Am I using intuition?

[suedehead]

For my English class, I'm supposed to comment on a discussion board about the readings that are assigned.

I read this one piece about a wealthy slave master who falls in love with a white woman and has a chilld with her. Before having the child, he's this tyrant who abuses his slaves, and then after having the kid he starts to loosen up and becomes really happy in general. Then as the child grows up, he notices that he has black features, and disowns his wife, tells her that she's black and it's her fault, and tells her to leave. Later, she notices him burning a bunch of letters, and the narrator says that one of them includes one that he's read before, which was written by his mother to his father, which says that she's happy that her son will never figure out the fact she has mixed-race ancestry.

In the commentary, I wrote that he probably knew about it all along, and the reason he treated his slaves like shit was because of self-hatred and he was venting his frustration onto them, and he only loosened up because he still thought his child was white for a bit, and upon realizing that he wasn't, he blames it on the mother in order to save face since he seems status-conscious. I also questioned whether his love for her at the beginning was genuine, since he's so quick to drop her over something that had nothing to do with her. She even tries to defend herself by saying that she's whiter than him, so maybe he only married her in order to 'cleanse' his bloodline and got mad when she didn't live up to it.


This is probably really basic, but while I was writing a whole paragraph on it I got a kick out of writing it and felt kind of smug for no reason afterwards, like I could write more of these basic interpretations that all end up having the same tone and reflect the same basic outlook. A lot of what I write when asked to do anything interpretive in general seems kind of negative. If I'm writing an essay on current events, it usually goes..everything's just going to shit, here are a bunch of sources to back it up, someone in power should do something about but I'm not sure what and all I can say is something vague and idealistic, or something that's already happening, and that's it. I generally like writing about decline, and events that are disruptive. Is this Ni-HA patting itself on the back or am I an intuitive?

[fairylights]

Sounds like self-satisfied Ni-HA to me. I don't know if you'd be that proud of it if you were an intuitive ... although, I guess I see plenty of intuitives who are supremely pleased with their own insights, lol. I don't know.

[Words]

I dunno, it sounds like an imagination or something, not specifically an intuitive function. Well intuition is a perceiving function and it is the judging function which does things with it, so I wonder how one would write about using intuition without it showing as a judging function - at least in the context you have done it I think it is more likely not possible than possible.

/stuff

[Amber]

I can see Fi&Ni in that interpretation (insight into the guy's relationship with himself, questioning of his feelings for the wife plus spotting some less obvious stuff "over time" in your assumption that he knew all along about his ancestry). Why does someone have to be an Intuitive to speculate on a literary text? that's a preconception imo. Was it something by Faulkner or ..?

[ashlesha]

I feel obnoxious marking agnis posts constructive constantly but I was thinking fi+ni as well (and second guessing because of my own type doubts).
@Agni is there a specific reason you ask if it was faulkner?

[Iris]

This is probably really basic, but while I was writing a whole paragraph on it I got a kick out of writing it and felt kind of smug for no reason afterwards, like I could write more of these basic interpretations that all end up having the same tone and reflect the same basic outlook. A lot of what I write when asked to do anything interpretive in general seems kind of negative. If I'm writing an essay on current events, it usually goes..everything's just going to shit, here are a bunch of sources to back it up, someone in power should do something about but I'm not sure what and all I can say is something vague and idealistic, or something that's already happening, and that's it. I generally like writing about decline, and events that are disruptive. Is this Ni-HA patting itself on the back or am I an intuitive?

It sounds like you are describing a producing function (2,4,6,8) in which you are strong (2,6,8.)

But I can't tell from the tone of what you wrote if you actually value this skill. I think it is possible to feel smug about a job well done without actually valuing it. If unvalued, you would be describing a demonstrative function.

