will have to give too much to the infp and get less in return in terms of generous emotional stuff + intellectual delight.
@Piggie
Uh oh, just don’t expect too much from me here. I basically became very touchy about ENTPs because I suddenly saw another reason as to why they’re so addictive to me and why that’s just wrong in the long run for me. So I basically saved myself from posting in an overemotional state (being angry at myself), which usually means that I desperatly try to twist my angry ranting/preaching (to myself basically) into something less hurtful without actually believing that it worked because twisting isn’t the same as changing. So I just gave myself a break.
And yes, I know an older (retired) ENTP but also one my age and a young one, the latter two not too well though. Besides that I went hunting online for more ENTP impressions. I’m in my late twenties btw. 😉
Agreed, EN_Ps need some time to grow up but IN_Js do too, just in a different way. I’d even say that on a superficial level, people with an S preference seem to be grown up much sooner than Ns.
So yeah, ENTPs do get better with FJ stuff, but also with their NeTi process, and that means their gonna be even more interested in discussions and inventions, much unlike the INFJs with their psychologic approach in life. They just don’t find together in my mind without making too big lifestyle sacrifices. So I have this theory that mature ENTPs and INFJs recognise with much more clarity how little they have in common after all, without rejecting the part of their relationship that does connect so beautifully. They basically can see that there’s still too much difference – if not more – in their preferences to allow for an as close relationship as they desire.
Piggie, while answering your post I actually realised how much I loved to have my thoughts translated into words by ENTPs. I suddenly saw how dependent that made me on their brains and how trapped and slowed down I become through that fact – that I’m too lazy to think for myself. I don’t know how other INFJs see this, but for me this is part of the INFJ-ENTP dynamic, the thought translation that is, not the dependence on it. Another reason to begin with morning pages.
Oh the dark humour. I like it, but I also like the lighter one of ENFPs, creates a balance I prefer… learning from each other to look at optimistic and pessimistic viewpoints more realisticly, if that makes sense…
So yes, NFPs make me feel alive like no other type. Highly alert and relaxed at the same time, it’s thrilling and soothing at once :). It can get tricky with INFPs though, Lunar is right about that. When INFJs want someone to communicate with, I__Ps can be frustratingly quiet at times. Not their fault, just their nature. So ENFPs fit INFJs a lot better in my experience. Yes, INFJs see the Fi in INFPs, very much so, but ENFJs are much better at actually showing the appreciation for it; I just realised. In general I think that INFPs and INFJs are a bit of enigmas to each other, more than they probably realise.
@leanne
“So yeah, ENTPs do get better with FJ stuff, but also with their NeTi process, and that means their gonna be even more interested in discussions and inventions, much unlike the INFJs with their psychologic approach in life. ”
Yes i hadn’t thought about that.. I guess it might be nicer to just admire them from a distance.. And i know what you mean by them being able to translate your thoughts into words.. This is precisely why i like them so much when i don’t personally know them and also precisely why i don’t like them so much when they’re physically around me when i’m not feeling too stable (it demolishes my confidence).. The exception being a close ENTP girl friend i get along with splendidly.. Our conversations always recharge my batteries.. It’s the men that are tricky.. Maybe cause they are more NTish than the girls..
Haha yes i see the IxFP lack of communication problem.. It sometimes leads to avoidable cold wars.. Not so healthy for them especially.. Ah i’ve always avoided relationships because i know i’ll get hurt and hurt the other person.. But the one person i was almost kinda sorta in a relationship with was an ENFP guy.. So yeah i like them quite a lot 😛
And it’s cool how Annie Clark’s girlfriend Cara Delevingne is also an ENFP (i think)..
@Piggie
Yeah there is definitively this tricky difference in compability between male and female NTs with INFJs. I’m actually curious what it’s like to know an ENTP girl, I know all the other NT types in male and female form in person I think. I’d say that despite type females are still better listeners and emotionally and socially capable than men, even if it’s in an emotionally more passive form like in NTs.
*grinning* ENFPs have been the only guys I’ve ever had any honest, stable interest in, even before MBTI invaded my life, it’s an uncanny communication on all levels. I’ve actually discovered that ENFPs act like a catalysator, a muse, for my writing and creative processes, just thinking about them is very inspiring. Fe id role model influence maybe? 😛
I only knew Cara Delevingne’s face until now. I watched some videos and yes, ENFP seems to be the only fit. So yay for knowing about another INFJ-ENFP dynamic.
@leanne
Yeah my ENTP girl friend has got a good hold over her Fe.. I mean, intense feelings are weird for her and extremely emo people or situations make her feel a little lost.. But she’s warm and inviting and asks many questions.. We have this tendency to say the same things at the same time.. Like reaching the same destination, but i always take my favourite short cut and she goes traipsing around the whole world (at a very fast pace) before she gets there.. And we have similar definitions of the meanings of things.. The difference lies in the fact that she’s better equipped to handle reality than i am.. She might not believe in certain things but that doesn’t stop her from being extremely good at them, without trying, and letting the world see she’s got what it takes..
And Fe id role model influence.. That’s interesting.. Hmm yeah now that i think about it.. It was my ENFP that taught me so much.. My interest in classical literature, philosophy, jazz and even cruiser motorbikes, all developed under his influence.. I might have found my way to all that eventually, even if we hadn’t met.. But he accelerated the process and he just had this way of showing me the brighter side of things and making me feel like i was seen.. I’m grateful for that.. Haha.. Thanks.. This conversation made me smile 🙂
@Piggie
Yep, that sounds like a nice INFJ-ENTP interaction right there, thanks for sharing your experience.
Awww, how very ENFP-ish. >^____^<
Thank you too. *smiling*
And here is some of her mellow-er music from earlier times..
These two have delicious word play and a very laid back sort of lushness which feels like Fi being Fe-ed..
https://youtu.be/tKvYjzWh-Zo
https://youtu.be/F9L3D1w8KcY
And this one sounds very INFJ to me..
https://youtu.be/7uTAk58YJXI
What do i share?
What do i keep?
From all the strangers who sleep where i sleep..
Paint the black hole blacker..
These songs. Yes, so much better. I could listen to them entirely unlike the other ones. The lyrics, oh yes! Perfectly melancholy type experience illustrated there. Human Racing – wow! Word play was delicious. Lots of NiFe in that tune.
Piggie,
Thank you.
She wants to make creepy dark music and she is successful at making the viewers see this cold dark side of her music so I think she is an INFJ, Fe is a magical function she can be whatever she wants to be , well I could be wrong I don’t really understand how functions work differently in different positions 🙂
I don’t have time to really look at her stuff much or read all of your comments 🙁
Yes the Ni is evident. Her talk is all about her worldview and her journey.
First guess would be intj. She calls herself a musician’s musician. She seems to be a good example of what Blake calls the visitor. Visitor among musicians and Visitor period. Her videos show a lot of twisted sense of what you can’t really even call humor. It’s all so very odd and removed.
When she speaks you get mostly an NT vibe more than NF idealist. A master of her craft is speaking. Excellence. Intellect. Product.
She is so weird and cool.
I really like her.
It just occurred to me that perhaps the grating quality that her music has for me is because she is not an INTJ, but striving towards INTJesqueness. I love Kate Bush and the Talking Heads both. I don’t know that David Byrne is an INTJ at all because I know nothing about him personally, but the production of the art and sound does seem INTJish. I don’t know. I like Annie Clark and really hate her music so far. Maybe it is just an acquired taste that I need to spend more time with, but ouch! It kind of hurts in not a good way.
For whatever reason, I love her music:) I love how weird it is. And I like the grating sound. … And it’s definitely somewhat hideous, but her visuals are beautiful, maybe she gets help with those. Ok… so you know in the video digital witness…. she says “ya” every now in the most demented tone:) It reminds me of this twisted sense of humor some people have that allows them to watch a Hitchcock movie scary moment and just burst out laughing at like age 5. It’s this detached lunacy. I love it. I have no idea if an infj is ever like that but I know some intjs that are like that. So inappropriate lol. I think I’ve known enfjs like that too.
Just hilarious dark humor.
Lunar,
Okay, I agree with you and was being dramatic in my last post about the effect her music has on me. Her visuals are beautiful, she is beautiful and fascinating. The music I do not like although I truly appreciate her innovation and artistry. I don’t FEEL much of anything from it though, other than annoyance and desire to get away. It is probably only an aesthetics taste thing for me and not much of anything deeper.
