How do you cope with your PoLR? Reactions and compensation.

[Park]

But, anyway, I just think it's related to being a parent.

Bingo. (Even though I don't think every parent would necessarily relate)

[Lobo]

I suppose I fear betrayal in a way, but I think I expect it. I don't expect people to be caring or supportive; I think in the end that you only have yourself. This has produced an awareness within me that I have carried for years, and thus, I have always kept a part of myself hidden from people (to varying degrees). I am ready for the worst situation - when everything falls to shit and all you have left is yourself. So, you could say I have a tiny void in the dark corners of my soul, which I never fill up or let anyone else fill up, because it is simply not worth it most of the time. I have had friends who attached themselves to me so quickly and strongly. I think, "How can you do this? I could turn around tomorrow and completely fuck you over." Thus I have always maintained a sort of control over my social relationships, where the other person tends to get pulled in due to my quiet amiability, listening skills and ostensible acceptance of them. It's not as if I don't care about them; it's just that I want them to be as wary as me. I want them to have that awareness. Once that is established, you can possibly trust the person. You both know the dangers, but come to terms with it and relate on that level, thus establishing an equal playing field.

Or maybe I'm just fucked up, lol.

I see what you are saying, and I'm sort of like that as well. But something about wanting the other person to know that you can "fuck them over" at any moment can sound like there will be no effort to really avoid it... If the trust is affected unintentionally it doesn't make me lose my trust with that person if they sincerely feel bad for it and really try to not do it again. I know full well that nobody is perfect, and I'm very understanding of that. However, complete betrayal would be something either premeditated or involving a "plan," which you had absolutely no idea it was going to happen. The jump from being completely open (or even mostly open) towards someone to having to consider them your enemy. That kind of thing deeply affects my wiring somehow. A perfect example would be what happened in the kenshin OVAs (I know I always talk about it ), when he realized that his wife was actually sent to kill him, though there were other things involved in the situation. Another thing would be if I get completely screwed over by a friend just to get ahead in his career. Something like: "I never really wanted or expected much by being your friend, I only wanted to learn from the things you're good at so I could get ahead in my career. Thanks to you now I have a better job. How could you have expected anything other than that? You should have known better."

[strrrng]

I see what you are saying, and I'm sort of like that as well. But something about wanting the other person to know that you can "fuck them over" at any moment can sound like there will be no effort to really avoid it

For me it's reassuring. The two parties are on the same page. They're not anticipating each other's betrayal; they just acknowledge that awareness and move on. It's better than being blind to it IMO.

If the trust is affected unintentionally it doesn't make me lose my trust with that person if they sincerely feel bad for it and really try to not do it again. I know full well that nobody is perfect, and I'm very understanding of that. However, complete betrayal would be something either premeditated or involving a "plan," which you had absolutely no idea it was going to happen. The jump from being completely open (or even mostly open) towards someone to having to consider them your enemy. That kind of thing deeply affects my wiring somehow.

hmm...I see what you're saying, in that, a specific circumstance could provide a reasonable explanation for something, and yes, people make mistakes. Nonetheless, I would rather be wary and prudent about dealing with that person, especially after they slipped up - no matter how "accidental." Peoples' actions have reasons, and I want to make sure I understand them before I just conciliate with someone because their action seemed unintentional or not premeditated.

A perfect example would be what happened in the kenshin OVAs (I know I always talk about it ), when he realized that his wife was actually sent to kill him, though there were other things involved in the situation. Another thing would be if I get completely screwed over by a friend just to get ahead in his career. Something like: "I never really wanted or expected much by being your friend, I only wanted to learn from the things you're good at so I could get ahead in my career. Thanks to you now I have a better job. How could you have expected anything other than that? You should have known better."

I would say that you should have paid more attention.

[Not A Communist Shill]

My greatest fear at the moment would be to get kicked out of the house with nowhere to go (or at least seemingly with nowhere to go, as my house is my base where I begin all my 'operations', so to be without it would be catastrophic).

My greatest fear in the future would be the fear of having the knowledge that I am getting older and I am not with someone I love deeply etc. etc.

