Introverted Ethics Fi Described As "Resonance"

[Gilly]

FI IS LIKE RELIGION

KILL KILL KILL

[Mattie]

Honestly, I just want to move past this. What is said is understood and nothing in this thread is really going to mediate or compromise between the different sides other than just to have sportsmanship when discussing ideas. If it is inherent that no matter what, my examples are going to be irksome to a certain group of people, then let's just all acknowledge that now and not make a big deal about it in the future. From these replies I haven't found any advise accept that whatever I'm doing is something I can't help, so it doesn't really make sense to try to justify/argue my way out of it. If this thread is done, it's done, I'll fine tune this and hopefully start one on soon.

[anndelise]

I think you misunderstand my idea. I'm not saying that the word does not suit the thought. I'm saying that the choice of word does more than reflect the intentional, conscious idea that the speaker is trying to convey. It also reflects something about the speaker's mental state. It reveals something about the unintentional, unconscious ideas and associations that are going on in the speaker's mind. That's what I mean by "there's a reason why you choose the words you choose." Given that there are limitless combination of words that can express the same basic idea, for what reasons, conscious and unconscious, did the person choose the specific combination that they did? Of course, people will say that this is being overly nitpicky, overly analytical. And it doesn't have a use in all situations. But when your mind is trained to be sensitive to things like that, even to unconsciously collect information about why a speaker may have chosen the words that they chose, sometimes you can't help but "figure out" some of those unconscious, unintentional reasons people choose the words they do.

I agree with all but the intentional reasons portion. One of the biggest hurdles I've had (and still have) when interacting/communicating with INFps is their tendency to attribute intentions to my words/actions, and to the words/actions of some others, which are sometimes pretty farfetching from what the person has actually said/done.

Its similar to one of the arguments I had with a now ex-friend. He attributed some really nasty intentions to me. I was in shock that he thought I could ever think or respond that way. I asked him "what have I ever done that would make you think that I would have those intentions?" He responded with "well, most people in x situation..." I said "what did *I* ever do that would make you think that I would have those intentions?" Him: "well, most people in x situation..." Me: "No. I'm not "most people". I want to know what have I, personally, ever done that would make you think that about me." Him: "well, most people in x situation...."

Its also similar to one of the conversations I had with an INFp friend (self typed, and used to be on this forum). When we'd talk about Fi, he expresses a similar reaction as you've expressed here. When talking about the ID vs EGO and such as well, he had talked about how he sees the Fi in himself, but that if he were to use that as an ego function, he would consider it an evil thing to do. Previously, he'd kept attributing intentions that were based on that...on how he'd use it if it were part of his ego. In this conversation, he (not sure what word to put here, it came from himself, not me trying to drag it out of him)...'acknowledged'...'gave leniency'...that I haven't seemed to do anything with that intention, myself, though he still interprets other people's Fi with the same intentions.

(Similar to how expat kept making attributions to infps intentions, when it was more like entj intentions for using the Ni+Fe elements. Various INFPs tried to tell him he was wrong, but he insisted that his interpretation of their intentions for using Ni+Fe was correct.)

(oh, and I'm not trying to suggest that this is an infp related thing. I think it's a human bias thing, and a type/quadra bias as well. I only focused on the Fi/Te 'vs' infp thing because of this particular conversation.)

I'm not claiming that her words don't "fit" every single person on the forum, nor that they ought to. I am claiming that her choice of words may seem to reveal assumptions, biases, associations, etc., that are not part of the intended "information content" of the text.

I agree, to a point.
I still say, though, that the interpretations of what's being perceived as 'revealed' may or may not be right/wrong.
But yeah, I think much of it might be related to whatever's behind those samples I gave above.

Exactly! I was describing a subjective, personal experience. I was describing what it "feels like" to me. Now, I didn't explicitly say, "now this is just my personal opinion, just my experience," but I don't feel like I have to. To me, anyway, it's just obvious when someone is saying what it's like for them rather than what it's like period.

Ok.
I just ask that you keep in mind when reading enfp threads that we (the enfps I've observed interactions with) often sound like we are stating something as a fact, when it's not how we meant it, nor how we are thinking of it. Most of the time we are tossing ideas around, and while doing so take a temporary orientation of 'if this were so', or 'what if'. Our wording will often reflect that orientation, but not the double orientation of 'i'm imagining that' + 'if this were so'. I believe that this is one reason why a lot of what we write sounds more....fact oriented...than is actually thought in the enfp's mind. I'm not sure I got the wording of that right. Much easier to describe with hand gestures and body placement, heh.

Anyways, I do recognize that this is often an issue we have with many Beta and Gamma individuals.

On the other coin, this is a similar argument I had against Joy. It felt very strongly that she kept stating things as fact, with very little qualification that it was her opinion.

And also a similar argument I had with Expat. The difference with him though was that he seemed to keep insisting that 'yes this perception is his opinion' while at the same time continuing to push it. Whether trying to push it as fact....or to get people to change their own opinions, I'm not sure. But then niffweed does this sometimes to. As does Gilly, imo. And I'm sure many other types do...and alas, I may sometimes fall into the trap myself.

That's because, at least on this internet forum, I am more inclined to moderate myself than gilly seems to be. He's not wrong for moderating himself less, I'm not wrong for moderating myself more. Different goals is all. But, since I know that this was meant kindly, I am glad to take it in the spirit in which it was intended. In other words, thank you.

I think both enfps and infps wind up doing quite a bit of moderating their word choices and such when dealing with each other. No, not when dealing with each other...when actively trying to communicate with each other. Moderating wouldn't be felt important to do when interacting with our identicals/mirrors. Such that when we read a post thread within our own quadra, we 'get' what a person is saying/meaning. But when reading a post/thread in the opposing quadra, where the initial OP doesn't have that moderating attempts, that it's at risk of causing some pretty big misunderstandings between the two different quadra club members.

I'm not suggesting that this is limited to beta/delta nfs, though. But I do think that xNFp tend to be more willing to attempt to moderate themselves when actively communicating with each other. Not that it's easy for either, and not feel misunderstood. But that our humanistic orientation and flexibility sets us up for more willingness to find a mutual understanding of the other.


Anyhoot, ummm, yeah.

[silverchris9]

Honestly, I just want to move past this. What is said is understood and nothing in this thread is really going to mediate or compromise between the different sides other than just to have sportsmanship when discussing ideas. If it is inherent that no matter what, my examples are going to be irksome to a certain group of people, then let's just all acknowledge that now and not make a big deal about it in the future. From these replies I haven't found any advise accept that whatever I'm doing is something I can't help, so it doesn't really make sense to try to justify/argue my way out of it. If this thread is done, it's done, I'll fine tune this and hopefully start one on soon.

Nobody said the thread had to be over. Basically, what I'm saying is, don't take things so personally, especially when I'm already saying that I've learned plenty from your writing. I was just talking about me, with absolutely zero bearing on how useful or good or true or applicable your ideas are, even to betas, insofar as I am one.

Its similar to one of the arguments I had with a now ex-friend. He attributed some really nasty intentions to me. I was in shock that he thought I could ever think or respond that way. I asked him "what have I ever done that would make you think that I would have those intentions?" He responded with "well, most people in x situation..." I said "what did *I* ever do that would make you think that I would have those intentions?" Him: "well, most people in x situation..." Me: "No. I'm not "most people". I want to know what have I, personally, ever done that would make you think that about me." Him: "well, most people in x situation...."

I just had this exact same argument with my little brother (SEE). And I had already read your post, so I kept thinking back to it, which made things sort of comical. Anyway, I think Ni-valuers/betas tend to think that the onus is on the "accused" person to prove that they are the exception to the rule, and Ne-valuers/deltas tend to think that the onus is on the "accusing" person to prove that the rule applies to them. We were arguing about listening to audiobooks vs. reading a book, and he kept saying that he learns better by listening to audiobooks, and how could I possibly contradict that, since he knows how he learns and I don't. But I was saying that it's impossible for anybody to have the same experience listening to an audiobook as reading a book, and as such, he could not learn what one learns by reading a book better by listening to the book instead of reading it, although I gladly conceded that he could reach certain goals, i.e., getting a decent grade, better by listening to an audiobook than by reading a real book. Also, I was just offended that he tried to conflate the two, when it's really two totally different experiences.

I think both enfps and infps wind up doing quite a bit of moderating their word choices and such when dealing with each other. No, not when dealing with each other...when actively trying to communicate with each other. Moderating wouldn't be felt important to do when interacting with our identicals/mirrors. Such that when we read a post thread within our own quadra, we 'get' what a person is saying/meaning. But when reading a post/thread in the opposing quadra, where the initial OP doesn't have that moderating attempts, that it's at risk of causing some pretty big misunderstandings between the two different quadra club members.

I'm not suggesting that this is limited to beta/delta nfs, though. But I do think that xNFp tend to be more willing to attempt to moderate themselves when actively communicating with each other. Not that it's easy for either, and not feel misunderstood. But that our humanistic orientation and flexibility sets us up for more willingness to find a mutual understanding of the other.

Agreed. I can feel ENFps moderating themselves around me and me moderating myself around them. Sometimes it's okay, especially if I'm prepared for it and can anticipate it, but some times is no fun, especially if I'm hanging out with people I don't have to moderate myself around and then suddenly I do have to moderate myself, etc. And also agreed that misunderstandings can result from a lack of moderation, obviously.

[The Greeter]

Mattie, sorry for the delayed response. I hope I'm not too late.

A
Wouldn't adding that "regards to all things 'humane'" be too specific? I actually think "Resonance" covers the IA very well, but you might be wanting to cover the IE as well in some manner, which it doesn't do. You'd have to further break down (or maybe clearly list) what you think are the 'parts' of what the IA is. I also don't think 'field' and 'interaction' are interchangeable either... I think the Xi IAs are more relational, maybe more effectual; it's less of the objects being present and more what it is that exists between them. It's possible I'm missing your point, I don't feel like I have a clear idea of what you're saying


....

Again, this sounds more like of what I'm trying to avoid. is less about being aware of certain things in people and more about an abstract sensation based on certain parameters that creates a relational web between objects.

Well, I'm starting to see the differences in our views in Socionics but I'll begin with what is actually similar.

To start with, everything you have written here, regarding the behaviour of introverted functions, I agree with.

Interactions and fields are not interchangeable, you are correct again, but the former is a (read: one) component of the latter; the sum of all interactions create the field, and the properties of the interactions give the holistic result a flavour. Of course, I acknowledge that the sum may not necessarily equate to the whole, but that is, or should be, already be known as a flaw in this theory.

Secondly, it is difficult to speak of fields, without indirectly speaking about the objects that contribute to the field. Even in your initial description, you had to implicitly define two objects, the theremin itself and the person who manipulates it. Despite this, I know that it is not these two objects that are your focus, but what happens between them. Because I am not speaking in metaphors, which in many ways does not demand precise language, but, rather, directly speaking about Fi, objects were unintentionally overemphasized.

Regarding my explanations over the what Fi understands about people, I realized that I went off topic by mentioning this, though I still maintain its validity. But the topic is about Fi itself, and not a consequence of it.

Hmm, none this really settles well with me to be frank. I feel like these are relying on catch-qualities rather than what they are. Firstly, I don't think any of the IAs are inherently "social," or at least, more or less social than the other. Also, I don't think emotion and logic are factors in and either; when I said feelings in my example, I wasn't necessarily meaning emotions, more sensations. An emotion is a psychological state of being, and that's not really what I was trying to communicate, more the feeling along the lines of being affected by something.

I used "emotional" for a lack of a better word, hence the quotation. I agree with the bolded sentence.

In my opinion though, logic does factor into both Fi and Ti, but they are both based on variants of it.

To be honest, your response (the none-bolded, directly above) completely missed what I was trying to convery.

Discussion of the social nature of the judging functions are best saved for another topic. But I will assert that perceiving functions focus on what the world is, and judging functions focus on giving human relevance.

The reason I considered Fi "humane" is because when it creates a relational web, there is always a human tangent with it, but it is not necessarily as "cold" as Ti when it creates one of its own. The problem is that your limits in the way you describe functions suffer from imprecision. Consequently, I feel, there are a lot of overlap of concepts. But this is not necessarily a bad thing, because Socionics as a whole has this problem, so the fact that this discussion pushes it, has a lot of benefit to our understanding.

