INFJ Insight

Thoughts and reblogs as an INFJ Side Blog

[funkymbtifiction]

The Lord of the Rings: Faramir [INFJ]

OFFICIAL TYPING by Charity / The Mod

Functional Order: Ni-Fe-Ti-Se

Perceiving Functional Axis:

Introverted Intuition (Ni) / Extroverted Sensing (Se)

Faramir knows his brother has died, because he experienced a “vision” or dream of his body washing up on the shore. Once Frodo  comes into his keeping, he instinctively knows the hobbits are lying about the “gangly creature” that accompanies them (Gollum), and tests Frodo to determine whether he tells the truth. Having experienced temptation from the Ring, Faramir asserts to his father when Denethor wishes he could use it to defend Gondor that no man can ever wield it, that its purpose is evil and it drove his brother to destruction. He senses Gollum intends to betray Frodo and warns him not to. He admits to Pippin that he spent all his time as a child “slaying dragons” and playing make-believe, and that Boromir was “the soldier.” His inferior Se shows in how much he struggles to be a good soldier, and in his tendency to pull back when his forces are overrun – he only rides out to “his death” to please his father.

Judging Functional Axis:

Extroverted Feeling (Fe) / Introverted Thinking (Ti)

Faramir cares so much about what his father thinks of him, each slight, every comment, each remark that tears him down, takes away a piece of his soul. His desire to please Denethor is so great, he waylays Sam and Frodo with the Ring, intending to take them to Gondor. Only when Sam appeals to him on an emotional level and tells him that his brother turned against Frodo does he realize he must let them go. Faramir is logical enough to accept when he’s beaten and leave the city, but emotional enough to give in to his father’s demands they retake it, even though the mission will lead to his almost inevitable death. He rationally distances himself enough from his brother to admit to his failures and mistakes.

Hogwarts House: Ravenclaw

House Traits: wit, intelligence, creativity, and wisdom.

More of a thinker and a scholar than a fighter, Faramir has a melancholic air of intellectualism about him… he comes to his own conclusions about the Ring, and resists them out of wisdom. He senses when others hide the truth from him and draws it out. He is able to connect to and help heal Éowyn in the Houses of Healing, through their shared need to find a place in the world together.

Enneagram: 9w1 - social

Faramir is a quiet, calm, introverted and resolute man, somewhat resigned to his fate and forever attempting to please and appeal to his father. He tries to keep the peace and does not like disruptions. He was a “model child” and so his quiet nature does not appeal to his power-and-fame-seeking father. Congenial and feeling a desire to belong, Faramir goes out of his way to try and do things for the good of everyone (as a social 9). His 1 wing makes him principled, able to resist the Ring when it offers itself to him, and shrewd in his assessment of Gollum’s character.

[funkymbtifiction]

Discerning Ni-dom

Can we talk about two things?

One is David Bowie.

The other is how “easy” it is to be (mis)typed as a Ni-dom online.

I watch people automatically type characters and celebrities as Ni-dom all the time, when they show absolutely zero emphasis on actual Ni. Basically, it comes down to a method like this:

+ Oh, you’re not sentimental or traditional - you must be Ni.

+ You’re intelligent and can talk about abstract stuff sometimes - Ni.

+ You question authority and do your own thing - Ni.

+ You’re not like other people and can’t relate to your SJ parents - Ni.

But that … is not Ni. None of that is Ni. NONE OF IT.

David Bowie was Ni.

This interview is a classic example of Ni-dom. About 6 minutes in, the interviewer brings up the internet and Bowie lights up like a fire engine and starts high-abstracting. You get the feeling that this is really all he wanted to talk about, and he would go on talking about it, endlessly, if he could. None of it is tangible. All of it is impressionistic and subjective and the interviewer is totally lost. He looks on, confused, trying to pull Bowie back to specific examples and tangible things and Bowie keeps going. The internet is a powerful force of rebellion. It is an alien invading our lives. Its vast potential is untapped. Art is not complete until the gray space inside it is filled in, until people project their interpretation onto it and become part of the art itself.

Look at the art Bowie creates. Read his lyrics. Intangible. Personal symbolism. Nothing pertaining to reality that has not been highly subverted and recreated into abstract symbols and hidden meanings. He says that it’s hard for him to create art because it never feels it is entirely complete – he is trying to express an internal Ni impressionism into reality and it doesn’t always work. That is how introverted functions all are to some degree – almost insanely difficult to get out of your head into lyrics or writing or art – but Ni is so impressionistic that the result is “weird” to a level that you rarely see in other types.

Better yet, watch his music videos. What do they mean? What does HE mean? It’s hard to tell, isn’t it, specifically? What is he saying with “I’m Afraid of Americans”? It is a judgment on America’s reputation for violence and at the end he concludes “God is an American.” What does that mean? That Bowie fears God? That God is violent and thus an immoral force? It’s impressionistic. It’s unclear. More lies under it than is readily apparent to interpretation. And, that is just the tip of the iceberg. Look at his 70′s and 80′s appearances on SNL. The weird outfits, the weird background aesthetics, which … were surreal and untouched by reality in any way, an attempt to manifest an inner abstract concept in visible form – which often turns grotesque in some way (this is still true of his later music videos). That is Ni. All Ni. So much damn Ni.