[Rubicon]

My greatest fear is that I'll be in a relationship with someone I love deeply and he'll lose interest in me. Become indifferent to me. I could deal with being hated - at least that's a passion, some sort of energy expended on account of me ... but you can't fight indifference. I feel a compulsion to always be creative in the way I express myself in case I'm labeled boring. Try to be a bit different than everyone else. And if I feel someone is beginning to figure me out, I'll do something unexpected to surprise them. I don't want anyone to ever really know me fully, because then they'd be able to predict me.

[Park]

My greatest fear is that I'll be in a relationship with someone I love deeply and he'll lose interest in me. Become indifferent to me. I could deal with being hated - at least that's a passion, some sort of energy expended on account of me ... but you can't fight indifference. I feel a compulsion to always be creative in the way I express myself in case I'm labeled boring. Try to be a bit different than everyone else. And if I feel someone is beginning to figure me out, I'll do something unexpected to surprise them. I don't want anyone to ever really know me fully, because then they'd be able to predict me.

Now I have no doubt that you're SEI.

[strrrng]

My greatest fear is that I'll be in a relationship with someone I love deeply and he'll lose interest in me. Become indifferent to me. I could deal with being hated - at least that's a passion, some sort of energy expended on account of me ... but you can't fight indifference. I feel a compulsion to always be creative in the way I express myself in case I'm labeled boring. Try to be a bit different than everyone else. And if I feel someone is beginning to figure me out, I'll do something unexpected to surprise them. I don't want anyone to ever really know me fully, because then they'd be able to predict me.

And how are you not a 4, lol?

And yes, the indifference thing. This is what I was talking about with power People will take a shitty thing over nothing, more or less, but will freak out if there is nothing, no reason for something.

[Rubicon]

And how are you not a 4, lol?.

Are you serious? I thought I was "such a 9".

And yes, the indifference thing. This is what I was talking about with power People will take a shitty thing over nothing, more or less, but will freak out if there is nothing, no reason for something.

Meh. I thought of that power concept when I wrote it. :-/

[strrrng]

Are you serious? I thought I was "such a 9".

Well, what you just described sounded very 4'ish. And ftr I thought you were a 4 the first time I saw your picture. But I don't know.

Meh. I thought of that power concept when I wrote it. :-/

[Rubicon]

Well, what you just described sounded very 4'ish. And ftr I thought you were a 4 the first time I saw your picture. But I don't know.

Eh maybe. I think it's mostly to do with Ne-seeking myself.

[munenori2]

My greatest fear is that I'll be in a relationship with someone I love deeply and he'll lose interest in me. Become indifferent to me. I could deal with being hated - at least that's a passion, some sort of energy expended on account of me ... but you can't fight indifference. I feel a compulsion to always be creative in the way I express myself in case I'm labeled boring. Try to be a bit different than everyone else. And if I feel someone is beginning to figure me out, I'll do something unexpected to surprise them. I don't want anyone to ever really know me fully, because then they'd be able to predict me.

I like this. A lot.

[strrrng]

Eh maybe. I think it's mostly to do with Ne-seeking myself.

uh...how?

[Rubicon]

and what are you, IEE?

SEI probably

[Rubicon]

uh...how?

In that I'm trying to present new angles of my personality all the time, trying to tie different aspects of my behaviour together in unusual ways ....

[unefille]

My greatest fear is being incapcitated, invisible, muted, unable to affect the world around me. Just imagining that sort of scenario can make tears of frustration well up in my eyes. If I can't affect things, if I can't do, act and change things, then I am essentially a victim - a passive victim of whatever fortune visits on me.

Considering that we're talking about PoLR: I think my fear could be a form of enforced Si 'going with the flow'. Trapped in the moment and capable of doing nothing more than experiencing whatever 'comes my way'.

[Lotus]

My greatest fear is being incapcitated, invisible, muted, unable to affect the world around me. Just imagining that sort of scenario can make tears of frustration well up in my eyes. If I can't affect things, if I can't do, act and change things, then I am essentially a victim - a passive victim of whatever fortune visits on me.