This one is the exception I’ve found: https://youtu.be/5ouaUDpzM1s
I have not really listened to or examined the lyrics of this song, as I’m just now paying much attention to this artist, but rather just the sound and feel so far. I feel something here. It is harmonic with enough dissonance to get to me and make me stay in there with her.
Like most people who’ve commented, I think INTJ, though both Alejandro and Piggie make a convincing case! Regardless of her type, the musical aesthetic itself definitely has an overt INTJ type of vibe- like, an obviously creepy, synthetic, inorganic quality, as a number of comments have pointed out. Very sonically mechanistic and minimalist: all the hammering repetition and overall angular and often staccato character. Kind of like sonic color-blocking, i.e., the juxtaposition of discrete elements. The song Cheerleader is obviously more fluid and lush (I agree with Piggie that there’s a lushness to her style, especially visually, even if it’s orderly and controlled), but still quite monochrome and discombobulated, with uninflected vocals, etc. And it has that alienating, machine-like, broken vinyl record staccato thing again with the “I-I-I.” That actually seems to be a bit of a style signature with her, both visually and sonically- being stuck in a freeze-frame, or on a musical note, with the attendant connotations of a malfunctioning machine. So sound-wise, I would sooner convert the aesthetic itself to T (so Ti id & Te aux) than F (Fi id via Fe aux). It doesn’t have the flowing, tumbling quality to the melody that I would imagine Fe aux would confer, or a weighty, melancholic, melodic dimension that I could see being the musical equivalent of Fi id, if the functions were to be literally translated into music.
On the other hand, Piggie makes a compelling case for INFJ on the basis of the lyrics to the songs she cited in her comment. Plus, someone indicated that St. Vincent has a Libra sun and Aquarius moon. Maybe that would suffice to make an INFJ convincing in consistently presenting through her art and stage presence as very cold and dry and airy and alien-esque. Plus, an aesthetic style can be cultivated and refined, both by artists themselves and teams of genre savvy producers. And her aesthetic does seem highly stylized and in her control, maybe too much to indicate Ti id, if the id is an involuntary and unharnessable function. On the other hand, maybe successful art manages to encapsulate through an aesthetic the deeper and more ‘regressive’ aspects of one’s nature.
However, in live performances, she seems very forceful and all-business in her demeanor, like she comes out and goes unwaveringly and matter-of-factly into full-on performance mode. Even in one clip where she wades into the audience and is completely surrounded by fans, she seems to hold her ground by maintaining this very cold, dry, unflinching stance, which seems more Te than Fe aux. Unless there’s no expression from the auxiliary and that’s what Ni-Ti looks like. But it seems more active than passive, so I’d guess Tex aux, and INTJ over INFJ. On the other hand, in these typing challenges I consistently am wrong :), so there’s a case for INFJ right there. But I guess I’d go with INTJ.
“On the other hand, in these typing challenges I consistently am wrong :)”
Lol isn’t that funny. Because everything you say is deeply observant. I noticed this happens to many of us here. Our comments all contain observant nuggets, we definitely get people in many ways, but then the analysis is elusive:) and we don’t settle on the right answer. It’s tricky stuff!!!!!
@ lunar:
Yes, exactly!- it’s definitely it’s the analysis that’s so tricky- knowing how to interpret what you’re seeing in terms of the functions and the MB types. And the longer and harder I try, and the more I read others’ comments, the more I find myself persuaded by an ever-ballooning number of competing interpretations. Ahh! Very tricky and slightly maddening. But great fun 🙂
Definitely not INFJ. Does not have Fe (compassionate) eyes.
Her bio does not mention anything about being involved in technical or scientific pursuits?
Ni-doms (Tesla, Newton, etc?) have a propensity for academic stuff, reportedly having quite high GPAs. She doesn’t seem to have done anything in regards to Te-related stuff like economics, mathematics, physics etc. She pursued arts career.
So, perhaps she’s not high in T but F therefore, Why not INFP?
What would you say her enneagram type could be?
And what’s her girlfriend’s type? ISTP? Could there be any clues in that?
@ Piggie
I found the video you posted very interesting. She shows vulnerability there. She is uncomfortable too and kind of recedes. Look at her body posture.
Can you explain more why you think you see Fi id versus say just plain Fi? I thought I was just seeing Fi. I thought that Fi id is more kind of “under cover” and kind of “wilder” really moving and (to an INFP) frightful. But perhaps you are aware of the Fi id in some other and more visible way. I mean I agree with you there is an undeniable poignancy there. I think the intjs that look like infjs and the infjs that look like intjs are some of the most fascinating people in existence:)
@lunar
The difference lies in not being able to “articulate” the quality of the emotion (the problem faced by those who use “normal” Fi) and not being able to “identify” the quality of the emotion (Fi id)..
Fi by itself does not seek external validation.. Fi by itself, i think, only ever seeks to clarify, not justify.. Fi is structured.. It may not be rational, but it is coupled with awareness.. A strong sense of identity..
Fi id is uncertainty and duality.. Fi id is in between and oscillatory.. It knows it’s mind but can’t make up its mind.. It has an intense awareness of identity but doesn’t know what this identity is.. It is a sensitive fuzzy mess, which looks to Fe for validation, and when that fails, looks to Ti for justification.. It allows itself to be shape-shifted by these two functions.. And then feels like shit because, it has utter belief in itself and wishes to break free.. It knows it is deeper and stronger than either of these functions.. If only it knew what it really means, it wouldn’t need those two crutches..
In the interview i saw uncertainty.. The hesitation was not her checking in with structured Fi to find the right words.. It looked like Fi id being structured by Ti.. Because, also visible was – shame (not irritation), due to an intense awareness (through Fe) of the possibility of incorrect perception by an audience (Ti cares about such shit).. And i knew all too well what it feels like.. Been there a thousand times.. That’s not a free Fi id.. But she’s still putting in the effort to express it, only because the interviewer is encouraging.. That is, he’s triggering positive Fe feedback..
Fi id breaks free when it doesn’t ask Fe for validation and instead of Ti, allows Fe to give it structure.. Fe used as an outlet, not an inlet.. This is what i see in Annie’s lyrics, along with tonnes of Ni and Ti..
Everything in your middle paragraph has me nodding my head and smiling! That’s it exactly. Perfectly put, Piggie.
@ Piggie,
Oops, I meant 3rd paragraph. I liked it all, but that paragraph in particular resonated with what I thought I observed and recognized.
@Rita
Yes, it’s an INFJ experience 🙂
Comparing Annie Clark’s music videos and live performances to Kate Bush in 1979 seems a markedly different experience. One feels disgusting like entrails on the floor and rolled over by a freight train and the other feels pure. I admire both women for their artistry, but only one of the artists leaves a refreshing impression behind (for me any way). Hardly a way to decide on type, but music is one thing that makes me access my own feelings like few other things can, so I use that as a guide.
Here is Kate Bush bringing her alien song to earth. Her humanity accessed through a veil. It is clean, ghostly, and gorgeous. That is the impression that she leaves on me anyway.
https://youtu.be/8qeUVmvvEaY
Everything about her seems crafted to point to an INTJ… yet I don’t think she is. I read somewhere that she was hugely influenced by Kate Bush, and that could be the reason for the vibe of her productions. (Although I am not deeply familiar with either of their music…)
She is very aware of how she would be viewed, as she adds immediately after the Grammy mention that she didn’t mean for it to sound like a plug. She describes herself as a feral maniac on stage, and I have a hard time imagining an INTJ being that way, or describing themselves as that.
Some of her lyrics have emotional layers depicting depict people feeling trapped having to ‘play a role’… isn’t that Fi Id?
In short, I’m going with INFJ. Curious to see your response post!!
I looked up another interview (coachella).. and revisited your INTJ vs INFJ article…
She doesn’t really have a biting manner of speaking.. while I wouldn’t call her evasive, she doesn’t Always answer the question (like the Grammy comment wasn’t exactly what the interviewer asked and he had to pull her back to the point)… her vibe on the coachella interview is quite casual (though the interview is so awkward).
her overall mysterious demeanor seems intentional
The lights in her eyes are directed inwards, which suggests FI, so INTJ. I detect control as a theme in her work, which seems more INTJ than INFJ. I like her very much, perhaps a little like Alison Goldfrapp but without her seductiveness. Perhaps INTJs actually feel more alien than INFJs who can’t help but feel connected to others through FE? And there is something of a female Norman Bates about her. When she ran out of money in New York, if she’d been INFJ she would have got some kind of people oriented job in a trice in order to be able to stay in such a vibrant city with such a golden opportunity to meet interesting people. I rest my case.