[Mattie]

I realized that I didn't give any reasoning to why I chose "Resonance," I just assumed people would just accept it and the example would prove itself on its own. I'm thinking that not opening with what I liked about "Resonance" might have made it more difficult to communicate what I wanted to, especially with the focus on music that happened here, I was thinking of a more multi-faceted definition of "Resonance" and was probably only communicating one. So here's the dictionary's definitions for the word, maybe they will lend more to the OP if we take all the definitions into account:

1. the condition or quality of being resonant [1]
2. sound produced by a body vibrating in sympathy[2] with a neighbouring source of sound
3. the condition of a body or system when it is subjected to a periodic disturbance of the same frequency as the natural frequency of the body or system. At this frequency the system displays an enhanced oscillation or vibration
4. amplification of speech sounds by sympathetic[2] vibration in the bone structure of the head and chest, resounding in the cavities of the nose, mouth, and pharynx
5. electronics the condition of an electrical circuit when the frequency is such that the capacitive and inductive reactances are equal in magnitude. In a series circuit there is then maximum alternating current whilst in a parallel circuit there is minimum alternating current
6. med the sound heard when percussing a hollow bodily structure, esp the chest or abdomen. Change in the quality of the sound often indicates an underlying disease or disorder
7. chem the phenomenon in which the electronic structure of a molecule can be represented by two or more hypothetical structures involving single, double, and triple chemical bonds. The true structure is considered to be an average of these theoretical structures
8. physics
a. the condition of a system in which there is a sharp maximum probability for the absorption of electromagnetic radiation or capture of particles
b. a type of elementary particle of extremely short lifetime. Resonances are regarded as excited states of more stable particles
c. a highly transient atomic state formed during a collision process

[1] Resonant meaning resounding, echoing.
[2] Sympathy meaning harmonizing in this case.


I think my example focuses more on the first 3 definitions, but I think I overall created the example with all these definitions in mind. Note definitions 6 and 8, which you can apply to my example without the idea of music but of sensation, which is more of what I was aiming at.

Also, I'm going to be doing next instead, as it has more relevance to my life and therefore I've been focusing on it more with my NeTi friend. So after that will be . Right now I'm having a little difficulty with the exact word I want for ... It might be Schema instead of Schematic, as the versatility of the former word would suit my purposes better. The idea of an Axiomatic Schema fits what I think about , but I will be deliberating and bouncing ideas off of my friend. I'll try to introduce my thread with a definition next time if that seems better, since it will give everyone a point of reference.

[thePirate]

II think you're getting caught up in the word dynamic as it isn't related to Socionics, and then Dynamic, the term in Socionics. This sounds dynamic as an adjective, and that's because all IAs are dynamic and static in different perspectives, when you take those words out of Socionics context. If wasn't dynamic, then you'd be feeling the same "Resonance" that you were when you were first able to consciously "feel" it. Or, outside of this, it means that the information in cannot change at all, which in practice we all know isn't true.

I agree with labcoat

dynamic = of or relating to energy or to objects in motion

you're using Ne to distort clear cut meanings - its more accurate to say Fi has moments of being dynamic, but it isn't dynamic itself. 'resonance' applies to both feeling elements, although I would say it applies more so to Fe precisely because of labcoat's reasoning - resonance is a more dynamic term than a static one.

[The Greeter]

Actually, "resonance" by definition is a state. Something that static functions deal with. So, the way Mattie utilizes the term is not inaccurate. It does suffer from specificity though, as it is only one of many states.

[Creepy-female]

I just had this exact same argument with my little brother (SEE). And I had already read your post, so I kept thinking back to it, which made things sort of comical. Anyway, I think Ni-valuers/betas tend to think that the onus is on the "accused" person to prove that they are the exception to the rule, and Ne-valuers/deltas tend to think that the onus is on the "accusing" person to prove that the rule applies to them. We were arguing about listening to audiobooks vs. reading a book, and he kept saying that he learns better by listening to audiobooks, and how could I possibly contradict that, since he knows how he learns and I don't. But I was saying that it's impossible for anybody to have the same experience listening to an audiobook as reading a book, and as such, he could not learn what one learns by reading a book better by listening to the book instead of reading it, although I gladly conceded that he could reach certain goals, i.e., getting a decent grade, better by listening to an audiobook than by reading a real book. Also, I was just offended that he tried to conflate the two, when it's really two totally different experiences.

Hi Silverchris!..wasn't sure if this was going to be considered off topic, so if it is perhaps a mod can move it, but I kind of thought it might be related to Fi, and if it's Gamma, perhaps you could excuse me, perhaps I could slide by on the Fi aspect, so fwiw..

I've been thinking about this concept of learning, or something in the realm of that, and it has to do with..just not learning in any linear, traceable sort of fashion. But perhaps before I start I just want to say that, reading this thread, I have the desire to ask people, perhaps like Silverchris, who took the time to communicate so extensively outside of his original preferences, I would like to say that I don't think I'm coming from the connected structured sort of viewpoint you might expected as a Ti/Fe valuer, so I think I want you to come into what I'm saying here automatically biased, or automatically on the sort of "defensive" or what have you. I don't want you to attribute your own quadra motives to my writing. I mean, after all of reading this thread and learning a lot about how people communicate, if there's one thing I don't wish you would do, it's that you misunderstand me here. So I ask that you please put your preconceptions on hold and do whatever it takes to do that. And I ask you to consider that it's actually quite easy...just put away what you think, put away what you know about the world. Just be in my words, and if you can't follow them, read them aloud, sometimes they make more sense that way. I ask that you be involved in my writing, and don't structure anything in your mind just yet, you can do that afterwards, but for now, for the purpose of understanding..

So it has to do with learning..communicating, learning, communicating learning. And I feel like, if I can make some sort of vague blanket statement here, it's that the Aristocratic quadras in my life have approached learning as this, as if you can't really escape the objectivity of it. It just seems inherent in their worldviews and if little pieces in their psyche broke away and considered the possibility of learning being a different way, it would be impossible or at least very hard for them..it makes them very weak because it feels like when they attempt it (which I have hardly ever seen them try to do) they are trying to speak on a subject they know very little about..

I don't know why I feel what I feel..I don't pretend to understand it perfectly..but the world is inherently chaotic. Just set aside perhaps your convictions that you may be having right now and the arguments you might be setting up in your head to justify to me that the world is indeed not chaotic, and everything has its order. "There are rules," says Neil Gaiman. "There are always rules."

Or something of the sort. I could actually go and look that up, the exact words, but I feel I would miss out and this expansive mindset that comes out of nowhere, I feel that would be stunted, like the kind of happening in which you stick something into a moving machinery, can't remember the phrase..so in this mindset, in the one that I know, I push aside that inconsistency because the meaning in this instance, that's what I'm trying to communicate. And it takes a sort of vunerability because you have to trust that the people which whom you are communicating are not going to jump on that perhaps logical inconsistency. Or perhaps they'll consider you a liar or redefine your motives because they can't seem to make a connection, after so many times, after so many years, that a person's subjective state is worth bearing, or considering, after the years, after the sacrifice, after moments when..

Ok so, I didn't want to get too vague here..I feel I've started to make rules about the universe in my own way, not because I believe there's any one way people function, or perhaps it's what I don't WANT to believe but have sort of been forced into for efficiency's sake. When I describe events, examples, I feel you're going to redefine them, perhaps in your own mind, perhaps for efficiency's sake of your own thought processes. That's...what happens. That's part of the crux of this Socionics bullshit.

But..I don't want you to redefine them. I just want you to, feel what I feel. For one second. For two. That's how you understand me, to feel what I feel. Now when you bring what you THINK into it, I can start troubleshooting for that. I could be lazy, or whimsical, inconsistent, troublesome..and adjust for that. It's painful, but it's what I'm used to. Because I love appreciation. I crave it. More than anything in the world, I want to be wanted. And adhering to these sort of objective standards can gain one recognition. It's not the idea sort of recognition, but it's approval all the same; I can't get pork so I eat shrubs, etc.

Now I just want to say, if it hasn't occurred to you, if you're in an Aristocratic quadra, (and I don't mean to project, if you don't think like this, and yes I could be completely wrong), that learning isn't all pain. Now, in my observation, the Aristocratic quadras come from different formulations, but in the end, you are left with relatively the same idea. In Beta, you're coming from the objective mindset, where things are externally correlated into general mostly unbreakable rules and theories and whatnot about humanity and ideas and how they work, etc. And most simply, that is pain to a Fi/Te valuer. Yes, I've tried to mold myself to that mindset, to trace the linear correlations with my fingertips, to apply those standards to my own life, to people, to ideas. And yes, it doesn't help. There is no fundemental belief to those things, and my motives are not being stubborn because I simply won't admit that these things are true. As if I actually believed in them and was just refusing to do so. There is just that, some things cause pain, and some things cause pleasure, or the feeling of rightness, and I don't know why.

Now, I am aware that that thought subjectively didn't iron itself it out, or finish satisfactorily. So if you are still here with me as a reader, I would ask you to refrain from categorizing these things in your mind just yet.

Feel the dissonance that causes you.

Of being in some following thought, and then it cuts off.

Don't try to tuck it away in a structure.

Just feel how it sort of reverberates in your chest as a slightly sick feeling.

Now, observe how I'm not going to take that out on anyone. I'm not going to emotionally barb them, or throw a fit, or say I'm crazy because of it. Before you get too caught up in the feeling of anxiety from how to deal with holding this dissonance, re-examine the circumstances.

What is there to blame? My intentions were good, my thoughts were following, I was trying very hard to communicate this thing..

And then suddenly it cuts off.

Now is that something to blame? To re-examine? There's an issue in my life I'm not addressing, I'm an evil person, I'm hiding shit?

Now if you're Fe/Ti, you should keep in mind that Fi/Te already have their own high standards. And that their instinctual examination of their motives and the rightness of their choices and what happens is already going to weigh heavily on them. And it seems that you don't see that process because they don't express it so externally. I'm not saying that you don't have a corresponding perception. I'm just saying, if you're in this perception right now, this is how it can be, and it's valid.

But anyway, with Betas, there is this appeal to objectivity. Don't try to redefine objectivity or hold me to something that I'm not saying, I know it's probably a shitty or cursory phrase that's not completely perfect. I'm going to share a more personal example so I hope I don't regret it or that you attack me for it. And I realize that there are perhaps different reasons instead of the one I'm referring to for this phenomenon. (But I don't believe that there are different reasons. No one, no one, has been able to give a better explanation. So I keep my own. And passing lines of "it's not that way" are not going to be convincing.)

He talks about life..well, he's my brother. And he sits with me in the car, and says objectively innocuous things about...about living. I don't actually remember all the exact phrases, it took me so much mental concentration just to bear it. Parents are parents. Don't be too hard on them. An education is beneficial. I don't know what I'm going to do but I'm just going to do it! I'm just going to go for it, whether or not I like it. I'll learn to like it. There are objective things you have to adjust for in the world. Learning is pain. He was looking for a girlfriend. You know sometimes girls learn to like someone after they go out with someone for a while. You don't have to like them from the beginning.

Now...I find it hard to argue with my brother. It makes me sort of physically sick. Because every time I just say what I feel, I get, "Are you ok?" Well yes, I am actually ok. Just because I'm crying doesn't mean I'm a blubbering nutcase or that I need sympathy. What I actually WANT is understanding, like a state of non judgment. In the back of my mind my life has happened to fall into some objective patterns perhaps, about work or growth or pain, but I ignore those patterns, because they had no bearing on my experience, or perception. They had nothing to do with how I acted, or my choices. They were irrelevant. I don't want someone else to pour my life like a vat of hot wax into a fucking mold that I didn't choose.

Now perhaps you thought I cried, because I referred to crying, but the fact is I didn't cry. I was sort of a zombie, from bearing all the emotional states seemingly deadpan, but I didn't cry.

Now they say this stuff. This stuff about family. Blood is thicker than water. Kinship. Family. Family. And it echoes in my head. Because none of it is true.

I don't feel ultimate kinship for my brother. Or my family. I'm always repressing my emotions with them. I don't think it can be another away. It..doesn't work. It doesn't work to connect with them, and that's a fact. They don't work. I mean, we don't work. As people. We don't connect. I wouldn't have chosen them, if they were in a crowd. They're not my people. I love them in my own way, but ultimately we're so different. Ultimately, I leave their presence, and I'm lost, sick, and confused. Family is family? But my feelings..say otherwise.

Now you can have a lot of silly ultimatums to throw at me. Like things will get better with time. Or everyone goes through this stuff. Or parents are parents. More of the same. And I'm not discounting your experience..I mean I don't want to. But there is something like, if acknowledging your experience is going to end up causing me pain, then I'm going to have to say no, and set some boundaries..

My brother is always going to be convinced of his objective theories about life. And we're always going to sit there, metaphorically, not connecting.

Communicating with Betas is like, sometimes you have to set the sort of fierceness of your opinions aside to communicate, and then you actually agree on a lot of the same things. But still, that underlying fierceness can't be ignored forever.