I had nightmares like that when I was younger. I can't believe I forgot about that. I would also hate to lose my senses in any way. If my face was tightly covered and I had no space around me, I think I'd go insane.

[strrrng]

I would also hate to lose my senses in any way. If my face was tightly covered and I had no space around me, I think I'd go insane.

Fucking 7, lol.

[Lotus]

Fucking 7, lol.

?

[strrrng]

?

The 7's core fear is of being deprived, trapped in internal pain. The fear of being suffocated symbolizes this fixation pretty well.

[Hot Scalding Gayser]

lol my greatest fear is the opposite. Of having to shake things up, of non-stop fighting with no rest. I am very content on just doing nothing. Eventually other people tell me 'you have to do something' but I always think I need to wait and just see. I read somewhere that is form and is motion. This makes sense. Because I want form, I want my ideals to solidify but I could care less about 'doing something and going places.'

Even though I hate being told what to do, I'd become a vegetable if other people didn't tell me what to do so it's kind of a catch-22 situation. I notice my mood can be going very well if I manage to do something on my own to bring me self-confidence, but then some fucking LSE or LIE or ESE will tell me that how it's not good enough, now I have to do y but I'm still internally processing the meaning of x and enjoying the memory and the rest of it. I'm not talking about laziness though, something deeper.

(Yeah I know this thread is a few months old but I'm bored.)

[Trevor]

I don't want to go to hell. I am scared.

[Ms. Kensington]

i cant really say what my biggest fear is.

some things i am afraid of are: being stuck in a place where you are constantly bombarded with things that require physical defense and that don't make sense, like a haunted house type of deal, and not knowing how long it is going to be, that there is no way to get some kind of mental grasp of the situation.. though this was something i thought about only after seeing a scary movie where I thought, yeah, i guess that would scare me. Because usually I don't fear anything strange physical happening at all-- including levitation, an object combusting, etc.. but in these situations if i was able to move around and maintain daily activities it would cease to bother me. Not being able to move around would be worse. Not being able to find someone who thinks differently.. being hung from a tree because of my beliefs.. basically being harmed by a stranger.. but i still wouldn't say that's a huge fear because of the ties to physical things. I also related to what Jem posted. I think I fear not being of worth to anyone... but again probably only someone i care about. I don't care what a lot of people think about me or if they think i am worthless. It's onyl if i agree that i am worthless does it affect me.. but again I'm not afraid because you can do something to change your situation imo as well.

[redbaron]

Hm, what am I scared of? Regret, I think. I don't want to regret NOT having done things in my life or spent time with people I love or wished I had done this or that. In that sense, I'm scared of my own laziness or ambivalence.

I try not to think about the worst things that can happen like someone I love dying or a child becoming terminally ill, because those things are so far out of my control. (and I know that's precisely why other people are scared of those things--because they're out of their control) So I suppose it's silly for me to be scared of myself. I'm scared of not living up to my potential. Scared of not doing the good that I could do, that I should do, that I might do.

I dislike this thread.

[Ms. Kensington]

Hm, what am I scared of? Regret, I think. I don't want to regret NOT having done things in my life or spent time with people I love or wished I had done this or that. In that sense, I'm scared of my own laziness or ambivalence.

I try not to think about the worst things that can happen like someone I love dying or a child becoming terminally ill, because those things are so far out of my control. (and I know that's precisely why other people are scared of those things--because they're out of their control) So I suppose it's silly for me to be scared of myself. I'm scared of not living up to my potential. Scared of not doing the good that I could do, that I should do, that I might do.

I dislike this thread.

all you infps, come to me.