I saw that Blake encouraged us to use the functions. Am gonna give it a go:
1) Te auxiliary . She presents excellence. Explains her career path. Speaks clearly. Presents facts. Almost presents far too simply. That could be Te efficiency.
2) Fi is not in the id I don’t now think so. I think the Fi of that Gomechi (spelling?) interview is because he probed for it. She seems uncomfortable and touchy when pushed further. Intjs do that I don’t know what functions account for that. But she is DRAWN to Fi or something else in him.
3) Fe. Where is it?
4) TI. Well at times she seems to get complicated. She might use this sometimes. I think she uses it more than Fe for example.
One more thing. She gets that pained look I have seen on intjs before that can almost make them look neurotic when it goes overboard (remember Judy Davis?). Well she gets a super super minor version of this. Just rewatch and look for a micro flashes of pain. That pain is kind of like they know something inside but they don’t even have Fe to care enough to work it explain to others. Easiest to see when they feel like they cannot come on smooth, be normal, or when the feelings are being discussed.
Lunar,
I agree with Fe “where is it?” She seems to use this minimally with mere politeness and adhering to social graces when conversing with others. Any type can do this, so what now? Hhhhmmmm…. Notice that a few times during the interview that Piggie posted it sounded like she was about to do that Fe thing and begin to question the interviewer to make it relatable or to draw him in and collaborate about her experience utilizing input from him, but only to immediately shut that down and then turn to Ti. She did display some Fe when she commented to the interviewer with what seemed a genuine and spontaneous smile that “people would pay him money for this: (or something close to that). She often deliberated to find the meaning and correct word to describe her feelings and process in order to answer the questions, which seemed to intrigue her as well as make her uncomfortable. Lots of soft “ummms” and pauses, which looks pretty INFJ. There are other times in some of the interviews where I see a lot of Te. She seems to have a love of structure and technology.
She has aspects that for me that could make her go either way. My overall knee jerk response is INTJ, but INFJ who turned down her Fe purposely in order to perfect her craft and art in the way she does could indeed be possible.
We shall see. I’ve committed to INFJ who only appears to be INTJ. I’ll be interested in the outcome either way and how Blake formulates his conclusion about her.
@Rita
Yes to those Fe “starts”. And to that comment to him that people could pay him. In the case of saying that people could pay him it worked well to also give her time with something uncomfortable. I didn’t find that the interviewer was being so psychological though. Her saying that made me think she is definitely more an intellectual than a psychologist? Kind of a deflection from her own feelings?
So in any case it shows a certain reserve and intellectual bent.
Anyhow I won’t be surprised if I end up wrong as far as the letters go lol:) I’ll be disappointed a weee bit that I can never guess right but the enlightenment will be much sweeter:)
I just want to try to go once with what I do see than what I don’t see. For ex, I don’t see that much Easy Fe so I am going to try to accept That rather than look for bypassed Fe. Also I see Fi I think so I will try to not think of it as hidden Fi which to me Fi id is more hidden when I suddenly become aware of it in an infj. The times I have become aware of Fi “id” or what I interpret Blakes definition to be I was physically present and/or intimately involved at least. Not confident enough to seize on if introverted id from short interview although I did note a naked moment that could be the id???
It is maddening that most comments peeps have posted here it’s like yes! And yes! Everyone is making sense but the decoding into functions is almost like a separate skill.
What I mean is every intj explanation made as much sense as every infj explanation. That is so maddening!
Lunar,
The interviewer wasn’t being so “psychological” in a deconstructionist cold kind of way. He was gently asking her to share her internal emotional process. He asked her how she “feels” and it was apparent he was asking for her individual internal emotional experience and motivations. These are uncomfortable questions for Fe people. It is hard to articulate and illustrate properly the individual internal emotional landscape. To you, it may have seemed as natural as breathing to ask questions like this or even to answer them with ease.
@ Rita
Yeah it’s possible an infj would react that way to the probing. I can see it.
After seeing her live shows, I’d go with INFJ, but she’s very tricky.
I’m quite sure Blake will say INTJ, because he’s searching for the “continuum”, and I think he’ll say that Annie Clark and Judy Davies are in the same continuum.
Annie’s poetry is heavy and overall irritating. So is her music. But on stage, she’s different. I can totally forget the bullshit she’s singing, because she fakes to be on a fiery madness. I don’t think INTJs have that vibe. Maybe ISFPs, but I agree she is Ni-dom, with a pretty developed Se.
So that leaves me with INFJ. I confess it’s hard for me to accept that she’s one of my type, but I’ve met INFJ chicks that are similar with her: there’s some dark feminine vortex on her that makes me go nuts. It’s like an aching desire to punch her teeth until she bloody melts in my arms, and then make love to her.
On the other hand, the one INTJ chick I’ve ever known is quite different from her, and also way cooler. No desire to punch her at all. Maybe a hug.
Lucas,
Are you flirting with the lovely young INFJ women here?
????
Oops, emoticons don’t work here. 😉
What could be better than flirting with INFJ ladies through writing? It feels like flirting with myself and caressing someone’s cheeks at the same time. And your cheeky question is way more flirtatious than my innocent metaphor, lovely Rita 😉
But deep down I feel that way towards myself: the desire to endure a harsh involuntary situation and also the gentleness and sweetness. Anything that could break perfection with eye-contact violence and still remain perfect.
I’d love to hear Blake’s opinion about Thee Silver Mt. Zion (I’d recommend the album “Horses in the Sky”), specially Efrim Menuck, who writes most of the poetry. It’s beautiful INFJ music, in my opinion.
Lucas,
No. I am not a young woman, so excluded myself. I was being cheeky. I was alluding to the fucked up part of ourselves who strangely find such images attractive. That very thing you describe here. I meant to light heartedly reveal the truth behind it. Leave it to us to beat even a sarcastic jest to death. Lol!
Lucas,
I am going to look into the music you mentioned. I always appreciate new music (to me) suggestions. Although the suggestion was meant for Blake, I am interested in this.
@piggie
If that nakedness is an Fi id thing, well then she is probably infj. I believe it. She is totally naked in the middle of that interview and “blushing”.
Before we even begin to debate which type St Vincent is, I think it’s important to establish that she has both a Libra Sun and, more significantly, an Aquarius moon. Both of these
Continue… 🙂 I don’t know what any of those imply:)
Both of these placements (Libra Sun, Aquarius Moon) mimic the the aux. Te and Ti id, respectively, of INTJs. With such a strong emphasis on air in such critical placements, if she were an INTJ, one would expect such an impression to be undeniably clear. Instead, there is an obscurant, muddling quality in her expression that makes it difficult to distinguish her as a feeling or thinking type. I propose that this is because Annie Clark is a particularly detached, INTJish INFJ stemming especially from the frigid effects of an Aquarius moon, which will have a particularly marked effect on a female artist.
I haven’t watched the videos posted here, but I’ve followed St. Vincent closely for 5 years and viewed several interviews. Her manner is often cool and somewhat matter-of-fact with sharp dry wit, as one might expect of an INTJ, but the key is the content. She is almost always talking about her feelings, her struggles with identity & authenticity (masks, acting, and role-playing are constant themes in her interviews and art), and the emotional context surrounding the creation of her latest project. Contrast this with an INTJ like Kate Bush, who in interviews is very business-like and almost never discusses the deeply personal circumstances behind a record. In fact, though Bush’s music often sounds affectedly emotional, the subjects she explores are rarely personal. They are usually one-off stories, bizzare and curious what-if vignettes that likely have nothing to with her deeply-felt, personal experience (the close, intense, visceral experience of INFJ Scorpio moon vs. the distant, global and weird experience of INTJ Aquarius moon).
St Vincent has also openly discussed her more-or-less chronic struggle with depression and the delusion of the rescuer, typical experiences of a type 4 INFJ. The conundrum of being what others want her to be vs whatever it is she really is also recurs across albums, something INTJs do not struggle with. In her videos and performances there’s often this schtick of her presenting as completely emotionless and robot-like, which some might attribute to INTJ cognition. I think this has a lot to do with Aquarian lunar energy and the romanticization of detachment, of not feeling anything, of androids. Beyond this, though, I think she’s portraying herself as a manniquin, not a robot. The feeling that an INFJ will have of being a husk, feeling lifeless, playing a role that others dress us up for. We feel this way when we use Fe passively instead of actively, morphing into whatever others want instead of what we are. I think this is confirmed by the context of the videos in which she appears this way: “Cruel”, a song about the limiting expectations placed on women and how they are taken for granted; “Cheerleader”, about dumbing yourself down and abandoning one’s integrity to fit in.