The way Deltas are different than Betas is how they come to the same conclusion despite sort of different methods. Deltas believe in feelings to some extent. To feelings trumping objectivity. Deltas start with feelings, and acknowledging them, and dislike/attraction/repulsion for the sake of those, and not objectifying them..Deltas seem merciful at first. And they are, always merciful. They are, always sort of a landing pad of peace in ways. But the way Deltas operate is that, they must take those perceptions and harness them in a peaceful way for the good of society. They basically perceive that society is going to fall apart if those feelings are...made anything of. If conclusions are drawn from them. They have a stalwartness. They seem to me to be perpetually struggling because they don't think that strong bold actions to change things based on those feelings have merit. They don't even think in terms of strong bold actions or anything. Deltas are harder for me to describe coherently at this point so I think I'm going to hold off a bit..

But it's like...you give the Aristocratic quadras a piece of learning. And they have a lot of opinions on it. But it helped for me to, learn away from anyone, by myself. Maybe you'll think this is a stupid example, but I read Silverchris' paragraph about his brother, and I thought to what I had been thinking of before this, of how I was given a stock list at work. And perhaps I could've accomplished it in an objectively better manner. Matched things and drew lines between their properties. But I just wanted to be left to myself, to do things my way, by feeling, without any apparent rhyme or reason. Without that sort of weight, I'm so...energetic. And enthusiastic. And I get things done very fast. And it doesn't end up mattering if I follow some predefined organization. I can run off my enthusiasm in a rather aggressive manner, and it's very effective. If someone chimed in with approval at seeing my enthusiasm and good intentions, it's even more of a good effect and I end up being able to work tirelessly. Approval is 100000x more effective for me than criticism. No matter what is learned through pain based methods, I end up not needing them because I already possess an internal mechanism for a shitload of pain and internal beratement if I do something that might be "wrong". So it's like the extra external judgment and criticism isn't necessary. I take my mistakes very hard. And I know to other people it looks like I'm ignoring them. And it feels like they don't know me and I can't really talk to them or communicate with them, that it would be pointless, because if I can pretend to not care about my mistakes and they really believe that, well then. I used to try a lot to get people like that to understand, but now perhaps I've become a bit more uncaring about that effect. Feelings can't be forced. People just have to end up believing what they will.

I feel that the way I've learned belongs to me, and certain types of external structure don't have any bearing on it. And I dislike it when people try to impose that. It's like in Silverchris' example, he conceded in this weird way that yes, it could be productive according to certain goals by utilizing this apparently non-superior way of learning. And if I react completely unrestraint-edly, I'd feel like, how arrogant is that. How arrogant of Silverchris. Or how silly. Like if it really is about goals and if you really want to get someone to do something you want, silly Beta, if you want him to stop chaffing at your bit and become your tireless supporter, try using positive reinforcement instead. Try some mute, dumb, unconditional approval and see where that gets you in his graces. lol. Goals. Like goals. It's all about getting to the top of the pile of bodies. Maybe he can't help the way he learns, like maybe it is possible that it's all true, what he's saying, and that's just the way things are. Maybe the semantics are all meaningless, and the lines you're drawing for goals don't matter. Like conflating the "holy" experience of audio learning vs reading. Like, holy, sacred, blah blah blah. But what is there to appeal to besides that sort of ohmigoddeathandsatansdentalcanals way of thinking. Betas make fun of themselves ironically and emo-ly sometimes, using all their double meanings to convey their angst, because they're distressed over the fact that they're this way and can't help it, and they're happy about their distress, and they're morbid about their happiness, and they're gleeful about their morbidity, and it's like describing their states makes their little heads explode. But anyway, I thought of the general concept of what Ann said somewhere in this thread, about making things more involved to facilitate understanding..this is called double involvement you N little mofos.

Oh I forgot to mention something I thought about learning...it's like when you just sort of let the weight of non-objective learning sink in, and just kind of feel it without attaching judgments to it. Aristocratic quadras scurry around..it seems not possible for them to talk about theoretical perspectives without attaching this "the world is going to explode" sort of fanaticism to those perspectives. It makes Aristocracy cute and helpless. Betas talk about their bling and Deltas..well...Deltas give you vegetables. Sorry guys. Sometimes you really suck.

[07490]

That's the longest post in the history of 16 types.

[Creepy-female]

hahahaha

[Rubicon]

Hi Silverchris!..wasn't sure if this was going to be considered off topic, so if it is perhaps a mod can move it, but I kind of thought it might be related to Fi, and if it's Gamma, perhaps you could excuse me, perhaps I could slide by on the Fi aspect, so fwiw..

I've been thinking about this concept of learning, or something in the realm of that, and it has to do with..just not learning in any linear, traceable sort of fashion. But perhaps before I start I just want to say that, reading this thread, I have the desire to ask people, perhaps like Silverchris, who took the time to communicate so extensively outside of his original preferences, I would like to say that I don't think I'm coming from the connected structured sort of viewpoint you might expected as a Ti/Fe valuer, so I think I want you to come into what I'm saying here automatically biased, or automatically on the sort of "defensive" or what have you. I don't want you to attribute your own quadra motives to my writing. I mean, after all of reading this thread and learning a lot about how people communicate, if there's one thing I don't wish you would do, it's that you misunderstand me here. So I ask that you please put your preconceptions on hold and do whatever it takes to do that. And I ask you to consider that it's actually quite easy...just put away what you think, put away what you know about the world. Just be in my words, and if you can't follow them, read them aloud, sometimes they make more sense that way. I ask that you be involved in my writing, and don't structure anything in your mind just yet, you can do that afterwards, but for now, for the purpose of understanding..

So it has to do with learning..communicating, learning, communicating learning. And I feel like, if I can make some sort of vague blanket statement here, it's that the Aristocratic quadras in my life have approached learning as this, as if you can't really escape the objectivity of it. It just seems inherent in their worldviews and if little pieces in their psyche broke away and considered the possibility of learning being a different way, it would be impossible or at least very hard for them..it makes them very weak because it feels like when they attempt it (which I have hardly ever seen them try to do) they are trying to speak on a subject they know very little about..

I don't know why I feel what I feel..I don't pretend to understand it perfectly..but the world is inherently chaotic. Just set aside perhaps your convictions that you may be having right now and the arguments you might be setting up in your head to justify to me that the world is indeed not chaotic, and everything has its order. "There are rules," says Neil Gaiman. "There are always rules."

Or something of the sort. I could actually go and look that up, the exact words, but I feel I would miss out and this expansive mindset that comes out of nowhere, I feel that would be stunted, like the kind of happening in which you stick something into a moving machinery, can't remember the phrase..so in this mindset, in the one that I know, I push aside that inconsistency because the meaning in this instance, that's what I'm trying to communicate. And it takes a sort of vunerability because you have to trust that the people which whom you are communicating are not going to jump on that perhaps logical inconsistency. Or perhaps they'll consider you a liar or redefine your motives because they can't seem to make a connection, after so many times, after so many years, that a person's subjective state is worth bearing, or considering, after the years, after the sacrifice, after moments when..

Ok so, I didn't want to get too vague here..I feel I've started to make rules about the universe in my own way, not because I believe there's any one way people function, or perhaps it's what I don't WANT to believe but have sort of been forced into for efficiency's sake. When I describe events, examples, I feel you're going to redefine them, perhaps in your own mind, perhaps for efficiency's sake of your own thought processes. That's...what happens. That's part of the crux of this Socionics bullshit.

But..I don't want you to redefine them. I just want you to, feel what I feel. For one second. For two. That's how you understand me, to feel what I feel. Now when you bring what you THINK into it, I can start troubleshooting for that. I could be lazy, or whimsical, inconsistent, troublesome..and adjust for that. It's painful, but it's what I'm used to. Because I love appreciation. I crave it. More than anything in the world, I want to be wanted. And adhering to these sort of objective standards can gain one recognition. It's not the idea sort of recognition, but it's approval all the same; I can't get pork so I eat shrubs, etc.

Now I just want to say, if it hasn't occurred to you, if you're in an Aristocratic quadra, (and I don't mean to project, if you don't think like this, and yes I could be completely wrong), that learning isn't all pain. Now, in my observation, the Aristocratic quadras come from different formulations, but in the end, you are left with relatively the same idea. In Beta, you're coming from the objective mindset, where things are externally correlated into general mostly unbreakable rules and theories and whatnot about humanity and ideas and how they work, etc. And most simply, that is pain to a Fi/Te valuer. Yes, I've tried to mold myself to that mindset, to trace the linear correlations with my fingertips, to apply those standards to my own life, to people, to ideas. And yes, it doesn't help. There is no fundemental belief to those things, and my motives are not being stubborn because I simply won't admit that these things are true. As if I actually believed in them and was just refusing to do so. There is just that, some things cause pain, and some things cause pleasure, or the feeling of rightness, and I don't know why.

Now, I am aware that that thought subjectively didn't iron itself it out, or finish satisfactorily. So if you are still here with me as a reader, I would ask you to refrain from categorizing these things in your mind just yet.

Feel the dissonance that causes you.

Of being in some following thought, and then it cuts off.

Don't try to tuck it away in a structure.

Just feel how it sort of reverberates in your chest as a slightly sick feeling.

Now, observe how I'm not going to take that out on anyone. I'm not going to emotionally barb them, or throw a fit, or say I'm crazy because of it. Before you get too caught up in the feeling of anxiety from how to deal with holding this dissonance, re-examine the circumstances.

What is there to blame? My intentions were good, my thoughts were following, I was trying very hard to communicate this thing..

And then suddenly it cuts off.

Now is that something to blame? To re-examine? There's an issue in my life I'm not addressing, I'm an evil person, I'm hiding shit?

Now if you're Fe/Ti, you should keep in mind that Fi/Te already have their own high standards. And that their instinctual examination of their motives and the rightness of their choices and what happens is already going to weigh heavily on them. And it seems that you don't see that process because they don't express it so externally. I'm not saying that you don't have a corresponding perception. I'm just saying, if you're in this perception right now, this is how it can be, and it's valid.

But anyway, with Betas, there is this appeal to objectivity. Don't try to redefine objectivity or hold me to something that I'm not saying, I know it's probably a shitty or cursory phrase that's not completely perfect. I'm going to share a more personal example so I hope I don't regret it or that you attack me for it. And I realize that there are perhaps different reasons instead of the one I'm referring to for this phenomenon. (But I don't believe that there are different reasons. No one, no one, has been able to give a better explanation. So I keep my own. And passing lines of "it's not that way" are not going to be convincing.)

He talks about life..well, he's my brother. And he sits with me in the car, and says objectively innocuous things about...about living. I don't actually remember all the exact phrases, it took me so much mental concentration just to bear it. Parents are parents. Don't be too hard on them. An education is beneficial. I don't know what I'm going to do but I'm just going to do it! I'm just going to go for it, whether or not I like it. I'll learn to like it. There are objective things you have to adjust for in the world. Learning is pain. He was looking for a girlfriend. You know sometimes girls learn to like someone after they go out with someone for a while. You don't have to like them from the beginning.

Now...I find it hard to argue with my brother. It makes me sort of physically sick. Because every time I just say what I feel, I get, "Are you ok?" Well yes, I am actually ok. Just because I'm crying doesn't mean I'm a blubbering nutcase or that I need sympathy. What I actually WANT is understanding, like a state of non judgment. In the back of my mind my life has happened to fall into some objective patterns perhaps, about work or growth or pain, but I ignore those patterns, because they had no bearing on my experience, or perception. They had nothing to do with how I acted, or my choices. They were irrelevant. I don't want someone else to pour my life like a vat of hot wax into a fucking mold that I didn't choose.

Now perhaps you thought I cried, because I referred to crying, but the fact is I didn't cry. I was sort of a zombie, from bearing all the emotional states seemingly deadpan, but I didn't cry.

Now they say this stuff. This stuff about family. Blood is thicker than water. Kinship. Family. Family. And it echoes in my head. Because none of it is true.

I don't feel ultimate kinship for my brother. Or my family. I'm always repressing my emotions with them. I don't think it can be another away. It..doesn't work. It doesn't work to connect with them, and that's a fact. They don't work. I mean, we don't work. As people. We don't connect. I wouldn't have chosen them, if they were in a crowd. They're not my people. I love them in my own way, but ultimately we're so different. Ultimately, I leave their presence, and I'm lost, sick, and confused. Family is family? But my feelings..say otherwise.

Now you can have a lot of silly ultimatums to throw at me. Like things will get better with time. Or everyone goes through this stuff. Or parents are parents. More of the same. And I'm not discounting your experience..I mean I don't want to. But there is something like, if acknowledging your experience is going to end up causing me pain, then I'm going to have to say no, and set some boundaries..

My brother is always going to be convinced of his objective theories about life. And we're always going to sit there, metaphorically, not connecting.

Communicating with Betas is like, sometimes you have to set the sort of fierceness of your opinions aside to communicate, and then you actually agree on a lot of the same things. But still, that underlying fierceness can't be ignored forever.