Remember that, when you’re looking for Ni celebrities or even assessing your own personality. It isn’t enough to abstract once in awhile or for fun (and there is a difference between generalized Ne-abstracting and Ni high abstracting). It isn’t enough to make a weird comment now and again. It isn’t enough to talk in metaphors. It isn’t enough to be creative or intelligent or take an interest in the realm of abstraction. It isn’t enough to find small talk boring or daydream or have a single goal for your life.

Those things are not Ni.

Unless Carey Mulligan, or Benedict Cumberbatch, or God forbid, Taylor Swift, can do this Bowie-level Ni consistently throughout their conversational history and choices in life, unless their entire worldview and artistic history is saturated in Ni, they are not in any way, shape, or form Ni-doms.

On a minor note, given Bowie’s delight in introducing new concepts to people and inspiring them to create their own subjective impressionistic art, and his clear preference for intense analyzing, he was likely INFJ… one of the few actually legitimate ones in the industry.

[infjinsight]

After patiently bidding my time, I’ve just recently moved into a much desired position of leadership at work. I’m still finding my balance for some things, but there have been one or two people around me who I can tell are testing the waters of what pressure they can apply.

I think because I’m pretty gabby at times, and because I try to be fairly loose about tossing around ideas, that people have this misconception that they can push me into doing things and manipulate me into acting certain ways.

But like...I see you. Just because I’m not revealing my hand and calling you out doesn’t mean I don’t sense what you’re up to. I get what you’re trying to do, and I am not one to let others push me around.

[infjinsight]

Mom friend: ESFJ, ISFJ, ENFJ, INFJ

The reason Mom friends exist in the first place: ENFP, INFP, ISFP, ESFP

Dad friend: ESTJ, ISTJ, ENTJ, INTJ,

Surprisingly Mom friend: ENTP, ESTP, INTP, ISTP

[funkymbtifiction]

Sherlock: Euros Holmes [INFJ]

OFFICIAL TYPING by Charity / the Mod *SPOILERS*

Introverted Intuition (Ni): Mycroft said as a child that Euros had the ability to see things she shouldn’t, to know things about people beyond her years or level of comprehension; she was seeing and factoring in “patterns,” which lead her to formulate singular visions of what she wanted to accomplish. She created a difficult, metaphorical “clue” for Sherlock to find Redbeard after kidnapping (and subsequently murdering) his friend, which was so individualistic (subjective) that neither he nor Mycroft could make any sense of it. Euros solves complex puzzles from her prison cell, in exchange for “treats” from Mycroft; she set the events of Moriarty in motion, years in advance. The fact that she has contingency schemes for anything that might go wrong reveals she’s seen potential alternate outcomes, and shifted them all to support her greater vision (the end game was always Sherlock returning home and finding or losing John). She intuitively reads her brothers strengths and weaknesses, sensing their weak or blind spots, and…

Extroverted Feeling (Fe): … targeting their emotions. Everything she does is calculated to hit them where it hurts; she wants Sherlock to make difficult moral decisions, to face the emotional torment of taunting Molly into confessing love for him, knowing how painful it will be for both of them; she uses a frightened child to elicit Mycroft and Sherlock’s empathy; she revels in the emotional reactions to suicide, to dropping people off cliffs, to baiting them with the thought of crashing an airplane into a city full of people; in her “interview” with Sherlock, she tries to entangle him in emotional discussions and shocks him with cruel revelations; she’s good enough at flattery and emotional “faking” that she seduces Watson into a texting relationship that strokes his ego, and is a passable therapist; she flatters, charms, and flirts with Sherlock in pretending to be someone else. She “convinces” people to let her control or manipulate them, using emotion. Finally, her entire motive is emotional: she got jealous that Sherlock wouldn’t play with her as a child, so she constructed a “puzzle” and “games” (Ni) with which to emotionally connect. At the end, Sherlock talks a “frightened child” into revealing John’s location, using empathy and emotional appeals.

Introverted Thinking (Ti): She clearly sees humans as lab rats; Sherlock knows this, also that she has no motive other than to “study” them. Euros has no logical reason to do this to any of them, other than to deepen her understanding, satisfy her own abstract intellectual understanding of reality, and further support and shape her own conclusions. She is so detached (as a psychopath) that she understands emotion on a conceptual level, but not on an actual level, so the fact that Mycroft refuses to kill someone, that John also cannot pull the trigger, and that Sherlock would rather kill himself than the two people he loves most, both excites and baffles her. There’s no “rules” to her logic or the games themselves, other than to have fun and explore.

Extroverted Sensing (Se): She doesn’t act until she’s sure, and prefers not to have to react in the spur of the moment; she runs things from behind screens, but also confesses that she can go “overboard” when engaging with physical reality; Euros dismembered a nurse enough that she couldn’t tell whether it had been male or female when she finished;  and she doesn’t mind shooting people when the occasion calls for it, even if it’s still from across the room.