So, while St. Vincent may have some attributes that at first blush indicate INTJ modes of consciousness, the core of her art and expression involve a fundamentally feeling orientation to life. She’s interested in what it means to be Annie Clark, what it means to be human, and how that changes in response to social structures placed upon is from age-to-age. St. Vincent is INFJ.
ooh now that you’ve pointed that out I think she might be an INFJ.
Thanks Todd! Now I know how I got that Audrey Hepburn (if she’s not an INFJ, then I’m real rubbish at typing; have to check out her astro sign) correlation in my head. Now (I rewatched the interviews and the MV’s fully this time) I realise how INFJ fits just a tad better now, but boy is it a delicate, well hidden INFJ, waiting in plain sight to be discovered. Subtlety yay!
With that information I actually am thinking of two songs of INFJ Vienna Teng that aren’t easily listened to either. “Watershed” would be a third, but there it’s mostly the lyrics and not the whole sound of the song. I put this here because I find it interesting to see that side of INFJs and think others might too. I’ve to admit that St. Vincent is more difficult to listen to.
Passage (beware, haunting)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RiMsI5ZZ-qg
The Hymn Of Acxiom
Hey guys, found another video of St. Vincent:
http://www.cc.com/video-clips/w2zhlc/the-colbert-report-st–vincent
with our friend Colbert:)
And here another: http://www.cc.com/video-clips/rmzkbz/the-colbert-report-david-byrne—st–vincent
Hey guys, any of you that are good at telling superego Fe from auxilliary Fe, this is the video for you:):):)
@Leanne
“About ENFP-INTJ I can say in more practical terms that an INTJ I’ve known has uttered that the ENFP seems to wish other people well in a very generous way ”
Yes and yes!!!!!! I believe that is why Colbert must be enfp!!! I have gone back and forth endlessly with him but I think it is now SOLVED in my mind. He is enfp!!!!!! He has a crazy Fe aura: Fe id!!! There is a generosity to him and wanting people to have a good time. What he shows is like a relentless clown, but underneath he has a softness a genteel side. And enfps need so much down time that is why he tests infp. All his improv is of course requiring a tremendous brilliance and thinking ability, but I think what you see him focused on is seeing little reactions in his people. It is so much more people focused than idea focused. It’s like fast thinking at the service of seeing even the stodgiest crack up. He seems really sensitive to the idea of pushing people without going over the limit…. it’s very intuitive about PEOPLE.
I still think he’s ESFJ though. He definitively shows Fe, just which, id or dom? I’ve hardly ever seen an ENFP going out there with their Fe, with ESFJs I see it all the time (crazy Fe) and to be honest, it has an intruding quality to me that I struggle to deal with and that’s what I get from Colbert.
If I’m not mistaken, Lunar, you’re an INFP, so I can totally see how you’re interested in Colbert – if he’s an ESFJ – through the F-dom functions that you both would have. Since I’m N-dom, the only S’s that I feel comfortable around are ISFJ and ESFP.
I’m heavily interested in ENFPs, but ESFJs mostly interest me for educational purposes on MBTI. Colbert falls into the second category. I also noticed how I sense when people are more interested in the now than future possibilities. I don’t know if it’s me seeing through their eyes how their minds are occupied in thinking mundane stuff or imagine new possibilities. Anyhow, that’s how I sometimes get the sense of S versus N and with Colbert it was always S and that’s where my interest just doesn’t go.
Also his humour doesn’t get to me in the way ENFP humour does. I definitively see his vulnerable soft side, but I would argue that in ENFP’s that soft side is more hidden because they have Fi aux. Colbert shows to me the Fe vulnerability… Also the eyes, ESFJ fits way more than ENFP.
As to why he tests infp, well, if both belong to the F-dom world, there’d a connection. A mind connection, just like I experience with ENTP-INFJ for N-dom.
I’m also thinking that Colbert has a continuum in ESFJ with actress Anna Kendrick, does that make sense?
It’s true though that he does care about people and is able to read their reactions, but is never as capable of interpreting them as an ENFP, he just scratches the surface too much to go deeper. I’d say lack of Ne, not enough imagination power to get to the juicy parts of psychological possibilities that happen during conversation.
Sorry to disappoint, it bugs me too.
@ Leanne I will check out Anne Kendrick
Ni=intense, Fi=tight, Fe=flow/color
Isn’t she a bit tight?
This is a hard one. I’m gonna go with INTJ. I don’t really have a good reasoning, it’s mostly a gut feeling.
I mean, the Ni is super prominent.. But beyond that I think I get Fi vibes from her combined with a sort of unsuspected assertiveness during her performances (which I imagine must be Te-aux, as it seems kinda rigid and somewhat awkward and not shape-shifting, dynamic and playful like Fe).
BTW, love these challenges!
The unsuspected assertiveness you see in her performances is a flash of inferior Se, not aux Te. Aux Te doesn’t appear “unsuspected”; it’s solarized, deliberate, conscious. The violence and destruction she displays appears out of character because it is; it’s the opposite of her ego orientation.
No, I think you misunderstood me. I don’t mean the violence and underlying aggression. I don’t see that coming in flashes, as I think Ni dominant usually have these harsh undertones pretty persistently. I don’t think that’s out of character at all.
What I meant is the rigidness. It seems very deliberate, I agree. I found the Te (if I’m analyzing it correctly) to be unsuspected because she seems pretty distant and restrained in her interviews, in that she seems pretty indifferent to getting a message across. I suspected it to be Te, because I always perceive the Fi/Te axis as somewhat awkward, no matter whether the Fi comes first or last. Maybe awkward is the wrong word, but the sincerity of Fi even buried under Te sometimes makes me feel exposed and raw on behalf of the person displaying it.
INFJ.
My immediate reflex was INTJ because of some of her speech patterns– particularly the self-quoting as an interjection. For some reason I associate that with the Fi of certain types, including INTJ.
What really changed my mind as I thought about it was how different she is with different interviewers– it seems unlikely to me that an INTJ would be so markedly context-dependent. http://www.salon.com/2014/02/16/st_vincent_i_have_this_sound_in_my_head_how_do_i_get_it_here_in_my_fingers/
She’s much more playful and genuine, while still sounding cool and precise. I think that has to be feeling-rapport and a Ti pull to some of the interviewer’s offered idea-toys.
It’s easy to sense dominant Ni through her eyes. It’s like she’s gazing at nothing but receiving everything. Only a few seconds into the first video did I think infj. Her eyes seem sincere and hopeful and in her interviews she flows smoothly with the interviewers. Intjs always strike me with eyes that are distant and impersonal. And infjs have warm gazes. Her appreciation and humility I noticed in the interviews as well. Intjs come off as slightly arrogant and cross the line of social harmony, which I didn’t get from her at all. She conversed with ease and seemed to resonate with the interviewers.
It’s hard to pinpoint evidence because most of my assumption is based on gut feeling. But, infj is my guess.
Also since you’re on the topic of female dominant Ni musicians…there’s an artist I’ve speculated as infj, Victoria LeGrand from the band Beach House. I think her lyrics and music sound very infj and I guess I was wondering if you’ve heard of the band and given thought to her type.
True. She didn’t cross any line and doesn’t across distant just stiff. I have switched to infj ever so gradually now I don’t see her as intj anymore!
@MoMo
I’ve heard the Beach House album Bloom and i quite love it! They create such a dreamy other-worldly atmosphere.. I haven’t thought about her type.. But i must say she creates some beautiful imagery with her lyrics.. Like in the song Troublemaker..
@Piggie
You really get the sense of her id Fi in their first two albums, especially in their second, “Devotion.” Listen to their song “Heart of Chambers” or “All the Years.” Their sound is very nostalgic and explores the pleasure in pain and the pain in pleasure…similar in concept to how St. Vincent juxtaposes beauty and disturbance. I dont think she ever chooses to bypass Fe, under the assumption that shes infj.
BLAKE MY MAN how’s it going i hope youre doing well!!
Saint Vincent then! This should be intesting.
Ni dominants make music that has a really coherent moving shape to it, more so than any other type. Nirvanas music though was extremely Fe driven. Cobain had adhd. Theories abound over how ADHDers are about 1/3rd behind in terms of emotional maturity in relation to their age compared to their peers. Which honestly shows in his work. Anyone into Cobain gets over Cobain after a certain point. His music is very very purely NiFe. Spontaneous and like roaring. An example of NiTi music would be Radiohead after OkComputer.