The way Deltas are different than Betas is how they come to the same conclusion despite sort of different methods. Deltas believe in feelings to some extent. To feelings trumping objectivity. Deltas start with feelings, and acknowledging them, and dislike/attraction/repulsion for the sake of those, and not objectifying them..Deltas seem merciful at first. And they are, always merciful. They are, always sort of a landing pad of peace in ways. But the way Deltas operate is that, they must take those perceptions and harness them in a peaceful way for the good of society. They basically perceive that society is going to fall apart if those feelings are...made anything of. If conclusions are drawn from them. They have a stalwartness. They seem to me to be perpetually struggling because they don't think that strong bold actions to change things based on those feelings have merit. They don't even think in terms of strong bold actions or anything. Deltas are harder for me to describe coherently at this point so I think I'm going to hold off a bit..

But it's like...you give the Aristocratic quadras a piece of learning. And they have a lot of opinions on it. But it helped for me to, learn away from anyone, by myself. Maybe you'll think this is a stupid example, but I read Silverchris' paragraph about his brother, and I thought to what I had been thinking of before this, of how I was given a stock list at work. And perhaps I could've accomplished it in an objectively better manner. Matched things and drew lines between their properties. But I just wanted to be left to myself, to do things my way, by feeling, without any apparent rhyme or reason. Without that sort of weight, I'm so...energetic. And enthusiastic. And I get things done very fast. And it doesn't end up mattering if I follow some predefined organization. I can run off my enthusiasm in a rather aggressive manner, and it's very effective. If someone chimed in with approval at seeing my enthusiasm and good intentions, it's even more of a good effect and I end up being able to work tirelessly. Approval is 100000x more effective for me than criticism. No matter what is learned through pain based methods, I end up not needing them because I already possess an internal mechanism for a shitload of pain and internal beratement if I do something that might be "wrong". So it's like the extra external judgment and criticism isn't necessary. I take my mistakes very hard. And I know to other people it looks like I'm ignoring them. And it feels like they don't know me and I can't really talk to them or communicate with them, that it would be pointless, because if I can pretend to not care about my mistakes and they really believe that, well then. I used to try a lot to get people like that to understand, but now perhaps I've become a bit more uncaring about that effect. Feelings can't be forced. People just have to end up believing what they will.

I feel that the way I've learned belongs to me, and certain types of external structure don't have any bearing on it. And I dislike it when people try to impose that. It's like in Silverchris' example, he conceded in this weird way that yes, it could be productive according to certain goals by utilizing this apparently non-superior way of learning. And if I react completely unrestraint-edly, I'd feel like, how arrogant is that. How arrogant of Silverchris. Or how silly. Like if it really is about goals and if you really want to get someone to do something you want, silly Beta, if you want him to stop chaffing at your bit and become your tireless supporter, try using positive reinforcement instead. Try some mute, dumb, unconditional approval and see where that gets you in his graces. lol. Goals. Like goals. It's all about getting to the top of the pile of bodies. Maybe he can't help the way he learns, like maybe it is possible that it's all true, what he's saying, and that's just the way things are. Maybe the semantics are all meaningless, and the lines you're drawing for goals don't matter. Like conflating the "holy" experience of audio learning vs reading. Like, holy, sacred, blah blah blah. But what is there to appeal to besides that sort of ohmigoddeathandsatansdentalcanals way of thinking. Betas make fun of themselves ironically and emo-ly sometimes, using all their double meanings to convey their angst, because they're distressed over the fact that they're this way and can't help it, and they're happy about their distress, and they're morbid about their happiness, and they're gleeful about their morbidity, and it's like describing their states makes their little heads explode. But anyway, I thought of the general concept of what Ann said somewhere in this thread, about making things more involved to facilitate understanding..this is called double involvement you N little mofos.

Oh I forgot to mention something I thought about learning...it's like when you just sort of let the weight of non-objective learning sink in, and just kind of feel it without attaching judgments to it. Aristocratic quadras scurry around..it seems not possible for them to talk about theoretical perspectives without attaching this "the world is going to explode" sort of fanaticism to those perspectives. It makes Aristocracy cute and helpless. Betas talk about their bling and Deltas..well...Deltas give you vegetables. Sorry guys. Sometimes you really suck.

Paraphrased version for the time-poor:

Hi,

Turn off your brain and FEEL my post. Let my words wash over you like a wave.

I eat shrubs.

Bear with me. I'm struggling to communicate..

EVERYONE SHOULD LEARN IN THE MANNER THAT WORKS FOR THEM.

You all suck.

[Creepy-female]

no lol not at all

[Rubicon]

What did I get wrong?

[ilikesex]

Paraphrased version for the time-poor:

Hi,

Turn off your brain and FEEL my post. Let my words wash over you like a wave.

I eat shrubs.

Bear with me. I'm struggling to communicate..

EVERYONE SHOULD LEARN IN THE MANNER THAT WORKS FOR THEM.

You all suck.

ahaha yes perfect

[Creepy-female]

What did I get wrong?

The effort. The intention. The actual insight. It's like everything I'm going to share is going to look bad. It's why it's hard for me here, because I want to post, and I want to share my insight, about Socionics and things, but I can't do it in certain ways, because I'm going to look pompous or constipated or contradictory or silly or to invested or emotional or people are going to say something like "I eat shrubs" lol. I mean I can laugh with you, because your reply was funny, but I just feel like by accepting your premises sort of contained within your reply, what I say is sort of being disvalued. And it's like well, if it takes so much effort to gather my thoughts, and if my intentions were for communication, and they're met with random bullshit, and seeming misunderstanding or exasperation..then, I don't know. I'll probably talk to the people for whom my observations and way of speaking make sense. I can be a pretty easy target for making fun because the way I say things is so apparently easy to ridicule. But I've found a few people don't do that, and it's a relief. It's like no matter what I do I get the feeling I'm screwed, like if I type too much I'm blowing something up out of nothing, or being pompous or talking too much, and if I just laugh and don't reply then it's because I don't know about the subject or I haven't thought about it..you know I really dislike being terse. I really fucking hate being terse. It's exhausting. But I dislike the alternative too, so I feel like I'm sort of driven to it. I have the feeling I'm sort of digging myself a hole here, so I might as well, I don't know, be myself I guess? I've really spent a lot of time trying to understand people and communicate differently and look, a thousand paragraphs and it goes fucking nowhere lol. I've tried coherant condensation and it just eats my brain.

[Rubicon]

The effort. The intention. The actual insight. It's like everything I'm going to share is going to look bad. It's why it's hard for me here, because I want to post, and I want to share my insight, about Socionics and things, but I can't do it in certain ways, because I'm going to look pompous or constipated or contradictory or silly or to invested or emotional or people are going to say something like "I eat shrubs" lol. I mean I can laugh with you, because your reply was funny, but I just feel like by accepting your premises sort of contained within your reply, what I say is sort of being disvalued. And it's like well, if it takes so much effort to gather my thoughts, and if my intentions were for communication, and they're met with random bullshit, and seeming misunderstanding or exasperation..then, I don't know. I'll probably talk to the people for whom my observations and way of speaking make sense. I can be a pretty easy target for making fun because the way I say things is so apparently easy to ridicule. But I've found a few people don't do that, and it's a relief. It's like no matter what I do I get the feeling I'm screwed, like if I type too much I'm blowing something up out of nothing, or being pompous or talking too much, and if I just laugh and don't reply then it's because I don't know about the subject or I haven't thought about it..you know I really dislike being terse. I really fucking hate being terse. It's exhausting. But I dislike the alternative too, so I feel like I'm sort of driven to it. I have the feeling I'm sort of digging myself a hole here, so I might as well, I don't know, be myself I guess? I've really spent a lot of time trying to understand people and communicate differently and look, a thousand paragraphs and it goes fucking nowhere lol. I've tried coherant condensation and it just eats my brain.

lol Sorry.. I was just reacting to a big wall of text that I inexplicably felt the need to understand rather than feel. :-p Hey I'm probably Ti after all.. because I look for the point.. And it was like looking for a needle in a haystack to find a point in that post. :-p Heh.. but yeah.. be yourself by all means. I find myself with the opposite problem.. being too succinct. You and I should combine forces and together terrorise the forum with our native skills. Anyway, please excuse my rudeness.

[Creepy-female]

lol Sorry.. I was just reacting to a big wall of text that I inexplicably felt the need to understand rather than feel. :-p Hey I'm probably Ti after all.. because I look for the point.. And it was like looking for a needle in a haystack to find a point in that post. :-p Heh.. but yeah.. be yourself by all means. I find myself with the opposite problem.. being too succinct. You and I should combine forces and together terrorise the forum with our native skills. Anyway, please excuse my rudeness.

Mm the point is kind of personal I think I sort of trampled all over your objectivity though, and I know Ti valuers dislike that, if you were looking for a needle in the haystack, I was the proverbial bull in the china shop. Thanks for being gracious, it's nice.

[Mattie]

Wow, I extremely appreciate your post dolphin It was an extremely interesting read particular for the experience of how it felt when I read it... It was very fluid, like flowing down a meandering river that wasn't jarring at all. Almost drug-like, but not in a negative way. I am guilty of what you wrote here, and it did sting because I pride myself for being a good communicator. What was really interesting was your precise description of what the reader would probably be feeling while reading your words, and that you were accurate. I felt rather disarmed, but I decided to read your post a second time in the manner you described to get the entire message. I'm actually going to quote your entire post because I want others to have another change to read it after they've read your original. I really think it should be stickied, there's something everyone can learn from that. I read this while at a friend's house when checking my e-mail, and she's been on her fair share of internet forums, and agreed with me that this was something universal that anyone could benefit from if communicating their ideas and receiving others' was involved.

It's why it's hard for me here, because I want to post, and I want to share my insight, about Socionics and things, but I can't do it in certain ways, because I'm going to look pompous or constipated or contradictory or silly or to invested or emotional or people are going to say something like "I eat shrubs" lol. [...] And it's like well, if it takes so much effort to gather my thoughts, and if my intentions were for communication, and they're met with random bullshit, and seeming misunderstanding or exasperation..then, I don't know. [...] I can be a pretty easy target for making fun because the way I say things is so apparently easy to ridicule. [...] It's like no matter what I do I get the feeling I'm screwed, like if I type too much I'm blowing something up out of nothing, or being pompous or talking too much, and if I just laugh and don't reply then it's because I don't know about the subject or I haven't thought about it..you know I really dislike being terse. I really fucking hate being terse. It's exhausting. But I dislike the alternative too, so I feel like I'm sort of driven to it. I have the feeling I'm sort of digging myself a hole here, so I might as well, I don't know, be myself I guess? I've really spent a lot of time trying to understand people and communicate differently and look, a thousand paragraphs and it goes fucking nowhere lol. I've tried coherant condensation and it just eats my brain.

This communicates a lot of what I feel; I would say a lot of "serious" posts I make are inherently 'defensive' because I feel like there's an impending backfire that will happen no matter how genuine I am in my cause, and even if I try to express that I mean well, it doesn't seem to matter. This was rather poignant and I guess I'm kinda glad my thread took the twists it needed to to get something like this, it really shows that you put effort in and that you are really trying to get a message past the BS that typically goes on. I'm going to further reflect on this and see how I could apply it to further acts of communication.

Hi Silverchris!..wasn't sure if this was going to be considered off topic, so if it is perhaps a mod can move it, but I kind of thought it might be related to Fi, and if it's Gamma, perhaps you could excuse me, perhaps I could slide by on the Fi aspect, so fwiw..

I've been thinking about this concept of learning, or something in the realm of that, and it has to do with..just not learning in any linear, traceable sort of fashion. But perhaps before I start I just want to say that, reading this thread, I have the desire to ask people, perhaps like Silverchris, who took the time to communicate so extensively outside of his original preferences, I would like to say that I don't think I'm coming from the connected structured sort of viewpoint you might expected as a Ti/Fe valuer, so I think I want you to come into what I'm saying here automatically biased, or automatically on the sort of "defensive" or what have you. I don't want you to attribute your own quadra motives to my writing. I mean, after all of reading this thread and learning a lot about how people communicate, if there's one thing I don't wish you would do, it's that you misunderstand me here. So I ask that you please put your preconceptions on hold and do whatever it takes to do that. And I ask you to consider that it's actually quite easy...just put away what you think, put away what you know about the world. Just be in my words, and if you can't follow them, read them aloud, sometimes they make more sense that way. I ask that you be involved in my writing, and don't structure anything in your mind just yet, you can do that afterwards, but for now, for the purpose of understanding..