[aka-kitsune]

My biggest fear of all time is losing somebody that I love. I don't want to make myself sound like a paranoid person because I am no longer like this, but ever since I was a tiny child I would make sure to pray every night for the safety of my family or else I couldn't sleep and I would repeat it over and over in my head until I was satisfied. I would get full fledged fevers or feel compelled to physically vomit if my mom was late or something. I always had to know were my younger sister was every second of the day and I would freak if I didn't have a tab on her. Of course all of those anxiety's have gotten a lot better as I've grown older; it was pretty ridiculous at the time. Unfortunately I still haven't been able to completely elude myself from everything and the ghost of those fear's still lingers there from childhood and wraps my mind in it's silly allusion. I can still worry myself sick if I don't know where somebody is for an extended period of time as I always assume the worse.

Another big fear of mine is losing complete control over myself and my surroundings. I have a fear of people taking control of me and forcing me to do things against my will. I've had problems with this before. My home is my safe haven, and body is my sanctuary; these are the places where I hide, rest, and reside; if they are torn away from the greedy connections of my mind, I'd surely loose my head.

I fear people believing things that are not true of me. Silly rumors, jumping to conclusions. People who so carelessly disclose things that I've relieved in privet to others. I also fear the future. I fear growing old and fleshy.

phew. I highly doubt any of that had anything to do with my PoLR.

Off-hand, I'd say these all sound like -related fears. I have experienced all of them at times myself.

[redbaron]

Well, I was aiming for things that cause you anxiety or have hindered you in daily applications, not really the worst thing that could happen to you. I thought that premise should have been obvious, but I guess things kind of veered off that subject a few posts into the thread. And going to hell would be my worst fear for myself.

my answer still stands, as things that cause me anxiety and have hindered me in daily application.

[misutii]

what about if that sort of thing just pisses you off to no end? fwiw, i identified a little with hostage_child's post on this. i remember specifically almost becoming very irate in a class once when a professor teased me, singled me out, about being the last person to finish the quiz, while everyone else was still working. and continued to do so while i was working heh. anyhow, i can relate in that i dislike stating my opinions or ideas aloud or in public for that very reason.

I relate to that. In school I always despised when I was singled out in a large group. Even when it was for a "positive" reason, i.e. the teacher praising my work, I hated it and it felt like shit when he/she would announce it to everyone. Like jesus christ, if you have to say something to me then say it TO me, not AT me and everyone else. Like whoopdy fucking doo I got an A, why don't you get out the microphone and post it on youtube while you're at it. Really It doesn't have anything to do with anyone else thus they have no business hearing it.

Also when someone "compliments" me when in a group I always view the compliment as a superficial nicety which is not genuine.

[tcaudilllg]

After reviewing the paper by Eglit ("Study of fears in one dimensional functions") and comparing it to my own experience, I am quite persuaded that we give far too much attention to the PoLR when it's the suggestive which is our real problem. I have always been criticized for not using my PoLR ENOUGH... never for using it too much. However I am regularly reminded that I should keep my opinions to myself... only explaining their relationship to my HA does any good in controlling the fallout.

[silverchris9]

I have a few opinions on the matter:

1) Regarding polr, there are some who overuse it, and some who underuse it. My good friend who is a probable SLE totally overemphasizes his polr. He's not good at it, but he spends way too much time worrying about how his actions will affect others' sentiments, self-restraining, etc. I, on the other hand, totally under-emphasize my polr. I just avoid anything and everything involving practical activity. I delay such things until the last possible moment. For example, right now I can't register for my classes for the next semester until I submit some vaccination reports, but that would require me to call a bunch of people and negotiate a bunch of things and order stuff, and I'm just like, ugh, I don't want to deal. So I put it off until it's a way bigger deal than it would have been otherwise.

2) In some very limited ways, the suggestive and the polr can be seen as two sides of the same coin; that is, because the suggestive and the polr are often similar in function or the categories of action they are good at handling (although they are highly different in function), improving the suggestive can often reduce or diminish problems with the polr. For instance, if I were good at Se, I would just get the vaccination thing done, because that's the sort of thing that Te and Se are the best functions, in general, for getting done. Similarly, an Si polr might have trouble focusing on their body's needs, but for an EIE this might be solved by focusing on Ti cause-and-effect: if I don't perform action x, then my body will shut down, and I won't be able to achieve result y. The suggestive is the "problem" moreso than the polr insofar as the suggestive is more interesting/pleasant to "fix". One is more likely to become better at dealing with polr-type stuff through dualization, strengthening the suggestive, than by attempting to strengthen the polr.