Vincent has obviously been into making music for some time now. What the rest of the commentors note as impersonal dark music is really her operating out of the NiTi having evolved into that from the NiFe mode of expression that she probably now sees as pathetic. Her patterns and shapes in atleast her last album are very mechanical almost as if she has been trying get an internal understanding of how music works all this time (Ti) she still did the nirvana gig even though she’s obviously not into them anymore (who’s into stuff they were into when they were 8) an intj rockstar would have never done the gig bc fuck the world im me and youre not
as far as her lack of facial expressions go, i can relate bc i hate Fe and i hate being a doormat and yadayadayada along with the ooh im gay and feminist so i have to like never be the stereotypes Fe leads one into being.
She is not intj.
I am so so sorry about the horrible horrible grammar and formatting up there and again, down here.
Her attitude towards stage performance is very methodical and totally not spontaneous which would suggest Te aux at work but NiTi might as well be behind the rigidity honestly if given her being extremely self conscious. Also INTJs are not known to be particularly sentimental about the past and such. Extremely pragmatic and straight with growth those guys are. She once said “I’m extremely cerebral” which really given her disapproval of how she used to be people pleasing and what not (Fe) goes on to say that she’s out casting an image perhaps (using the Fe(?) lol)
Also I was sort of not completely right about the radiohead bit but thats off topic so fuck it
ALSO HER LOOK DAMN IT HER LOOK! she has always had a look. Isn’t that super infj. The Fe presentation. Thom yorke always has one (moves from one to the next). Cobain had one. Jonny greenwood though, an intj musician, couldn’t give less of a shit about his look. IT HAS NOT CHANGED ONCE IN HIS 25 OR SO YEARS OF MODERATE FAME. Look up Robert Fripp maybe, another intj musician. The otherworldly alien quality them INTJs I really don’t think exude in a glamorous vibe. That’s all infj/enfj. NiFe presentation. Bjork, Feist, Young Fionna Apple(criminal), etc etc. Maybe hers is more Ti tinted Fe but it’s still Fe, Ti itself in INFJs isn’t supposed to be outwardly expressive.
I LOVE THIS GAME!!!
@ourland o’ gloom
Firstly, what a lovely username 🙂
Secondly, I find what you said about Nirvana and Radiohead very interesting..
When i was a kid i had this really lame metal head phase, mostly inspired by the boys i was surrounded by.. I’ve always wanted to be man enough to hang out with the men as one of them.. Anyway.. so I was listening to a lot of metal.. Till i came across Cobain and Radiohead.. Man they changed my life and what i thought about music and what you could do with words and emotions.. How anger and pain could sound beautiful instead of sounding like you decided to puke out every single synonym for death and darkness you could find in the dictionary.. It was these two bands that i really really connected with and that made me feel sort of whole and less disconnected.. I had no idea why back then, but it makes a lot more sense now that i’m grown up and know so much more.. Getting back to the point.. What you said made a lot of sense.. Because, as much as i adore Nirvana even now (and always will), i just can’t listen to them anymore.. I just don’t.. If i randomly happen to catch the strains of their music somewhere, it still brings a smile to my face.. Their albums are still in my music player, but i never consciously click play..
Of course my taste in music has diversified over the years to encompass various genres and i don’t call myself “just” a rock fan anymore.. But on days, when there’s a melancholy heaviness of mind.. I always turn to Jazz and the ever reliable Radiohead.. They have never failed me.. They are still just as relatable and meaningful and emotionally liberating as they were back then.. And yes, i get what you mean about the slight shift in focus after OK Computer.. I’m not sure about the Ni Fe vs Ni Ti (i also get a lot of Fi from Radiohead and a bit of extraverted judgement, not sure of what kind), but it does make sense in a weird way, because of my personal experience and probably because introverted expression of any kind makes a deeper connect.. I’m also not sure about Thom Yorke’s type.. I guess Jonny Greenwood is INTJ.. Yorke confuses me.. He seems INTJish but i can’t be sure.. I’m digressing again..
I wonder why you said you were not completely right about it.. Interesting idea though 🙂
@piggie
Aw im glad you like the name thanks so much
Lol I totally relate with finding radiohead’s music forever receptive in the feels with odd primal evocation. I mean I said I was wrong about radiohead being purely infj expression. I see it as kind of a greenwood and thom project more than just a thom project. Thom himself Ive classed as infj for several reasons. One, I read somewhere that some other musician after having worked with him said that his method was purely intuitive which came off as weird to said musician bc radiohead is, although extremely inventive, also kind of musically by the book on account of them being a prog rock band. NiFe musical expression is like very spontaneous bc I mean Fe’s supposed to be all flow right and literally nothing flows like music. Ti is good for tweaking and such but it’s the Fe that really moves the thing right. Read in one of his older interviews that he’s very melodramatic and that he has no control over his emotions. He’s also really quirky and funny sometimes. Extremely idealistic and is constantly sort of disappointed with the music industry. I feel like infjs really associate their sense of self with what they do more so than any other type. Authenticity is really it with us right. An intj would just watch. Thom whines. He claims to have never tried hallucinogens and the reason he gave was that he’s been told so by someone else that he’s already very on the edge and he probably won’t come back at all after crossing over. That’s very very infj to me. Internal stability is intj, being unaffected, being alien, intellectualising the pain. Drowning and gasping in internal chaos though, not so much. That’s shamanic.
The Beatles were intj+isfj. Nirvana was infj. Radiohead’s infj+intj.
Although of course all this might just be glamorised fangirling for all I know but bleh I really think popular culture would see them with a lot more reverence 50 years from now.
@ourland o’ gloom
“Extremely idealistic and is constantly sort of disappointed with the music industry. I feel like infjs really associate their sense of self with what they do more so than any other type. Authenticity is really it with us right. An intj would just watch. Thom whines.”
Yeah! I totally get this.. But then i think what would happen if an INTJ is feeling unstable you know.. Like if their Ti id is messing with them.. And they go into an Ni-Ti-Fi loop.. Does that have the potential to sound beautifully whiny or would it still sound kind of stable and together and more intellectual than whiny? I think Blake identifies Thom as an INTJ.. It would be interesting to know why.. Even from the astrology point of view (another Libra sun).. But whatever type he is, they make the world a better place.. I’m a total fan girl.. 😀
Schlopadoo said, “In the first minute of the first interview, she mentioned letting go of pleasing people…she even said that she really liked/depended on pleasing people in the past. I can’t imagine an INTJ EVER…I mean, EVER, saying something like that. INTJs don’t give a rat’s ass what other people think of them. Even little children. But maybe I’m wrong…Well in any case, my justification is that tertiary Fi makes INTJs rather self-assured in what they want to do. (sometimes a tad too much)”
I agree, Schlopadoo! I watched the 2 interviews before I read through the comments and thought the same exact thing. As an INTJ, she would be aware of whether she had inadvertently pleased or displeased people as part of the functionality of whatever she had decided was the best course of action (Ni-Te-Fi). She would say that pleasing/displeasing was a byproduct of her decisions ( i.e.: “I did this, people thought it was cool, I thought it was cute of them to think so.” OR “I did this, people hated me for it, it really seemed to get under their skin, isn’t that so weird?!”). INTJs make impersonal judgments of behavior reactions and societal norms. She might make the social/anthro observation that women raised in the South are programmed to be “Pleasers”, but if she is an INTJ, she would simply make this impersonal observation while laughing at what crowd-pleasing robot-meme Southern women are raised to abide by (“If they could only see it the way I see it, they’d be set free from their cage,” etc.) She wouldn’t even consider the Stepford Wife Role as something to conscientiously eschew. There wouldn’t be a QUESTION as to whether or not she could make herself fit into that mold and there wouldn’t be a decision about whether or not she could buck the tide (and whether or not she could “get over” any feelings of guilt if she did). When she singles this out very succinctly in the first interview, and says it took her “a while to get over it;” I think that’s an INFJ perspective.
To be fair, she’s a tough study. She definitely presents as rigid and exacting. Which is, actually, another reason why I lean toward INFJ tertiary Ti. INTJs aren’t very guarded or exacting when talking to people causally. People they don’t know (interviewers) are not people they feel they have to be very studied in their minutia to please. They are interested in what works, socially, and in an interview situation that is generally fully explaining themselves and their process (Fi through Te), as well as adding anecdotes and context to help the interviewer understand WHY they simply decided to do what they’ve done. They explain why what they’ve done seems to have worked (or why it didn’t work, but that’s not applicable to St. Vincent). It’s up to the interviewer to determine whether or not they get their answer. Personal explanations are so subjective, and Ni-Fi knows this and makes no apologies. This girl is more into answering the question posed specifically and truthfully. She’s actively monitoring her eye contact and the pitch and pace of her words, and she doesn’t want to inadvertently offend anyone or come across as boastful or proud of herself. I feel like that’s more tertiary Ti with Fe auxiliary than tertiary Fi with Te auxiliary. INTJs, if they come across as boastful, don’t particularly care. They’re simply stating what they’ve done and why. If that happens to be a great accomplishment, than so be it. Period.