So it has to do with learning..communicating, learning, communicating learning. And I feel like, if I can make some sort of vague blanket statement here, it's that the Aristocratic quadras in my life have approached learning as this, as if you can't really escape the objectivity of it. It just seems inherent in their worldviews and if little pieces in their psyche broke away and considered the possibility of learning being a different way, it would be impossible or at least very hard for them..it makes them very weak because it feels like when they attempt it (which I have hardly ever seen them try to do) they are trying to speak on a subject they know very little about..

I don't know why I feel what I feel..I don't pretend to understand it perfectly..but the world is inherently chaotic. Just set aside perhaps your convictions that you may be having right now and the arguments you might be setting up in your head to justify to me that the world is indeed not chaotic, and everything has its order. "There are rules," says Neil Gaiman. "There are always rules."

Or something of the sort. I could actually go and look that up, the exact words, but I feel I would miss out and this expansive mindset that comes out of nowhere, I feel that would be stunted, like the kind of happening in which you stick something into a moving machinery, can't remember the phrase..so in this mindset, in the one that I know, I push aside that inconsistency because the meaning in this instance, that's what I'm trying to communicate. And it takes a sort of vunerability because you have to trust that the people which whom you are communicating are not going to jump on that perhaps logical inconsistency. Or perhaps they'll consider you a liar or redefine your motives because they can't seem to make a connection, after so many times, after so many years, that a person's subjective state is worth bearing, or considering, after the years, after the sacrifice, after moments when..

Ok so, I didn't want to get too vague here..I feel I've started to make rules about the universe in my own way, not because I believe there's any one way people function, or perhaps it's what I don't WANT to believe but have sort of been forced into for efficiency's sake. When I describe events, examples, I feel you're going to redefine them, perhaps in your own mind, perhaps for efficiency's sake of your own thought processes. That's...what happens. That's part of the crux of this Socionics bullshit.

But..I don't want you to redefine them. I just want you to, feel what I feel. For one second. For two. That's how you understand me, to feel what I feel. Now when you bring what you THINK into it, I can start troubleshooting for that. I could be lazy, or whimsical, inconsistent, troublesome..and adjust for that. It's painful, but it's what I'm used to. Because I love appreciation. I crave it. More than anything in the world, I want to be wanted. And adhering to these sort of objective standards can gain one recognition. It's not the idea sort of recognition, but it's approval all the same; I can't get pork so I eat shrubs, etc.

Now I just want to say, if it hasn't occurred to you, if you're in an Aristocratic quadra, (and I don't mean to project, if you don't think like this, and yes I could be completely wrong), that learning isn't all pain. Now, in my observation, the Aristocratic quadras come from different formulations, but in the end, you are left with relatively the same idea. In Beta, you're coming from the objective mindset, where things are externally correlated into general mostly unbreakable rules and theories and whatnot about humanity and ideas and how they work, etc. And most simply, that is pain to a Fi/Te valuer. Yes, I've tried to mold myself to that mindset, to trace the linear correlations with my fingertips, to apply those standards to my own life, to people, to ideas. And yes, it doesn't help. There is no fundemental belief to those things, and my motives are not being stubborn because I simply won't admit that these things are true. As if I actually believed in them and was just refusing to do so. There is just that, some things cause pain, and some things cause pleasure, or the feeling of rightness, and I don't know why.

Now, I am aware that that thought subjectively didn't iron itself it out, or finish satisfactorily. So if you are still here with me as a reader, I would ask you to refrain from categorizing these things in your mind just yet.

Feel the dissonance that causes you.

Of being in some following thought, and then it cuts off.

Don't try to tuck it away in a structure.

Just feel how it sort of reverberates in your chest as a slightly sick feeling.

Now, observe how I'm not going to take that out on anyone. I'm not going to emotionally barb them, or throw a fit, or say I'm crazy because of it. Before you get too caught up in the feeling of anxiety from how to deal with holding this dissonance, re-examine the circumstances.

What is there to blame? My intentions were good, my thoughts were following, I was trying very hard to communicate this thing..

And then suddenly it cuts off.

Now is that something to blame? To re-examine? There's an issue in my life I'm not addressing, I'm an evil person, I'm hiding shit?

Now if you're Fe/Ti, you should keep in mind that Fi/Te already have their own high standards. And that their instinctual examination of their motives and the rightness of their choices and what happens is already going to weigh heavily on them. And it seems that you don't see that process because they don't express it so externally. I'm not saying that you don't have a corresponding perception. I'm just saying, if you're in this perception right now, this is how it can be, and it's valid.

But anyway, with Betas, there is this appeal to objectivity. Don't try to redefine objectivity or hold me to something that I'm not saying, I know it's probably a shitty or cursory phrase that's not completely perfect. I'm going to share a more personal example so I hope I don't regret it or that you attack me for it. And I realize that there are perhaps different reasons instead of the one I'm referring to for this phenomenon. (But I don't believe that there are different reasons. No one, no one, has been able to give a better explanation. So I keep my own. And passing lines of "it's not that way" are not going to be convincing.)

He talks about life..well, he's my brother. And he sits with me in the car, and says objectively innocuous things about...about living. I don't actually remember all the exact phrases, it took me so much mental concentration just to bear it. Parents are parents. Don't be too hard on them. An education is beneficial. I don't know what I'm going to do but I'm just going to do it! I'm just going to go for it, whether or not I like it. I'll learn to like it. There are objective things you have to adjust for in the world. Learning is pain. He was looking for a girlfriend. You know sometimes girls learn to like someone after they go out with someone for a while. You don't have to like them from the beginning.

Now...I find it hard to argue with my brother. It makes me sort of physically sick. Because every time I just say what I feel, I get, "Are you ok?" Well yes, I am actually ok. Just because I'm crying doesn't mean I'm a blubbering nutcase or that I need sympathy. What I actually WANT is understanding, like a state of non judgment. In the back of my mind my life has happened to fall into some objective patterns perhaps, about work or growth or pain, but I ignore those patterns, because they had no bearing on my experience, or perception. They had nothing to do with how I acted, or my choices. They were irrelevant. I don't want someone else to pour my life like a vat of hot wax into a fucking mold that I didn't choose.

Now perhaps you thought I cried, because I referred to crying, but the fact is I didn't cry. I was sort of a zombie, from bearing all the emotional states seemingly deadpan, but I didn't cry.

Now they say this stuff. This stuff about family. Blood is thicker than water. Kinship. Family. Family. And it echoes in my head. Because none of it is true.

I don't feel ultimate kinship for my brother. Or my family. I'm always repressing my emotions with them. I don't think it can be another away. It..doesn't work. It doesn't work to connect with them, and that's a fact. They don't work. I mean, we don't work. As people. We don't connect. I wouldn't have chosen them, if they were in a crowd. They're not my people. I love them in my own way, but ultimately we're so different. Ultimately, I leave their presence, and I'm lost, sick, and confused. Family is family? But my feelings..say otherwise.

Now you can have a lot of silly ultimatums to throw at me. Like things will get better with time. Or everyone goes through this stuff. Or parents are parents. More of the same. And I'm not discounting your experience..I mean I don't want to. But there is something like, if acknowledging your experience is going to end up causing me pain, then I'm going to have to say no, and set some boundaries..

My brother is always going to be convinced of his objective theories about life. And we're always going to sit there, metaphorically, not connecting.

Communicating with Betas is like, sometimes you have to set the sort of fierceness of your opinions aside to communicate, and then you actually agree on a lot of the same things. But still, that underlying fierceness can't be ignored forever.

The way Deltas are different than Betas is how they come to the same conclusion despite sort of different methods. Deltas believe in feelings to some extent. To feelings trumping objectivity. Deltas start with feelings, and acknowledging them, and dislike/attraction/repulsion for the sake of those, and not objectifying them..Deltas seem merciful at first. And they are, always merciful. They are, always sort of a landing pad of peace in ways. But the way Deltas operate is that, they must take those perceptions and harness them in a peaceful way for the good of society. They basically perceive that society is going to fall apart if those feelings are...made anything of. If conclusions are drawn from them. They have a stalwartness. They seem to me to be perpetually struggling because they don't think that strong bold actions to change things based on those feelings have merit. They don't even think in terms of strong bold actions or anything. Deltas are harder for me to describe coherently at this point so I think I'm going to hold off a bit..

But it's like...you give the Aristocratic quadras a piece of learning. And they have a lot of opinions on it. But it helped for me to, learn away from anyone, by myself. Maybe you'll think this is a stupid example, but I read Silverchris' paragraph about his brother, and I thought to what I had been thinking of before this, of how I was given a stock list at work. And perhaps I could've accomplished it in an objectively better manner. Matched things and drew lines between their properties. But I just wanted to be left to myself, to do things my way, by feeling, without any apparent rhyme or reason. Without that sort of weight, I'm so...energetic. And enthusiastic. And I get things done very fast. And it doesn't end up mattering if I follow some predefined organization. I can run off my enthusiasm in a rather aggressive manner, and it's very effective. If someone chimed in with approval at seeing my enthusiasm and good intentions, it's even more of a good effect and I end up being able to work tirelessly. Approval is 100000x more effective for me than criticism. No matter what is learned through pain based methods, I end up not needing them because I already possess an internal mechanism for a shitload of pain and internal beratement if I do something that might be "wrong". So it's like the extra external judgment and criticism isn't necessary. I take my mistakes very hard. And I know to other people it looks like I'm ignoring them. And it feels like they don't know me and I can't really talk to them or communicate with them, that it would be pointless, because if I can pretend to not care about my mistakes and they really believe that, well then. I used to try a lot to get people like that to understand, but now perhaps I've become a bit more uncaring about that effect. Feelings can't be forced. People just have to end up believing what they will.

I feel that the way I've learned belongs to me, and certain types of external structure don't have any bearing on it. And I dislike it when people try to impose that. It's like in Silverchris' example, he conceded in this weird way that yes, it could be productive according to certain goals by utilizing this apparently non-superior way of learning. And if I react completely unrestraint-edly, I'd feel like, how arrogant is that. How arrogant of Silverchris. Or how silly. Like if it really is about goals and if you really want to get someone to do something you want, silly Beta, if you want him to stop chaffing at your bit and become your tireless supporter, try using positive reinforcement instead. Try some mute, dumb, unconditional approval and see where that gets you in his graces. lol. Goals. Like goals. It's all about getting to the top of the pile of bodies. Maybe he can't help the way he learns, like maybe it is possible that it's all true, what he's saying, and that's just the way things are. Maybe the semantics are all meaningless, and the lines you're drawing for goals don't matter. Like conflating the "holy" experience of audio learning vs reading. Like, holy, sacred, blah blah blah. But what is there to appeal to besides that sort of ohmigoddeathandsatansdentalcanals way of thinking. Betas make fun of themselves ironically and emo-ly sometimes, using all their double meanings to convey their angst, because they're distressed over the fact that they're this way and can't help it, and they're happy about their distress, and they're morbid about their happiness, and they're gleeful about their morbidity, and it's like describing their states makes their little heads explode. But anyway, I thought of the general concept of what Ann said somewhere in this thread, about making things more involved to facilitate understanding..this is called double involvement you N little mofos.

Oh I forgot to mention something I thought about learning...it's like when you just sort of let the weight of non-objective learning sink in, and just kind of feel it without attaching judgments to it. Aristocratic quadras scurry around..it seems not possible for them to talk about theoretical perspectives without attaching this "the world is going to explode" sort of fanaticism to those perspectives. It makes Aristocracy cute and helpless. Betas talk about their bling and Deltas..well...Deltas give you vegetables. Sorry guys. Sometimes you really suck.

[silverchris9]

Well, I don't really know how to respond to your post as a whole... or maybe I do but I just don't want to. But I thought this part was totally true, and, imo, elucidative of socionics conflict at the basic level.

But there is something like, if acknowledging your experience is going to end up causing me pain, then I'm going to have to say no, and set some boundaries.

There are some things that are true that you just can't believe in because, well, you have to make sense of the world somehow, you can't just deal with experience raw, no matter how much you think you want to, and if believing something or behaving in a certain way or letting yourself feel a certain way is going to break your way of seeing things you just can't let that happen, because it is like dying, it's exactly like dying. Losing your religion is like dying---that's the meaning of "I Felt a Funeral" by Emily Dickinson, and that's something I really like and I really firmly believe in it. And maybe that's a very "Ti" way of stating that but it's also very personal to me, and personal enough that I feel uncomfortable applying Jung/Augusta's label to it because no one wants to affix a label to their souls, at least not somebody else's label. Or maybe that's just me. Maybe the "Fi" way is more about "causing pain" than ruining somebody's system for understanding the world, but I think those two things are really the same thing, the same fundamental experience looked at from two different perspectives.

Also, you ask more than you think you're asking when you say, "turn off one side of your brain and see through my eyes." Or at least you're asking a lot, even if you know how much.