3) Polr, like suggestive, is perhaps more notable for the feeling it arouses in the individual than how it is or is not used. We study polr and suggestive because of the extreme reactions they tend to arouse in people, i.e., polr hit and duality buzz. Noting the difference between the extraordinarily unpleasant feeling of people focusing on your polr vs. people focusing on your suggestive is just a useful distinction to make, and an aspect of socionics that is, in my opinion, readily applicable to real life.

[tcaudilllg]

Forget it. I should have gone into alternative theories over this. Model A Discussion never yields anything but a hopeless conceptual muddle.

[silverchris9]

lol. That was quick. Why did you decide so quickly that Model A was failing here? (Hopefully not on the basis of my post, which was quickly sketched and not extraordinarily thoroughly reasoned).

[tcaudilllg]

According to Model B, the 4th function has four different components, two strong and two weak. In my experience, this is accurate. Depending on whether we use the 4th for process or result, we get either weak or strong usage... but yeah even that... there are so many concepts you have available in Model B that are consumed in generalities in Model A. You just can't get past the comparative lack for attributable components.

[crazedrat]

yes tcaud i think you are correct. i will experiment with this and my real world experiences and see how it goes.

[Tricky]

Hi! I have read that some people ignore their polr while others focuse on it too much. Discuss?

[Skeptic]

Well there's alot to say about one's polr... I'm guessing you've checked sites like wikisocion? I'll just copy paste some stuff from the 'functions' section there..

Vulnerable function
The vulnerable function is also called the Point or Place of Least Resistance (PoLR) or sensitive function. The element in this function creates a feeling of frustration and inadequacy. A person does not understand the importance of this element entirely, and it can easily lead to painful consequences if not adequately considered.

However, to directly engage this function creates feelings of frustration and inadequacy. Often an alternative approach may be found from the view of the mobilizing function. Because of the psychological disincentives to using the vulnerable function, people usually try to ignore information related to it, and in extreme cases do so even in situations where it is most relevant. Even with a theoretical understanding of how this element works, it is difficult to turn it into practical norms of behavior. One can "develop" the vulnerable function by recognizing that it is actually important in certain real-life circumstances. Even if the subject recognizes this, he will still usually try to avoid taking responsibility for it himself, or develop a minimalist or non-traditional approach (possibly using other functions) that is enough to satisfy one's own needs. The presence of a dual usually dissolves any concern there might be about how to approach matters of the vulnerable function.

Some examples:

A type with PoLR does not see the point of activities revolving around excessive displays of emotion or behavior that does not reach a concrete or tangible outcome. They would rather keep conversations serious and to the point, for he/she is overwhelmed by such emotional expression, making it quite difficult to express themselves. In social interactions they will make a serious effort to reduce their level of emotive expressiveness such as being too joyful or sad, believing that showing these signs will make them vulnerable to be influenced by others. They don't hold quite a high standard for how people as a group feel about something (even if outnumbered by many when making a personal decision), and instead value situations where they can speak their own subjective opinions and feelings freely.
A type with PoLR has a difficult time understanding ideas that seem new or novel, especially when it has no tangible effect on their lives. Leaving little to chance, they are able to plan out their lives for years ahead of time. This results in difficulties handling unexpected problems in their lives that put a halt on their usual pursuits, and they tend to fear all the possible "what-if's" when those problems prevent them from seeing a clear future. When unsure about something, these types can either avoid making any changes at all or making too quick and reckless of a decision, either of which resulting in missed opportunities.
A type with PoLR has little patience for sitting back and focusing on how they can physically better themselves in the moment, especially if they are involved in what they view as a very important matter. They would much rather try to act on their long-term priorities instead of their physical comfort, resulting in problems such as an inability to be aware or care about present realities, failure to realize the physical or mental strains they are placing on themselves, and being generally unable to relax and take the focus off of their long-term pursuits.
A type with PoLR tends to reject facts given from a source which they are personally unfamiliar with, firmly believing they can make their own decisions that are solely based on their own perspective and reasoning about it. They will tend to become defensive when questioned about their rationale or efficiency, pointing out that there is no such thing as objective "fact". Also, these types experience a significant level of stress in tending to day-to-day must do's and responsibilities in life (like routine maintenance or working productively), manifesting itself as a general laziness or hyper-diligence.