Piggie, I read through all your comments, and without adding to the length of my post by basically copying and pasting all of your thoughts as to why you feel she’s an INFJ, I’ll just say, your perceptions seem extremely accurate to me. I spent some time contemplating whether or not she was an INTJ posing with more Fe cognitive function than she actually has (which I suppose could be done in a fake-ish, put-on interview situation) but your interpretation of her lyrics is so succinctly INFJ that it just makes too much sense 🙂
I watched this interview on youtube as well, and the party-made-for-a-funeral theme for her album and her explanation(s) are just very INFJ, in my opinion. Taking something harsh and making something beautiful without compromising integrity. Beautifully harsh…
@Niki
Your second and third paragraphs precisely lay down the difference between an INTJ approach to a social situation and an INFJ approach to a social situation..
An INTJ is more likely to dislike the idea of being a part of a social event when it doesn’t matter to them and is going to eat into precious time they could have spent doing something personally productive, whereas, an INFJ is more likely to dislike it not only for that reason, but also the fact that there are going to be people there expecting them to be a certain way and judging them for not being that way and they will also have an image of themselves in their head, that they want to project.. And that’s exactly why an INTJ seems a lot more natural even when they force themselves to be a part of any such event.. Because they don’t emotionally invest themselves in how someone perceives them.. They know who they are.. But an INFJ is going to make it so much worse for themselves by feeling accountable for other’s perception of themselves.. Lol.. You said all this much better..
Piggie, I think you’re saying everything very well!! You are SO perceptive.
I re-read this last post of yours probably 12 times. I guess an INTJ has no-to-low expectations regarding the way they are perceived, or opinions about the way they are judged by others. I think tertiary Fi just understands that everyone has their own…well, everything. So someone’s perceptions of an INTJ or an INFJ completely depend said person’s own perceptions of themselves as an individual (their own “truth”), and how they relate to the INxJ, and whether or not they agree politically, or like the color of the INxJ’s shirt, or have had a bad day otherwise, or are somehow reminded of an ex, or we might have gone out with their ex, or heaven knows 1,000,000 other subjective angles that someone is actually rather entitled to have of another person, even of an INxJ (I know, I don’t think it’s right either haha).
Depending on someone else’s own personality, there just may not be a lot of simpatico. Or, maybe none at all (which I feel like is often the case). Truly, some people are like dirty oil to the cool, clear, fluid water of dominant Ni. And I don’t know if an INTJ would ever take that personally, because how could it be one person’s fault or another’s? We are simply who we are. No apologies, no excuses. Dom Ni can be sort of a cruel mistress, after all, with all its vision and knowledge and recognition and truth-mongering. Sometimes, it just isn’t the most fun dinner date (or interview subject). And that’s OK, because it isn’t here to be nice as its first order of business (and therefore, neither is an INxJ). I think INTJs are invested in how people perceive them, they want to be liked (doesn’t everyone, deep down?) but they’re OK if they inadvertently let someone down, or don’t meet subjective expectations, or whatever. INTJs are more like, “Help me help you” when it comes to external expectations and such. They’re not going to give before they see a show of good faith on the part of the other person. They don’t just lend-out emotional equity or efforts. They don’t want to get needlessly burned, and they don’t feel bad about that element of self-preservation. Their is, of course, SOME accountability in other people’s perceptions (ie, if one acts like an ass, people will think he/she is an ass, and yes, one is accountable for their ass-like public behavior) but there is definitely a line in the sand that the INTJ recognizes. It’s like, “this is where my social responsibility ends and their perceptions take over, and that’s actually very personal to them and none of my business.”
Piggie, again, thanks for spurring on such a good Blake-blog and for sharing your thoughts!
@Niki
Thank you for your eloquent INTJ perspective.. Everything you said is why i find INTJs so kick ass.. I don’t know what goes on under the placid exterior, but I don’t think any other type owns itself with as much awareness as you all do.. 🙂
In the very first video Blake posted…. she flashes a big smile after a few seconds only. It seems the only purpose of the smile is Fe. Why didn’t I see that before. Pretty apparent right?
She strikes me as very highly focused.
Every now and then she is kind of Te-like in her answers….. She is like right on the freaking fence in style.
She has warm interest in people’s questions to her…. but she doesn’t take much initiative with Fe mostly uses it to respond.
@Olivia
Glad the comments resonate. That feels so great you understand:) Mbti twins:)
INFJ whose vision of choice is that of INTJ-ish robot-like world.
It is what she creates, not what she inevitably is.
1 minute into one of the music videos, INFJ point of view.
@Leanne
“In general I think that INFPs and INFJs are a bit of enigmas to each other, more than they probably realise.”
I think one can kind of use Blake’s id to make sense of that:
Fi is infj’s id. Ni is infp’s id. That has to cause the occasional hiccup at a level “below the radar” because the id is experienced in such an involuntary intractable way.
Infj thinks of Fi as “icky” and the wrong hole to go down, even though Fi is something that is part of them to some (lesser) degree just like for the infp.
Infp thinks of Ni as a scary “x-ray” into the self, violation, even though this kind of x-raying is something the infp does to some (lesser) degree just like for the infj.
This experience of Ni only occurred to me watching a video of I think an intp who seemed very affected by the possibility of “read”. I thought bingo! That’s how I feel around Ni! This is refreshing to an Ni-dominant. But to Ni-id type, it feels super intrusive.
meant to write: “intp who seemed very affected by the possibility of “being read”
To an Ni-id type I *think* it feels potentially vulnerable, you have to watch out around Ni. That’s probably more accurate than saying intrusive. (analog is Fi is potentially vulnerable for infjs they have to watch out around Fi?).
Since I don’t want to speak for all infps, I have to end up self-referencing again. Ni has a chance of finding out that I can’t see reality well, that I can’t settle on a final knowledge of anything (like a mastered skill can become an unmastered skill tomorrow, seems bizarrely unrepeatable, I have to relearn it from scratch it seems…, something I try to establish as an internal truth for myself just runs away from me … I cannot build Ni-world view, but somehow the Ni id strives for that I believe a bit ala intj-style since intjs do seem to care about repeatability efficiency, it’s a sporadic drive in me).
I speculate that for the intp it’s ala infj-style and that you will destroy an intp’s inner peace by suggesting they have no psychological gift or something. Tell an intp “you just don’t get it about people” and I think they will feel like mild shit as if you tell an infp “you’re not very scientific or you just can’t devise any good plans in your life”. You can completely undermine their confidence this way.
So I don’t know if the id usually combines with the inferior like that but I am sure that it does for me personally and I think it might for intp as well.
@lunar
Could you just have described implied Leo Moon and implied first half Saggitarius Moon? Wow.. Ni id does sound like it gives rise to a lot of self consciousness.. I find the introverted id functions very interesting because they lurk beneath the surface and rear their heads only through body language and impulse reactions or under the disguise of one of the other functions.. I saw your DFW comment and how you think he’s an INTP.. So i’m assuming you could relate to that fearful twitchiness he displays in some of his interviews..
“you’re not very scientific or you just can’t devise any good plans in your life”
Uh oh.. My INFP friend used to struggle at work (its very Ti/Te oriented).. I used to think it was just that she hated what we do and didn’t feel like putting in the effort cause it wasn’t something she believed in.. Basically, i thought it was just the Fi-Te axis.. But now i see that it probably made her feel inadequate at an elemental level.. That’s something more disturbing than just hating what you do.. I’m glad she’s off doing something she enjoys now.. Hmm.. very insightful lunar..
(And i find how you’re going out of your way to specify its your point of view very endearing :P)
@ Piggie
I could relate to DWF self consciousness. His paranoia is Fe linked. So the flavor is not quite the same as how I experience. The interview setting is plain hurting him psychologically. But I could relate to fear of being discovered. Honestly I was so devastated to hear he killed himself ( he suffered depression) because just recognizing his little hell I saw his humanity. I don’t really know for sure he is intp though but it kind of resembled an intp theme.