Note: Euros is a “super-human” just like both her brothers (contributing to the overall “mystical” impression of a Ni-user) but she still sees the world in terms of patterns and shaping reality to fit her subjective vision.

[13chancess]

An open mind is one of the most attractive things ever. A person who chooses to view things from all perspectives and see all possibilities and oppurtunies is so fucking attractive to me.

[isabellaofparma]

#me trying to explain literally anything

[imfindingmyownway]

Reading a book > partying

[kushandwizdom]

[infjinsight]

It constantly feels like the majority of conversations I have involve some amount of me filtering out all the observations and conclusions I have that I know the other person(s) is not prepared to hear.

[infjinsight]

I’m so tired of seeing people, without fail, writing off INFJs as “killed off quick for something stupid” whenever they write up “Types in the Zombie Apocalypse” variations.

Do NOT underestimate us. Inferior Se doesn’t make us inept. I will use my Ni to see more clever solutions than just “Use more bullets” or come up with long term survival plans. I will use my Fe to know when another human is up to some shady shit or to minimize mental breakdowns in my survival group to keep us all strong. I will use my Ti to understand what’s happening around me or find improvements for community dealings. And even if our Se is inferior, we still use it on some level.

Do NOT underestimate the INFJ in a zombie apocalypse situation.

[aliceversuswonderland-deactivat]

Introverts after alone time to regain their energy:

[infjinsight]

Those moments when you stop and realize how many lame excuses you’ve made up just to avoid the risk of making someone feel bad because it’s easier than getting into the more complex details of the truth.

[infjinsight]

I’m always fascinated by watching TV shows where the central character is inserted into an already established group of people and is quickly able to carve out a place for themselves. I know it’s a factor of the writing that they have to have a unique personality going in to write around, but I also know that people can do that in real life: just enter a group and find themselves a spot.

And I guess it’s fascinating to me because whenever I enter a pre-established group I seem to immediately fall back into observation mode for awhile. What are the group dynamics and relationships already in play? I might have quite the personality and know who I am on my own, but upon joining a new group there’s always that instinct to sit back and observe for awhile and figure out how to mold my personality into a pre-existing spot rather than carve out a spot to fit my personality.

I’m not sure if I envy these characters or not for being able to just insert themselves wholly into a group without sacrificing parts of themselves, but it does fascinate me to watch, and I wonder if that’s something I could do if I tried.

[funkymbtifiction]

Moana: Moana Waialiki [INFJ]

OFFICIAL TYPING by Charity / the Mod

Introverted Intuition (Ni): Moana has a strong sense of her destiny, and what she’s “supposed” to do. She hears the legends of old, connects to the ocean, and knows that’s what she’s meant to do. Moana lets nothing distract her from that eventual visualized goal. Once confronted with the empty island, she intuitively realizes the truth of what’s going on, and restores nature’s balance. Moana gets a swift sense of Maui, and figures out how to manipulate him into helping her.

Extroverted Feeling (Fe): As a tiny child, Moana becomes distressed at the sight of a baby turtle trying to make it to the ocean without being eaten by a bird – and shelters it on its journey by holding a leaf over it, and yelling at the birds. She cares very much about her parents, and tries hard to defy her greater self, in an effort to “fit in” with the community. She’s willing to do things she doesn’t want to do, for the betterment of everyone involved. Moana manages to redeem the villain in the end by urging her to get a sense of her true self (“This is not who you truly are.”). She manipulates Maui using emotions (”You want everyone to PRAISE you, don’t you? You know that to them, you’re just a screw-up, right?”).

Introverted Thinking (Ti): She can be logical whenever a situation requires it – by helping the villagers problem-solve (we’ll cut down the dead trees and start a new grove; if the fish aren’t here, try the north side of the island). Moana works hard to be authoritative, and can be quite assertive when she wants to be, but also has confidence that “we can find a solution to this!” She doesn’t give up, even when it seems impossible. She also believes her destiny, and wants to understand others and what makes them think as they do.

Extroverted Sensing (Se): Though she doesn’t really trust herself in sensory ways (and often finds it hard to learn), when the other children are terrified of adventure stories, Moana is excited. She doesn’t trust her father’s stories about how dangerous the ocean is beyond the reef, until she experiences it for herself – and nearly drowns. Moana is good at improvising… with the boat, the ocean, and whatever she finds around her on the ocean floor. She believes in taking risks, and even Maui complains that she nearly got them killed. She’s excited at the idea that they were once a “warrior tribe” – and cannot wait to get back on a boat. Oh, and though she’s initially intimidated, she throws herself into the underworld… a place where “no human would ever go!”

[infjinsight]

There’s something peaceful about being inside while there’s rain accompanied by the occasional light rumbles of thunder sounding from outside, especially when it’s still light out. No matter what I’m doing, it makes it feel like an easy, lazy afternoon.

[wheresmybubble]

It’s okay to make time for yourself.