[suedehead]

I usually do better if it just...clicks for me, and then I'll feel really confident about it. It usually comes down to one central theme that I really try to drive home, and I'll try to make things fit. But when nothing clicks, which happens often, I'm pretty much blank, apathetic, frustrated and have to grasp at straws reluctantly, or just come up with something literal. I hate weird questions that I've gotten like 'what does it mean to be an American?' or 'what's your role within American society?', 'how do your values reflect American ones?', 'how does this text change your view of what it means to be an American?', etc. Even if I can come up with a good answer, it's usually a drag to answer those sort of questions. A lot of the questions asked are tinged with this weird...nostalgia and romanticism surrounding names and symbols like 'America', 'The American Dream', etc. that I don't relate to or really get. Whereas...I've seen people in my class who seem really casual and open to these discussions, and offer up all these anecdotes.

[Iris]

[QUOTE=suedehead;1052470] I generally like writing about decline, and events that are disruptive. QUOTE]

I wonder if that points to you being a dynamic and critical type, Like ILI?

[suedehead]

[QUOTE=Iris;1052569]

I generally like writing about decline, and events that are disruptive. QUOTE]

I wonder if that points to you being a dynamic and critical type, Like ILI?

Im attracted to that sort of information, but I'm not good at coming up with anything original. When I'm writing an essay things like "America is built on 300 years of blah blah blah, and moving forward...", 'within the context of history', etc. will come out and it can get kind of melodramatic about it when I have to stretch out an essay or make it look good, but it's never anything groundbreaking. I don't naturally think that way, and when I look back on something I've written it feels pretentious or like I think I'm really perceptive all of a sudden when it's probably kind of basic or contrived. Like I had one essay where my concluding sentence was something along the lines of "the ardor with which Creveceour speaks of the American Dream and the country's economic prospects in his letter is still valuable, if not, to remind those in high government positions of the precedent that's been set, and that they've since failed to live up to."..Since I was kind of forced to draw a connection between an 18th century text and something modern.

[suedehead]

Bump.

[some chair]

How old are you? I think that it's hasty rhetoric to assign one singular cause to the gentleman's behaviour. There are other explanations as well, though I suspect failing to acknowledge them only really speaks to a lack of experience rather than function "strength" or "dimensionality".

[Aylen]

These are just some of my beliefs on intuition:

Intuition is like a "knowing". In it's purity it is that inner voice that I can completely trust yet I will dismiss if it does not suit my desires. In my experience intuition is stronger in my dreams where I am not as prone to analyze the information that comes through me. The problem for me is in expressing it with clarity because once the knowing is felt then comes the feelings/emotions and beliefs I have surrounding the intuition. Once I engage my imagination I can turn pure intuition into something more than what it was originally meant to be.

I think it is a good idea to continue to follow your impressions and impulses. Intuition, for me, is something that I will trust above everything else and know deep down to be true regardless of external factors. Letting those external factors influence me makes me doubt myself quite a bit. I think when something is intuition you will know though just try not to let all the external stuff fuck your mind. Trust yourself and practice then get feedback. Over time you will start to distinguish imagination from intuition even though they can merge beautifully. Imagination is as real as intuition to me. It is just another form of self communication. So do you think your writing could be more intuitive or imaginative? Was it like a "whoah, I get it" moment or "wow, this is cool so i am going with it"? Maybe intuitively you got a sense of what was originally intended by the writer and used your imagination to take it further or possibly you got a knowing of exactly what he was feeling. I don't know. I can't say that intuition makes me feel smug. It is more of an inner peace for me when I realize I got it right even when I wanted it to be wrong.

[anndelise]

Two common beliefs about where we get our intuitions from are
A) spirits, gods, angels, etc Some supernatural entity whispering the information/ideas to us, or our spirit accessing something like the akashic records.
B) drawing from unconscious experiences and beliefs. It's built off of your own personal database of symbols/meanings. An impoverished database leads to impoverished intuited meanings and inaccuracy abundance.

Both bring a risk for projecting one's own thoughts, experiences, and beliefs onto others.

Intuition is also part of the pattern finding process. And there is a range of strengths at which people honestly believe the pattern they see is Real or Truth. For more info on this, look up "apophenia" and "false positives".

Intuitions can be improved through questioning them, analyzing them, and/or otherwise critically thinking about them and the database of experiences and beliefs they derived from.