Guides for dual pairs: attracting an ISFj-ESI

[Bertrand]

Gulenko talks about how elements can extinguish themselves, for example when Hamlet suffers from bouts of Fi he tortures himself, so I think the idea is if you're Hamlet raised in a Fi valuing environment you're prone to getting in your own way. a guide that tells you to be yourself, albiet abstract and somewhat paradoxical, that tells the actor to act and not be "authentic" [1] is actually the best thing for them. that anyone needs a guide at all is the basis for the priesthood/psychology in general. the bottom line is its just not that easy for people to be healthy and so people use words to try to help the situation but what is the panacea for one person is poison for the another. its fair to detest the weak for being weak, since it would be wrong to tell for whomever that is the best thing for them not to be that way, but the broader principle is that there are different ways to be oneself. in fact that is the essence of what personality is, different ways for people to be. masks are when one personality adopts a personality other than what one is because the environment demands it. to tell someone to drop the mask to find the person most comfortable to relate to is normal then in light of the knots people get twisted into by society. i think that's the idea at least. ESI is defined as preserving their individuality in the face of society no matter what, so to tell them to drop anything is sort of redudant and thus not really relevant to them, but it may be relevant to someone. in other words ESI defaults to "natural" relations, thus any advice is seen as artifice and therefore a move in the wrong direction, but some need a guide to get there, in the same way ESI might need a guide for other things, like how to science or whatever. in other words this is the Fi version of the Ti dom being "I don't need to read this guide I already know how this thing works" etc. anyone who likes the cold is a walrus, etc

[1] the problem is language fails because what be authentic and be yourself mean can ostensibly mean the same thing, but actually point to different things in this context in order to be useful. theres a switch from Fi to Ti in here. authenticity or be yourself can be loaded with Fi patterns of behavior when what is meant is for the actor to be oneself is to be authentically inauthentic, or another way to put it is, do whatever gets them focused on Fe not Fi, "artificial emotions" not "natural" ones (and certainly not "natural relations"). so the Ti "guide" is helpful to Ti valuers in getting them into a Fe space, where they might be self defeating by being in a Fi space. the same words are toxic to Fi dominants because for them to make that switch would be death, inasmuch as they identify themselves with their base function. so it seems like bad advice to take Ti "advice" on how to relate to oneself or others, but it has to be contextualized within the specific psychological particulars of where its coming to who its aimed at. I think the general difficulty of this task is why life in general is fraught with conflict. I feel like if people realized this there would be far more tolerance, but at the same time more tolerance isn't an unmitigated good so its probably for the best most people don't recognize this, because I think it would just mean we'd all be in a delta frame of mind, and the idea is that ultimately dies out from boredom and lack of reproductive drive. I think this kind of knowledge is what Jung is talking about when he says that the discovery that evil is in many ways inside us in the form of projections is a shattering experience because it upends everything we knew about the world until that point. in other words, not only is tolerance good, but its also bad, and so things are always in a process of transformation and good and evil are relative labels we put on the trajectory we prefer but which ultimately undoes itself in the end (Enantiodromia). and that original sin is being born into this inescapable condition of existence