You what really bothers me? And it probably "shouldn't" bother me, but if everyone's being honest and sharing, what really bothers me is that you asked me to look at things your way. I don't mind it when people make me look at things their way, that's called persuasion, and I like persuasion. Persuasion is the basis of poetry. But to just nakedly ask? Not to be mean, but then it just feels like you didn't earn it, like you want me to give up my privilaged place as decider of what makes sense and what doesn't without even working at it, just as an act of "decency" or something, not even as an act of kindness that I could get charity points for, just somehow as one of the basic obligations of being a person, and you could say it's out of "love" or "charity" but I don't understand a universal charity that comes without emotion; and so I prefer to be charitable according to the laws (i.e., Ti). Ti morality is charity according to the law.

So I ask that you please put your preconceptions on hold and do whatever it takes to do that. And I ask you to consider that it's actually quite easy...just put away what you think, put away what you know about the world. Just be in my words, and if you can't follow them, read them aloud, sometimes they make more sense that way. I ask that you be involved in my writing, and don't structure anything in your mind just yet, you can do that afterwards, but for now, for the purpose of understanding..

This is a lot to ask of a person. What am I except my mind? And you're asking me to put away my mind? So you want me to put away myself? Then what am I? I can't do that, it's too much work. How am I supposed to not react to things as they happen? I have to do that, because I have to defend my sovereignty over my own mind. It's like, I've always had a very selective, very small list of people who's opinions I care about, because to care about someone's opinion is to give them a large measure of power over you, and even greater, power over what you think, and therefore over who you are. And to not give things structure, to not interpret them as I read them, is to give people power over what I think. That's actually what Harold Bloom is talking about when he talks about the Anxiety of Influence, because in the act of reading if you're not interpreting constantly, if you're not on the defensive, then you'll just believe what someone else says, and what you read, what you understand, what you believe, becomes part of you. It sketches your "internal images" in pencil, and then starts to shade and then ink them like comic book characters. And god, dolphin, I think you're nice, but I don't want you defining me, not even part of me. Which is why I read on the defensive. I don't know that that's type related. It's related to having absorbed too much Harold Bloom at a (spiritually) young age, and as such having my "internal images" turn his colors. Which is a tremendous sense of freedom, certainly, but you want to at least be choosy about who colors in crayon on your spirit, and you want them to work for it a little, like a lover.

I just feel like by accepting your premises sort of contained within your reply, what I say is sort of being disvalued. And it's like well, if it takes so much effort to gather my thoughts, and if my intentions were for communication, and they're met with random bullshit, and seeming misunderstanding or exasperation..then, I don't know.

I get that, and I think you're 100% right about that first part, by accepting the premises, making the handshake agreeing that you're even speaking the same lanaguage, in the same act that makes the communication intelligible to you, you are accepting premises, basic underlying agreements of communication that disvalue your way of seeing things. And you want to see your efforts reap a harvest I get that. But again, look at what your asking. Maybe it's not as dramatic as I made it seem up there, but it's pretty damn dramatic, at least for me, because I live on jealously guarding what I let get into my soul. Like Seryohza:

"He was nine years old, he was a child; but he knew his own soul, it was dear to him, he protected it as the eyelid protects the eye, and did not let anyone into his soul without the key of love." (Anna Karenina)

I can't just let my guard down, not when without my wall of mental defenses, I'll just believe whatever people choose to tell me. I can't let something else change the only thing that is precious to me, which is either my soul (if you're being lofty and think betas/I are/am cool), or myself (if you're being reductive and think betas/I are/am selfish and bad). And maybe reading your post without my guard up wouldn't change my soul or anything, but there are many things that would, and not just Shakespeare (who I've been reading lately), but my parents and my siblings and the people around me, especially those who judge me on a moral basis, not in the nice way I like (hey, here's the standard, you didn't live up to it, fix it), but in the "how do you think that made Bob or Suzy or Laura or Stephen or me feel?" way, which I hate. If I didn't protect myself, every time my mother started crying, I would think that she was absolutely right and start changing to better suit whatever it is that I'm supposed to suit better. But that's a shitty way to individuation, and you have to individuate before you can fulfill yourself (or "actualize" yourself). I've always thought, "there's more of me, somewhere, than I could be having, right now" and that's egotistical of me or whatever, but I like being inside my own mind and I wish I had the fullness thereof, and I can't get there if I let everything into my soul. The stoics thought this way too--a man should only let "cognitive impressions" into his soul, only things that were true. It's a very Aristocratic philosophy, as you were describing Aristocracy, dolphin.

Also also, nobody wants to feel like a jackass. And a lot of the time, "Fi/Te" people make betas (me) feel like jackasses. Mattie's post made me feel like a jackass. Your post made me feel like a jackass. My little brother made me feel like a jackass. So we (I) respond with lots of logical justification and "proof" that we're not jackasses, which we aren't (I'm not), but that's a really deep self you're impinging on, even unintentionally. If I thought I were a jackass for real, I dunno, I'd have to stop and reorient myself, more so than I'm really willing to do right now. (I'm willing to do it in poetry because "words alone are certain good" and so even when the world is crumbling all around you, you can trust that your words mean something, or at least that they have some structure, form, or value, something. So in that case words are like a safety net for me, and I'm not interested in breaking myself into pieces and pulling a phoenix afterwards.) So maybe in that case you can understand why I'd need to protect myself by "proving" I did nothing wrong, or nothing seriously wrong. I've been doing that all my life, since I was too small to know that I was doing it and then some. Because I feel a sort of emotional kinship with whatever you say, if it makes you feel bad, I can feel that you feel bad and there is an unassailable logic to emotion.

It's also like that whole mosque at ground zero thing. You can protest until you're blue in the face that to allow the mosque shows that we as Americans are truly dedicated to our highest values of religious tolerance and respect for others and freedom of religion and so on and so forth. But then you have to watch a widow from 9/11 cry about it and essentially say it hurts her feelings and all of a sudden you think you're wrong, even though nobody provided any argument. And you don't want to doubt yourself. I don't want to doubt myself; I want to be reasonably certain, when I can be, that what is proven to be right is right, regardless of what people feel about it. But then you put a widow on TV and have her say it hurts her feelings and offends her and every time she walks past it, it makes her feel her husband's death all over again or whatever (I can't put Fi rationale into any coherent representation), and your logic evaporates and you aren't sure about it after all, all over again. I know that's rambly, but if the goal is mutual understanding, maybe it gives you a better idea of why some people are the way they/we are.

I guess I get the impulse to want to speak without... worrying about the words you use, as if words were nothing more than a bucket to carry the thing that's in your head at that moment. That makes sense to me. But so does the impulse to use words as an aid to thought.

Anyway, dolphin, I'm glad you posted that. I'm not glad that you called me arrogant , but I'm glad you posted it, lol.

[Mattie]

I agree with labcoat

dynamic = of or relating to energy or to objects in motion

you're using Ne to distort clear cut meanings - its more accurate to say Fi has moments of being dynamic, but it isn't dynamic itself. 'resonance' applies to both feeling elements, although I would say it applies more so to Fe precisely because of labcoat's reasoning - resonance is a more dynamic term than a static one.

I don't think I'm using any of my IEs to distort anything... But I myself could just be unclear. Ultimately, I meant what I bolded in your post, and looking back I can see how what I said could be taken otherwise, or where something could have been taken as contradictory. Though, I don't think "Resonance" equally or more so applies to , as "Resonance," the term itself, isn't necessarily dynamic (it was my example that gave the feeling of dynamism). Looking at the definitions I posted, a resonance is an attuning to one particular feeling (that being a sound, or emotion through empathy, etc), and to resonate with something is to match the sensation that is being produced. Within the context of my example (I'm going to break it down further in a bit) this wouldn't work for or any dynamic IA. I also attribute the idea of "Induction" to , which is something more aligned with the qualities of than "Resonance."

As "Resonance" deals with my example, it is something that is continually happening and is rarely in a constant state of change; something being both dynamic and "Dynamic" would have to be in a constant state of change, and every new bit of information having similar weight to the last. If we take the theremin, we can equate something being dynamic if a player's hands were constantly moving in whatever direction, constantly changing the pitch and volume; this would create the feeling of dissonance in , and would be frustrating to someone who values . In reality, this is a good thing (with the instrument) because if they just kept their hands in one position, it'd be a boring song. But playing the instrument to make a song isn't what my example is about, and I most likely didn't focus enough on that to make it clear to everyone (assuming that this is where the problem lies, of course). The process of how the theremin works is what I'm comparing to through the word "Resonance," and not the actual act of making music; I want it to be imagined that "objects" (hands) generally are a certain distance from the person (theremin) creating a certain set of feelings (sounds) that vary in pleasantness (pitch) and intensity (volume) and doesn't change often on it's own, but can be adjusted over time. Visually you might be able to plot this out looking like a web of sorts, where all the intersections in the spider's silk are "objects," not organized and every once in a while adjusted to restore consistency.

Hopefully that helped clarify my position.

Actually, "resonance" by definition is a state. Something that static functions deal with. So, the way Mattie utilizes the term is not inaccurate. It does suffer from specificity though, as it is only one of many states.

What is one out of many states?

Also, you ask more than you think you're asking when you say, "turn off one side of your brain and see through my eyes." Or at least you're asking a lot, even if you know how much.

I find this interesting because I find it a reasonable request, just not an easy one. The general concept is to know how you're affecting what other people are saying, and if you're at least aware of that, you can better extract what they are saying. But you already seem somewhat aware of this, at least the fact you know that you're influencing how you receive other peoples' words (you not being personally you, of course, as everyone is subject to this). I think ultimately she means to take what she says both with and without your filter, not to completely abandon how you perceive things.

You what really bothers me? And it probably "shouldn't" bother me, but if everyone's being honest and sharing, what really bothers me is that you asked me to look at things your way. I don't mind it when people make me look at things their way, that's called persuasion, and I like persuasion. Persuasion is the basis of poetry. But to just nakedly ask? Not to be mean, but then it just feels like you didn't earn it, like you want me to give up my privilaged place as decider of what makes sense and what doesn't without even working at it, just as an act of "decency" or something

Another interesting perspective, as what I interpret dolphin to be saying is you are being given the choice to decide what makes sense or not, but she wants you to have all of her information without hindrance communicated first. From what I got from her post, she (and I feel similar) doesn't feel like she has to prove her intentions or motives, that she should be (in context) trusted to be communicating something genuine, and that shouldn't be questioned (what it is influencing her to say things, that is). So, I'm reflecting back on past interactions with people where I was frustrated in a similar manner, and it makes sense that I might have had to prove something other than the validity of my words, but I had to convince others about all this other stuff I don't feel needs to be questioned. It might sound strange, but I don't like being "persuaded" or having to obviously "sell" what I want to communicate, that's getting in the way of something else I want to go on.

This is a lot to ask of a person. What am I except my mind? And you're asking me to put away my mind? So you want me to put away myself? Then what am I? I can't do that, it's too much work. How am I supposed to not react to things as they happen? I have to do that, because I have to defend my sovereignty over my own mind.

I apply this sort of thinking to other areas in my life, it's less about how I think and more how I orient myself to the rest of the world. The reason why I don't find it difficult is because I know it's not permanent? Like, I'm sure you've tried to put yourself in other's shoes, and have come across the ideas of ethno/homocentricity, so knowing that you have this process that has placed an ultimately arbitrary importance on certain things, wouldn't being able to put aside preoccupations be something positive to do? I'm wondering where the difference lies in where we're confident about ourselves and what is susceptible to change, and therefore is guarded, and if that's the issue here.

It's like, I've always had a very selective, very small list of people who's opinions I care about, because to care about someone's opinion is to give them a large measure of power over you, and even greater, power over what you think, and therefore over who you are.

I can't say I allow this to happen too much with any one person wholly, but I definitely can relate. I think the difference for me is that I'm very accepting of certain types of ideas and information from a certain person, but not other types of ideas. With one person who has proven to me that they are reliable with x type of advice I will freely accept but not necessarily everything else. After all that though, I have a very strong idea of what I believe in and I know that if I've thought it through already, then entertaining other ideas won't change what is fundamentally true to me. But this process might go on somewhere else with you.

Also also, nobody wants to feel like a jackass. And a lot of the time, "Fi/Te" people make betas (me) feel like jackasses. Mattie's post made me feel like a jackass. Your post made me feel like a jackass. My little brother made me feel like a jackass. So we (I) respond with lots of logical justification and "proof" that we're not jackasses, which we aren't (I'm not), but that's a really deep self you're impinging on, even unintentionally.

I think the feeling is mutual, using this thread as an example, I feel like I'm being made out to be smug and biased enough to warrant what I say to be meaningless, even after I say I'm not trying to be either of these things.

I guess I get the impulse to want to speak without... worrying about the words you use, as if words were nothing more than a bucket to carry the thing that's in your head at that moment. That makes sense to me. But so does the impulse to use words as an aid to thought.