About your INFP friend… Hmmm it is really hard for me not to assume your friend is like me (separating what is mbti and individual can’t be done with a stranger to me), so assuming similarity…
If the job was very Ti Te like you said well that is a kind of nightmare for an INFP because they might feel an Ni if drive in that setting. That is like asking an infj to excel at Se Si may well kick in Fi id at some point.
Your friend probably would go home nearly damaged. That is exaggeration but not in a psychological comfort sense. Your friend likely had to go home and zone out. Let Ne rage aimlessly in a state of blank being.
To give you an idea…. You know how infj can go down into a hell with a strong Se:Si experience if Fi id is also launched? This would be the infp equivalent of that hell. It is not an Fi hell exactly although Fi will also join in to berate infp. It is more like a sense of incompetence unrealized potential hell. I think Ni id is part of why many infps maybe not all have a lingering unrealized potential sense. The main trigger is Te stress. Ti doesn’t help. I think infps have a different flavor to it.
This topic is real painful to infps. It is their existential crisis imo. Infps are actually rarely lazy imo. Imo. Laziness is a bit of a dangerous label right up there with selfish. If you see an infp that is doing nothing they are more likely to be in some kind of hell about how to have clear vision and go about it. Or they have sort of just zoned out and need to snap out of it. But it will look like laziness. That’s the problem if we have unmatching psychological make ups we just will not have the same definitions of selfish, lazy, loving, etc.
The biggest problem the way I see t is that infps are taught a lot of wrong things in school for their psychological makeup. Have a dream and make a plan for it. I am sure this has worked for some infps and it sure worked for me up to a point. But it was a huge strain on my well being and something gave. I was really a very hard worker for many many years. As soon as I looked lazy well it corresponded to when everything gave away.
Blake is extremely right to recommend infps to embrace going with the flow. It is so hard for us to think that is ok. Well at least for me, I grew up with intj mum and dad and just absorbed their message of planning for success and it turned into the main crisis of my life. School also had a definite Te message. Well I really tried to be that and it just triggers Ni id all the time. It was like feeling DEAD. It’s almost like descending into Ni and Ti???
Just a dead truth enters: throw in the towel. It is truth that I can prove: Ni and Ti. And it is dead, I have died. I have become the dead truth. I can’t see any difference between my own being and the truth. Both are dead in nature.
I really benefit from itjs but only in a completion sense. If I am with them we complete each other. But if I try to be one, big problem. However if I don’t imitate in a deep way, just take hints and tips from them they are real benefactors to me.
Just to illustrate how messed up it is we can’t know all these things about ourselves and each other… In 20s I figured out that exercise seemed to do some magic for me ( Se magic) and started going to pool. My istj mother had some kind of jealousy (she works very hard) and said it was self indulgence. I can clearly see where she came from now. But I experienced Fi shame and stopped going! This is how scary it is to judge a psychological makeup unknown to us!!!
Anyhow……. This is what I consider the infp version of Ni id. After seeing so many posts about the infj id I have been trying to understand infp id because I recognized that existential hell infjs were describing in some of the other posts but I knew it does not work quite the same way for infps.
Id love for any infp to chime in 🙂 lol
And if this made any sense to an infj entp intj anyone here I would be glad.
I just reread my post and am not sure I explained it clearly enough. So hard to explain the dead misery of a horrible id experience. Wow to think that before stumbling on this website I had never heard of id. The amount of understanding Blake brings in such a short amount of time…. Mind blowing.
I was finally able to understand a relative is enfp not esfp. I used to think this relative’s absolutely moving need to be connected to family etc , I mean to a degree of moving poignancy wassome inferior Ni feR based trip but it was Fe I’d. If you’ve never heard of id you just can’t make sense of some of these auras when typing. Unless you’re Blake lol.
Just rereading where I wrote the message of school is plan for success etc. I am sure a LOT of people would read that and think we’ll duh obviously what are schools supposed to teach do you think????
I think That is exactly why infps are one of the types most skewed towards their inferior function. Most stressed. Because the top two functions don’t provide outward form. Don’t cause action. And aren’t conventionally thinking in nature so you are not even an obviously useful “geek”.
Most stressed in the outer world. In our inner worlds we have some mad skills that are not necessarily appreciated or understood but oh well. Can’t have everything:)
@piggie
About your friend… Ne is useful in these T jobs sometimes. So maybe your friend could use that too. Si can also be useful. So I don’t want to exaggerate the helplessness in such settings but there is a degree of truth in saying that such TiTe heavy jobs really tax an infp psychologically. There is this constant risk of Ni id linking up with Te and Ti and deadening the infp. Ne is what feels most alive in a way. But the “doing” part is really hard for infp:( can’t use Ne to do, can’t use Te comfortably that is like Se for infj, not very good at Se that is like Te for infj, don’t operate by Fe…. Can you imagine?
@piggie
About your friend… Ne is useful in these T jobs sometimes. So maybe your friend could use that too. Si can also be useful. So I don’t want to exaggerate the helplessness in such settings but there is a degree of truth in saying that such TiTe heavy jobs really tax an infp psychologically. There is this constant risk of Ni id linking up with Te and Ti and deadening the infp. Ne is what feels most alive in a way. But the “doing” part is really hard for infp:( can’t use Ne to do, can’t use Te comfortably that is like Se for infj, not very good at Se that is like Te for infj, Ti is like Si for infj… Can you imagine? What infps learn to do is to somehow bypass all that in a beyond comprehension manner. We desire bypass and put in a huge effort or go with the flow. That is how we are so quasi everything… Quasi considerate quasi intellectual quasi effective…. We Ne our way to a better place with desire and good intentions at the helm.
@Lunar
Thanks for your insightful description of those processes, I had no idea.
I see what you mean about the inferior function in IN_Ps. A similar thing could be said about I_FJs: INFJs aren’t good at dancing or ISFJs aren’t good with intuitive leaps in general due to their inferior Se respectively Ne. Still it feels skewed to put it like that. I’d much rather say that it takes a LOT more time and effort to develop one’s inferior function to the same level of at least an auxiliary function. And yet that level is a relative notion. Anyways, your dominant & auxiliary function are gonna always demand attention and hamper that development if you’d try to focus mostyl on the inferior I’d imagine. But, just as in school, when you focus on your strenghts, your weakenesses will minimise themselfes almost magically too. Blake is right with his Fe advice for INFJs.
I’ve also noticed, that the inferior is only interesting on the forefront. Once I get deeper into inferior territory, I loose interest rapidly. For example when learning how to skate, I might enjoy learning some tricks but wouldn’t really seek or appreciate that skill. I wouldn’t push the boundaries of the possible. And so I’m not pleased if someone dismisses my efforts (just like fools think kindergardeners put no efforts in their not-yet-perfect-enough drawings), but especially with the knowledge about MBTI it’s easy to see that I’m just not in my forte. Otherwise I wouldn’t have this nice Ni.
@ Piggie
I meant to write your friend might need to come home and do raging Fi like just sit their and be aware of their internal state with Ne almost raging internally rather than expansively. Must sound so strange to non Fis.
How did you pick “Piggie”? I think it always puts a smile on my mind to see Piggie:)
@lunar
Thank you for opening up that window to your mind..
That’s exactly what she used to say.. That she feels dead.. Hollow and dead.. And there was nothing external that could help her change the way she felt..
I had an idea of what she was going through but was not privy to the exact nature and intensity of the experience.. I know the anxiety Te evokes in me.. I just reject it on days i’m not feeling too good.. I imagine that Ti must only feel worse for an INFP.. And yes i can do Se in bursts.. I can lose myself in it and feel damn good about it as long as i know there’s going to be an end to it.. So, for an INFP, having to engage in Te without an end in sight must be soul-draining and destablizing..
I have an ISFP friend too, who is suffering because of having to use too much of his inferior.. His Se keeps him going.. Kind of.. He’s not too happy with his choices but not many people are going to say no to a high paying job to be able to follow the uncertainty of their dreams..
The struggles of introverts also tend to escape the notice of those around them (I don’t mean to say that it’s less hard for anyone else who is suffering from anything), cause there aren’t many visible behavioural changes.. When I used to offer anonymous counselling online, many of the people i interacted with were IXFP, INTP and IXFJ.. The most burdensome part of their struggle was usually how hard they tried to appear to be normal to those they were close to in real life.. Then again, this might be the result of introverts feeling more comfortable with anonymous counselling..
To my INFP friend’s credit, i think she knew what was right for her.. She would take days off and do her Ne thing.. She took music classes (she’s a darned good singer) and taught under-privileged kids.. It’s amazing how she can identify notes and scales and progressions a couple of seconds into a song.. And there’s a sort of purity in everything she listens to or creates.. She eventually quit and set off to do a course in audio processing (still involves programming).. Life’s better for her now, but the terrors of the thinking world are never too far behind in any profession one might choose these days..
Haha Piggie? It’s been a nickname that’s stuck around since childhood.. The image of lil pink spherical piglets.. There’s something shamelessly decadent about pigs, which doesn’t take away from their cuteness quotient.. I’m glad it makes you smile.. Makes me smile too.. Why did you pick lunar? 😛
Another question i had was.. What kind of people do INFPs feel most comfortable around?
@ Piggie
You really try to understand people even if they are not like you. I commend you for that:)
I cannot remember why I chose lunar but my best guess is I had never seen the word moon as often as I did when I first read stellar maze. Maybe it resonated? Fi has something to do with the moon maybe. I know that Fi is not always neutral in me:) kind of weird but I think I also have negative Fi in me?
@Piggie
I didn’t answer your question because so much going on today!
What kind of people do infps feel comfortable with?
I don’t know many infps just a few, but I think it is probably similar for them….
Intj is always a good kick: that Ni explained so cleanly and “obviously ” is just soothing to the “confused” infp. Infp has trouble building up a steady “dry” knowledge…without having to seemingly start all over again repeatedly… I hope this is not projection onto all infps. But on an intimate basis I think it would be hard. It is really a look up to for guidance feeling?
Infjs are some people to fall in love with in spite of some danger of imperfect compatibility. Lots of admiration, fascination and some crazy jealousy of them.
Intps are comfortable and great friends. It feels very equal. So similar to infps in some basic “age of development”. We feel like kindred children but hate that we are not yet adults…. Something like that. It’s like adulthood is in the next life…. I swear
Enfps are highly stimulating
Entps are just so unlike infps I enjoy them too
Esfjs are comfy but I sometimes get bored.
I have a soft spot for istjs there is some comfort there but it can be boring.
Isfjs are very confusing to me. I wonder in other infps would think this. But I never get what they are up to but they always seem up to something.
@lunar
It’s kinda cool that you felt a connection to lunar even before Blake made the connection in the INFJ vs INFP Revisited post.. What do you mean by negative Fi?
Just went through what you said about growing up with ITJ parents again.. I have TJ parents too.. Like all things in life, being brought up by them had its pros and cons.. And its a lot easier to embrace the cons in retrospect, especially after learning about the things we talk about here.. It made me feel more in control of how i receive my inputs.. I dunno whether Type-Based Family Therapy is a thing, but it should be..
Haha i think ISFJs got most people confused.. 😛
No experience with ENTJs? They’re supposed to be to INFP what ENTP is to INFJ right?
Is fear born out of confusion about the truth (at a smaller scale, whether someone else is real/genuine or not) a theme with INFPs? For example.. You’ve felt some weird vibes about something or someone, but don’t know whether you’re right or wrong and don’t know how to validate that or explain it to others.. Does that mess with your mind? Does that make you question yourself or get angry with others who can’t seem to see it?
@alejandro
Fe and Se not shallow
It all depends on the use
I find that if you watch someone’s happy use of their auxiliary and inferior (because I think everyone can make cool use of their inferior by restricting its range mostly. For ex intp can be great at hosting by sticking to mostly limited conventional symbols of hospitality such as cooking some food, turning on music, etc, somehow it is a really positive use of their Fe and they shine at this) you can see the beautiful side of each cognitive function. And then you can see the prowess of each function in the dominants of each function.
Man cannot use my phone for these comments. Okay I really feel like each cognitive function when well developed is like a super power:) In the auxiliary you get beauty of it, in the inferior you get the moving aspect of each 🙂
Me having trouble commenting from my phone too.. The “POST COMMENT” button gets eaten up for me..
Actually one use of an inferior function I love watching is infjs with Se. I don’t like the pushy side of it (scares me because Se is bad to my system in its aggressive form) but I love when infjs use it positively. Like I have never seen such pure enjoyment of nature or say coloring with some crayons. I’ve seen infjs like go do something like that and just delight more than even a kid could. I find it cute? I don’t know if the word moving is actually quite right. But there is something child like in it that appeals to me. I think when the inferior is used positively like that it looks quite pure and ?noticable? Gives someone their unique vibe.
I’ve read that the inferior function is best when used in enjoyment and relaxation. I find that is true. I have always loved a bit of Se and it truly can delight! Dancing with my dogs in the kitchen when no one is around. Swinging on swings after dark when no one is looking. Go carts at a local amusement park on date night. These are some of my own secret delights. These things when used recreationally and with no pressure are great. The minute we think we have a handle on these things or engage in them out of expectation or competition, Se can handle the crap out of us. Year of the Tiger laid me out due to Se influences surrounding me and my own hubris in believing I had Se skills. Let’s just say, broken patellas are devastating and take a year to heal. They are rarely ever the same. So, yes to Se in small doses of delight, but I have to decline full on embracing.
Yes in fact now that I think about it it is the Id that I find most moving more so than the inferior. But I never knew about id till stellarmaze! But that is what is most poignantly moving to me. When someone is grappling with their Id and inferior and is just about to transcend it all with their auxiliary. It freaking moves me. I think that is a great witnessing of what it means to be human actually. If you want to longer be annoyed with a type try to see this epic battle we each have going on. It’s just poignant man.
Rita I love your description of your Se!!!
Makes me happy!
Lunar, “Fe and Se are not shallow.” I disagree. It is not a terrible thing or a negative judgment (although I’ve heard some people with heavy Fi complain that Fe is disengenuous as they see it). Whenever something is extroverted you lose some depth and engage more in breadth. It is more like a broad stroke or wide movement than an introverted function that is more directed, deep, and narrow. At least that is the way I’ve come to understand cognitive functions as they express themselves. The thing that confuses is just where and how these functions express. Is it primary, auxiliary, tertiary, inferior. Is it the Id, superego, demon, etc… This gets a little maddening and seemingly arbitrarily defined sometimes. “Distancing” (as Blake said) and overly dissecting for complete comfort that anything left is even humanly recognizable as a whole. For all that criticism, we keep coming back for more. Gluttons for punishment or intrepid explorers of human psychodynamics?
@Rita
Maybe shallower by a certain definition. Like focuses on many thing versus focused on one thing. Yeah you have a point. I was thinking of shallow as a negative word so true as well:) the common connotation of deep versus shallow where shallow is a “write off of someone”.
Lunar,
“I’ve seen INFJs go do something like that and just delight more than a little kid could.” I think you have that right! It feels like glee and wee and awe. You seem to be a keenly astute observer of the people who surround you. Your observations and take on the people you know seems so organic, real, and not even a little dehumanizing. It is like you take them into yourself and internalize their ways and workings in detail. It seems so sweet and honoring. Is that the depth of Fi? Whatever it is, it is unique and kind of beautiful when it is pure and clean. Just my take on it, for what it’s worth.
Why thank you:) well I have a weird habit of trying to take people into me. Like… Why??? But when I do it isn’t very analytical so maybe it is all vibe and impression. I think I have done this since high school all day every day if I can allow an exaggeration. Honestly it is getting worse over time…. I can’t stop it:)
Anyhow, the other day, my bro let me know that I stare at people. Oh my god that freaked me out as I did not know!!!! How embarrassing. But when he said it I realized its this effort to take in how it is to be someone on the feels level. I am terrible with the analytical side of what makes people tick including with myself. But I can sort of imagine how they feel sort of with lots of inaccuracy and hmm projection.
We’re all less accurate than we’d like to be or sometimes assume we are. We all project too. Don’t beat yourself up. You sound like a collector of anecdotes and people’s stories. That hardly sounds a crime. Summing up what I detect from a distance a few of your strengths are: openness, curiosity, love of learning, and honoring the individual. So, let’s string you up by your toenails already! You monster you! Lol
I must be living under a rock because I had never heard of St. Vincent/Annie Clark. I’m slightly in love, ha. And I have NOT spent much time on this…. BUT….am I crazy to think Clark could be an Ni heavy ENFJ, not INFJ???
I know this conversation is long over. And no comments were supposed to be left if not about INFJ or INTJ. But what can I say… I’m a rule breaker sometimes.
The lyrics of the songs above screamed ENFJ to me. Anyone else wanna break the rules with me and agree or disagree with me??
It is amusing to see people confused by the INFJ perfectly channeling the INTJ. That’s just what we do.