I think it's less about the what words you use but the personal weight you give them. I intentionally use certain words, but if my words rather than idea is being digested, then that can muddle things up. I guess it's just being aware of both processes when communicating, to know that this difference exists and to put it aside at least once to see if you can gain further insight if it is the person's true message you are looking for.

I never feel the least bit threatened considering an alternative POV. Nobody would have to persuade me to do so, as I feel entirely confident in my ability to fully eviscerate any position I disagreed with through sheer force of reason. Being open-minded does not undermine my being the ultimate arbiter on what I accept as true or false. And if by chance I do find myself unconfident and sense I'm holding onto a tenuous position, then I'm gladly willing to question it and ultimately forsake it if necessary.

I was going for something like this in what I said above. Receiving unfiltered information isn't threatening to me because I have the choice to accept it or not still. I'm not sure if silverchris allows whatever information that passes through a filter automatically join what he believes to be true or not, I'm curious to get a further explanation.

But nobody had intentions to make you feel like a jackass. Regardless of how something might have sounded or the way it came across, shouldn't that be what matters—the intentions? Granted, I've encountered before the reactions you're having, IRL and on here. But I suppose I'm still surprised by the fact that you (and others) didn't stop to ask, "what do you mean?" before you made the assumptions that you reacted to.

Exactly how I feel, especially what I highlighted. I felt like others took away my choice to portray what I mean by deciding for themselves what I meant, and not taking my word for it. Especially when I state that I can understand where a misconception can happen, and then plainly say what I want to communicate, if that isn't acknowledged I feel like the other doesn't respect me enough.

Lol… that whole mosque thing is… stupid beyond belief.

Definitely an interesting topic, but nothing something I'd want to overtake my thread

[silverchris9]

Interesting. I don't know whether this is an thing or just a me thing. But for myself, my core beliefs have all been things I've had to essentially experience, directly or indirectly, in one form or another. At the most basic level of my thinking, I regard reason as a whore; I can't trust the arbitrary nature of it. Anything can be rationalized, rightly or wrongly, in lieu of raw experience or visceral feeling. So in the final analysis, these must give me the deciding verdict. Which I suppose is a fundamentally irrational approach—but then, why assume the universe is rational? I figure its better to meet it on its own terms.

Hmmm... I don't think that I hold my "core" beliefs (I put it in quotes to acknowledge that it's a metaphor) in the form of either experience or feeling, although both of those have a lot to do with it. I think of my core beliefs as something that's tattooed on my brain or something. And certainly I've always believed in reason as a way to be persuaded. And I believe in emotion as a way to be persuaded, but yeah, now that I think of it, I am rather deeply suspicious of it. I feel like logic is the gentle way in and trying to make me believe what you believe by having a big emotional reaction about it is like soul-rape. But I think that has more to do with me than with socionics.

Lol, what do you have to lose? Perhaps its easy for me to say that coming from a double-uninvolved orientation ( + ). Maybe even more so considering that is an Object IE (treats info as separate from the self) while is a Field IE (the opposite). I never feel the least bit threatened considering an alternative POV. Nobody would have to persuade me to do so, as I feel entirely confident in my ability to fully eviscerate any position I disagreed with through sheer force of reason. Being open-minded does not undermine my being the ultimate arbiter on what I accept as true or false. And if by chance I do find myself unconfident and sense I'm holding onto a tenuous position, then I'm gladly willing to question it and ultimately forsake it if necessary. Sometimes I'll have to fight someone tooth and nail to get to that point, sometimes not. Either way, I'll be thankful for the opportunity to do so, that somebody revealed to me an inaccuracy in my thoughts or conceptions about whatever and that a little bit of falsehood was pushed out of my skull. My thoughts and whatever beliefs I have associated with those thoughts, are nothing sacred. They're just thoughts, tools for making practical sense of the world. The imperative of knowing what is true, however, is sacred and necessarily overrides any of my own mere thoughts on what is true. Holding onto inaccurate tools would place me in great peril.

Well, that's the problem. The idea of the post was precisely not to "eviscerate" it with the force of reason. It was to accept it as a totality, on its own terms, and THEN to apply reason ("we reason of these things with a later reason"), and that's dangerous. To reason with a later reason is to already be affected on some level, to already have it "in" you. And again, dolphin's post might not have had that sort of effect. But the fact that some things can leads me to be very protective about what I let into my mind without checking out first, like airport security, and then without fitting it into a pre-existing system. In fact, that's what I do with everything, almost, I have a pre-defined system, and I try to find where the new information fits into the existing system. Which is not to say that every now and then I don't break the system and start all over again, or that some new information doesn't carve a new place for itself within the system. I think of ideas like germs---germs are fine, as long as they have the chemical that tells your body that they're part of you, that they're not foreign particles. So that's the other thing. While I read something, much less listen to it, I'm constantly taking it in, like a bacteria, and either a) marking it "mine" or b) rejecting it, like a foreign particle. It's a little bit like Inception: a thought is a virus, and all I'm doing is letting my subconscious shoot a little at anyone who even looks like Leonardo DiCaprio. I think I wrote something about it once about a thought wearing it's country's colors.

It's kind of like something ****** said, "I use emotion for the many and reserve reason for the few." Which I think illustrates something key to Beta mentality. And also relates to one of the alternative names I've seen given to the Merry/Serious dichotomy, which was Esoteric/Exoteric. The applied meaning here should be self-explantory from the words' definitions, so no need for me to elaborate further.

Rofl. Yeah, I probably agree with that. I do reserve reason for the few. But not everybody can handle reason, some people will be hurt by it, and so I dispense emotion freely. That's probably really covered under the introverted/extroverted concept: introverted feeling means that feeling is attached to the subject and distributed from subject to subject. Extroverted feeling means that feeling is attached to the object and distributed from subject to object, meaning that Fe-valuers just put out emotion profligately, and let it fall where it may, whereas Fi-valuers want to send emotions directly from one soul'd subject to another. And the same for introverted vs. extroverted thinking. So I don't think that Serious quadras are necessarily exoteric, but are rather exoteric with regards to "knowledge" as such, insofar as thinking can be considered "knowledge" moreso than emotional "knowledge" or "truth". Fe-valuers are voyeuristic and are all into splaying emotional truth across stages. Fi is, I think, less intrinsically comfortable with emotions just being thrown out like in a Greek tragedy. Which is not to say that Fi-valuers don't like Greek Tragedies, just about what Fi is... associated with. But esoteric vs. exoteric is a great companion to merry vs. serious, insofar as merry vs. serious is really more concerned with the conflict between Fe vs. Fi (and Fe vs. Te), whereas esoteric vs. exoteric gets much closer to the conflict between Te vs. Ti, where Te is very exoteric, very much "common sense," it is knowledge as it is univerally available because it only counts as knowledge that which is universally acknowledged (or rather, that which is generally acknowledged, that which is "fact"). Ti, on the other hand, is esoteric: it is knowledge that must be processed within the individual to be reached and understood.

Well, it's not that / doesn't give things 'structure' per say. is a gauge of structure; it's just so implicit that it can't be defined in an explicate form. It's not like we don't actively interpret things too with our own bullshit filters to weed out truth from nonsense. It's just that our basis for doing so is different from yours. will tell you about it indirectly though, just as does for . They always work in tandem.

Yeah, I buy that.

What you describe here is also true of me, except reversed. Instead of guarding my thoughts as some definitive essence of soul, I zealously guard my personal sentiments/emotional states. I don't allow people to have access to me in that way and I resent when anyone tries to exert influence over them (except for a select few).

That's funny. People can affect my emotions however much they want, because my emotions are generally fake, or at least not at the core of me. I suppose I jealously guard my sentiments insofar as I'm choosy about who's opinion matters to me, but yeah, I guess I do think of my thoughts, my ideas about the world as the things that I don't want people messing with without some sort of work beforehand.

But nobody had intentions to make you feel like a jackass. Regardless of how something might have sounded or the way it came across, shouldn't that be what matters—the intentions? Granted, I've encountered before the reactions you're having, IRL and on here. But I suppose I'm still surprised by the fact that you (and others) didn't stop to ask, "what do you mean?" before you made the assumptions that you reacted to.

But again, words are not just carriers of intentions. I don't think of language or communication in general as a bucket that you're supposed to fill up with intended meaning and then the recipient is just supposed to drink the meaning out of the bucket and send it back. When I look at information, I never get just the intended meaning, I also think about what was said and wonder how it could apply, what meanings I can glean from it, what it would mean to apply it to my life, what it elucidates, what it argues, what it implies. And maybe that's a silly way to go about things, but it's natural.

Lol… that whole mosque thing is… stupid beyond belief. I mean the fact that they're even considering allowing such a thing to be built there. There's a reason why imagery like this is so powerfully evocative:



Victorious U.S. Marines on Mt. Suribachi, Iwo Jima. Victorious Red Army soldiers on the ruins of the Reichstag, Berlin. Nothing else strikes such a clear and decisive message through the heart of history, "We came. We saw. We conquered."

So it is with a mosque constructed on ground zero. One can say "it's just a building." Well, yeah. It's 'just a building' to me too. But that's not what gets communicated to the mind of the enemy, especially an Islamic-fundamentalist one which has a habit of interpreting every landmark and historical site into a warped context of epic religious symbolism. In all lands they've put to the sword, they build mosques over important cultural and religious grounds of the previous owners. Naturally, they'll see this as nothing less than an act of the most humiliating and disgraceful submission on part of the United States. A glorious day the tide finally turned against the infidels.

Being dedicated to tolerance only works when both sides buy into the ideal. It's suicidal to treat others with the same values who wouldn't think twice about slitting your throat, and would just as soon laugh as you gurgle on your own blood with all your pathetically naive gestures of mutual peace and respect.

But see, that attitude is why putting the mosque there would be such a spiritual victory for us. Basically, it sets up an ideological fight about what that mosque means. For radical extremist Muslims, it may mean "we came. we saw. we conquered." But for Americans, it can mean, "we care more about our ideals than about how our actions can be misinterpreted." It's a spiritual triumph to accept that some Muslims may see it as a sign of victory for them and of submission for us, and be dedicated enough to our ideals that we can do it anyway. Because while some Muslims will see it as a defeat for us, others will see it for what I think it is, which is directly counter to their position. Their position is that the United States is evil and oppressive. But then we allow the symbol of our enemy to be placed near our heart because we care more about the freedom of our citizens, Muslim or whatever, than the taunts of our enemies. That's a big deal, and it says a lot about a civilization, it says a lot about dedication to an ideal. To me, that mosque isn't a symbol of the triumph of radical Islam by any means. Rather, to me, it is a symbol of the triumph of liberal ideals (I mean in the sense of classical liberalism, not the banality of the Democratic party), the triumph of toleration, proof that Americans are intelligent enough and strong enough to see the world beyond a sort of provincial tribalism wherein "Muslims" are the enemy and "Americans/Christians/Westerners" are the good guys. Rather, we see can see some "Muslims" as "Americans," and maybe even some "Americans" as evil. We're strong enough to forgive the moderate Muslims of America for waving the same flag as their extremist cousins, and to allow them to fly that flag as a symbol of their faith, rather than as a symbol of violence. If I were Barack Obama, I would be planning the speech I'd give at the opening of that mosque today, 'cause it could definitely be a kick-ass Abraham Lincoln speech. In fact, I think I'll write one and just fax it to the White House to see what they think. lol.

Also, on a practical note (I also had this argument with my brother, so I come prepared), Al Queda does not seem to be having any problems recruiting suicide bombers. So I doubt that us putting a mosque at ground zero is going to help them rally the troops to get more suicide bombers, at least not in a significant fashion.

[Creepy-female]

It's a little bit like Inception: a thought is a virus, and all I'm doing is letting my subconscious shoot a little at anyone who even looks like Leonardo DiCaprio.

[Creepy-female]

I don't feel I have much to add but I like reading all the replies and the elaborations because the way you guys write..it's easy to be in your world as I'm reading. Like especially when Silverchris replied to Mattie that time, in spite of the misunderstanding or whatever, I felt like I could understand how he thought, and what was going on, and it was admirable because I couldn't see anything wrong really with what Mattie wrote before, so it was hard to comprehend he could reply like that and detail his thought processes. I wanted to do something similar, and make people understand my thought process for a minute even if they forsook it after reading it. Like wouldn't it be cool if we knew Socionics and could do that? Like just suspend judgment and feel what it's like to be in another quadra or type's head. I didn't mean my ideas had to be like a virus or anything. But just for a minute you could feel what it was like. It's like I can comprehend what it's like to think like you guys when reading your writing. I sort of wanted to be understood too.

edit: But Silverchris, at church people used to stand up before giving their testimonies, their little lesson for the week or bible verse. And they'd say "I don't feel I have much to add, but"..and it's like with the "but" they modified the statement, like they're going on in spite of their self sort of harmless debasement, and sometimes I felt, was that really necessary? Like humility isn't always a virtue, like even if people are sad it can look silly, because it's like they should be taking strong decisive action to change their situation if they're really in a place where they can't, I don't know, be more confident in something that they're investing so much time and effort into. So I thought that maybe you're a little detached from the "good feeling" of it all, like you're a little more suspicious, and I wouldn't blame you, because it can feel like that. And maybe it feels a little like that stifled atmosphere to you, where people are being kind of tranquil and preachy and don't have fire or passion or something, and maybe it feels like you're hedged and not being understood and just want to be able to get out and breath outside air again and feel your desires no matter what they are. So I apologize if that's the way it is for you, and I kind of wish I could change it even though it's probably not possible.

But I kind of had hopes that like the point of this kind of thing, was to understand the way different quadras think even if you don't agree with them afterwards, like it seems to me that even considering someone else's viewpoint for a little bit would be making progress, and it's hard for me still to think of refusing that sort of thing as something intrinsic to Beta. "The second reason to study type is so you can understand other people as they are to themselves, rather than as you see them from your own point of view."..maybe if I truly understood your POV instead of just flitting in and out of it, is that what you would deem appropriate understanding? I just feel like really understanding other quadras thoughts are all just glimpses anyway, and wouldn't be able to gain a foothold in one's mind to become more permanent anyway.

[silverchris9]

I don't feel I have much to add but I like reading all the replies and the elaborations because the way you guys write..it's easy to be in your world as I'm reading. Like especially when Silverchris replied to Mattie that time, in spite of the misunderstanding or whatever, I felt like I could understand how he thought, and what was going on, and it was admirable because I couldn't see anything wrong really with what Mattie wrote before, so it was hard to comprehend he could reply like that and detail his thought processes. I wanted to do something similar, and make people understand my thought process for a minute even if they forsook it after reading it. Like wouldn't it be cool if we knew Socionics and could do that? Like just suspend judgment and feel what it's like to be in another quadra or type's head. I didn't mean my ideas had to be like a virus or anything. But just for a minute you could feel what it was like. It's like I can comprehend what it's like to think like you guys when reading your writing. I sort of wanted to be understood too.

. I can relate to that. Most people want back what they put out, I think. Like the reverse of the golden rule.

[Mattie]

Like wouldn't it be cool if we knew Socionics and could do that? Like just suspend judgment and feel what it's like to be in another quadra or type's head.

For me, this is the whole point of Socionics on a practical level. At least being to conceptualize this and use it for when I communicate with other people is the ultimate goal.

[silverchris9]

edit: But Silverchris, at church people used to stand up before giving their testimonies, their little lesson for the week or bible verse. And they'd say "I don't feel I have much to add, but"..and it's like with the "but" they modified the statement, like they're going on in spite of their self sort of harmless debasement, and sometimes I felt, was that really necessary? Like humility isn't always a virtue, like even if people are sad it can look silly, because it's like they should be taking strong decisive action to change their situation if they're really in a place where they can't, I don't know, be more confident in something that they're investing so much time and effort into. So I thought that maybe you're a little detached from the "good feeling" of it all, like you're a little more suspicious, and I wouldn't blame you, because it can feel like that. And maybe it feels a little like that stifled atmosphere to you, where people are being kind of tranquil and preachy and don't have fire or passion or something, and maybe it feels like you're hedged and not being understood and just want to be able to get out and breath outside air again and feel your desires no matter what they are. So I apologize if that's the way it is for you, and I kind of wish I could change it even though it's probably not possible.

I appreciate that. Maybe it's like that, I'm not sure.

But I kind of had hopes that like the point of this kind of thing, was to understand the way different quadras think even if you don't agree with them afterwards, like it seems to me that even considering someone else's viewpoint for a little bit would be making progress, and it's hard for me still to think of refusing that sort of thing as something intrinsic to Beta. "The second reason to study type is so you can understand other people as they are to themselves, rather than as you see them from your own point of view."..maybe if I truly understood your POV instead of just flitting in and out of it, is that what you would deem appropriate understanding? I just feel like really understanding other quadras thoughts are all just glimpses anyway, and wouldn't be able to gain a foothold in one's mind to become more permanent anyway.

Well, it's probably not a beta thing, it probably has more to do with me being an adolescent and trying to solidify my own modes of thinking. The trouble is, I'm also a child, and as such I'm constantly smashing the things I'm trying to solidify, so that I never get finished. But I don't want to finish. I never want to have a finished platform on which to stand. But then I'd never be comfortable enough to fall headlong into somebody else's way of seeing things. And not to be conceited, because this will make me sound for real smug, but I do feel like if I were to see through someone else's eyes, I dunno, I'd feel it very strongly and it would be a lot, for me. Not that it isn't for you. So I'm describing things poorly.

Maybe someday when I'm feeling more confident and comfortable in myself I'll try to be you for a few minutes, dolphin.

Also, I think you can come at it (the goal of identifying with other people) in a different way, a more inferential way, which is maybe more "abstract" (Ni) and less "involved" (Fi).

But yes, I think understanding people as they are to themselves is a valuable goal, just... a lot harder than it looks, a lot more perilous. I know it's bad... but I can only imagine that it's like Walt Whitman in Section 37 (I think) of Song of Myself, when the Song of Himself, which is really the only proof of himself, this sort of external validation that you exist, suddenly turns into the Song of Other People, and that hurts:

You laggards there on guard! look to your arms!
In at the conquer'd doors they crowd! I am possess'd!
Embody all presences outlaw'd or suffering,
See myself in prison shaped like another man,
And feel the dull unintermitted pain.

For me the keepers of convicts shoulder their carbines and keep
watch,
It is I let out in the morning and barr'd at night.

Not a mutineer walks handcuff'd to jail but I am handcuff'd to him
and walk by his side,
(I am less the jolly one there, and more the silent one with sweat
on my twitching lips.)

Not a youngster is taken for larceny but I go up too, and am tried
and sentenced.

Not a cholera patient lies at the last gasp but I also lie at the
last gasp,
My face is ash-color'd, my sinews gnarl, away from me people
retreat.

Askers embody themselves in me and I am embodied in them,
I project my hat, sit shame-faced, and beg.

38
Enough! enough! enough!
Somehow I have been stunn'd. Stand back!
Give me a little time beyond my cuff'd head, slumbers, dreams,
gaping,
I discover myself on the verge of a usual mistake.

That I could forget the mockers and insults!
That I could forget the trickling tears and the blows of the
bludgeons and hammers!
That I could look with a separate look on my own crucifixion and
bloody crowning.

I remember now,
I resume the overstaid fraction,
The grave of rock multiplies what has been confided to it, or to any
graves,
Corpses rise, gashes heal, fastenings roll from me.

I troop forth replenish'd with supreme power, one of an average
unending procession,
Inland and sea-coast we go, and pass all boundary lines,
Our swift ordinances on their way over the whole earth,
The blossoms we wear in our hats the growth of thousands of years.

Eleves, I salute you! come forward!
Continue your annotations, continue your questionings.

That's Fi, to me ("Not a youngster is taken for larceny but I go up too, and am tried and sentenced"), this complete identification with what other people are feeling, and I think that's something that you have to take in doses, that betas have to take in doses because our selves and self-images are so important to us that it isn't easy to drop into the self of another. But that's probably only tangentially socionics-related, at least insofar as socionics is the process of integrating the findings of Jungian psychological types into actual human behavior (via Model A & intertype relations).

[Mattie]

If you concentrate on the essence of an IM, you can, to a certain extent and for a certain time, view things through that element. So in that way, you can actually step into the shoes of another sociotype without having to rely entirely on theoretical understanding of a type, seeing as we all use these elements to certain extents.

It would be ideal to be able to "feel" what it's like to use an IME that I don't value, I'm not sure how plausible it would be because I am so rooted in my own. I have been able to "train" myself, however, to instinctively understand what it possibly a value clash and to then try taking things a different route. I would say it helps me personally to not become as frustrated with another person as I think I would if I thought that they were just being difficult or something. Being able to fully empathize with the IMEs I'm not used to can happen every so often, usually in a "safe" situation, but I find that having an experience isn't really as necessary as much as an understanding of what's going on. Taking this thread for example, you might think we all would be more aware of what kind of differences would be between us (and maybe we would have if this was an offline interaction) and not have such a back-and-forth about it, but instead we're here now talking about Socionics in a metaphysical-type manner.

[silverchris9]

It may have something to do with PoLR/ HA too. The fact that you're so protective of your logical understandings and sort of keep them insular, tucked away and invulnerable to immediate attack. I'm not sure yet. Because I can easily see this sort of attitude as endemic to in general.

Perhaps. Perhaps I think if I externalize my thoughts too much then they'll be obliterated by the Te monster.

Right. I think sort of hits on another distinction I often make between vs. , in that they're a top-down vs. bottom-up approach respectively to information processing. One tends to proceed with certain assumptions in mind, the other tends not to and/or with only general heuristics in mind.

Yah.

It's not so much about only prizing universally acknowledged information. It's more that believes that any piece of knowledge must ultimately be founded upon something objective; something about the real world as it is which could, in principle, be universally observed or measured by anyone if they looked. From that basis of course, could readily delve into making theoretical claims about whatever—but ultimately these would have trace themselves to something real/observable. Just like is fully able to incorporate objective facts and what not into its understanding, but its ultimate foundation will rest upon some subjective inference.

Yeah. I knew universally acknowledged was the wrong term, because there's basically no such thing as universally acknowledged truths, even if there are universal truths. But yeah, objective foundation sounds right to me. Gosh, I don't believe in objective foundations. I mean, i guess I believe some things are objectively true, certainly, but... a lot of "objective truths" seems like "taking for granted" to me. Also, I don't necessarily think Ti is founded in subjective inferences, or at least, not to Ti-valuers. Ti valuers consider the universal laws from which they deduce conclusions as objective as the facts or objective truths external to the self which Te valuers use as the basis of evaluation. Agreed-upon truths, even.

In some sense, I see EXFps sort of taking the orientation to an extreme. Agenda functions seem to manifest without moderation. In the same vein that you use . Which might be why you see their approach as rather disconcerting. Just food for thought.

Hm. That's interesting. I think hidden agenda functions can be overrelied on. They seem like more of a panacea than they actually are.

See, in principle I can agree with all this… but er uh, it makes me extremely nervous. Because the ooga-booga tribal war chieftain part in me says, "No, we need to be sober realists about this. Posh airy-fairy idealist fantasies like this will never work, and indeed have never worked in all the history of man vs. man. They only get a lot of good people killed. We'd do well with more chest-beating and sabre-rattling. Give them a show of force; it's the only language these barbarians actually understand, and the only way they'll ever be effectively dealt with. They must be taught restraint by any means necessary, just as you'd condition rational fear into a wild animal that doesn't know its place in the food chain. Blast their cities and all their holy sites asunder one by one, turn Mecca into a glass parking lot if thats what it takes. Tear a scar so deep into their collective memory that they don't dare raise a finger in anger against us for 1000 years."

Okay, I'm kidding on the latter half of that. But in all seriousness, I go back to what I said originally, in that its dangerous to extend certain values and ideals to an enemy that neither acknowledges nor respects them. Yeah, normal Muslims by and large may tend to see such an act as something noble. But what does that matter? Radical Islamists who are the problem don't give a shit about freedom of expression, religious tolerance, compassion, forgiveness, or any of the ideals that Westerners and others take for granted. In their eyes the West stands for everything weak, corrupt, and deserving to be obliterated from the face of the Earth. And they aren't going to suddenly change their minds about that. Such an act only lends further confirmation of everything they already believe, and will embolden them further. There are better ways to stand on principle. What pragmatic good do you honestly conceive this could possibly do?

I don't see it as doing any pragmatic good. I view it as doing idealistic good and doing little-if-any pragmatic harm; like I said, they don't seem to be having trouble recruiting suicide bombers. Also, you don't have to treat the "other side" like the other side treats you. It's turn the other cheek. Not a pragmatic good (unless you believe in an avenging and just God or even just karma), but an idealistic one.

[ashlesha]

i just wanted to pop in and say that i had been thinking of of Fi as "resonance" in my head for a few months before i happened to see it in that information element thread and i was really excited to see that someone else had come up with the same word independently of me. it was really validating.

also, to address the OP, i think the theremin analogy fits really well, along with the sort of disclaimer that the hands controlling the instrument are being held relatively still and there isn't a whole lot of variation in pitch and volume. but i don't have anything to add that hasn't already been said.

i also want to give a nod to the mention that Fi is about ideas and other things, not just bonds between people. cause, yeah, i don't think that is emphasized enough.