We could give you more examples if you specified what type of polr you're interested in investigating.

Oh, somewhere on wikisocion it says that people spending too much time with other quadras begin to focus on their polr like for example an LSE who spends a lot of time with his supervisor (ILI) will begin to become paranoid about his polr and will become unhealthy in that he is focusing so much on it that it is affecting his work and what he did best with his Si function. Is that what you want more info on?

[Tricky]

Well there's alot to say about one's polr... I'm guessing you've checked sites like wikisocion? I'll just copy paste some stuff from the 'functions' section there..



We could give you more examples if you specified what type of polr you're interested in investigating.

All of them are interesting.

Oh, somewhere on wikisocion it says that people spending too much time with other quadras begin to focus on their polr like for example an LSE who spends a lot of time with his supervisor (ILI) will begin to become paranoid about his polr and will become unhealthy in that he is focusing so much on it that it is affecting his work and what he did best with his Si function. Is that what you want more info on?

Yes. Exactly.

[Skeptic]

All of them are interesting.




Yes. Exactly.

Hmm. Well I can't find that page anymore, it may have been lost in the data wipe. However, from what I remember, it gave a bunch of examples of people who became distressed by being told they are not focusing on their polr enough from supervisory/conflicting types.

IEE's Ti problems happened when being told by an LII that they don't make sense/are contradictory and that they need to be logically consistent when they speak then go to members of their own quadra and are reminded of some Te principle like being efficient and getting stuff done is more important than being logically consistent.

Same goes for the LSE analogy; the LSE became paranoid about his lack of foresight and plans for his work projects and had to be reminded by his quadra that accomplishing things in the moment is more important than wasting too much time over-planning.

However, that same page said something about what happens if types focus on their polr with no relief; i.e. if this were the case the LSE would begin to focus too much on what he was not natural at by spending too much time trying to make other people think he has a great plan. This focus in trying to make other people think he is skilled in his polr will annoy his coworkers and make people gravitate away from him as opposed to towards him if he were to focus on what he is good at. The solution to all this lies in avoiding confliction relations or not taking their advice/criticism too seriously.

I don't know much to say about people who ignore their polr. This is the ideal situation, I think... however, theoretically, it could cause friction between opposing quadras if you simply ignored your polr and didn't work to improve on it.

[Azeroffs]

...

I don't know much to say about people who ignore their polr. This is the ideal situation, I think... however, theoretically, it could cause friction between opposing quadras if you simply ignored your polr and didn't work to improve on it.

this

I just want to add that a less psychologically stressful position to be in is to be aware of your weakness in the PoLR, and to accept it as a weakness. But, as skeptic stated, it could create strains with your relationships of other quadras and possibly other parts of your life. Imo, it is ideal to be aware of your weakness and accept it, but also to not let yourself use that as something to excuse you from ever dealing with things related to it. Objectively, all aspects are important and have to be dealt with regardless of how you might work psychologically.

I've seen too many people use socionics as an excuse to be closed-minded, and it's always a possibility that you just think that something is related to your PoLR rather than it actually being related. Also, there are plenty of people who don't know socionics and refuse to own up to their weaknesses and grow from them which is equally harmful, imo.

When thinking about how the PoLR might manifest, just think about how people would to respond to something they are not able to do. They might obsessively try to become better at, or they might dismiss it and close off to it. Then, of course, there's everything in between.

Often, the way I see it manifesting is by someone completely forgetting that their PoLR exists. And, when it is brought up, the person will ether become defensive or self-deprecating.



(yay 1000 posts)

[silverchris9]

Yay! Let's talk about polrs.

The polr is first and foremost a blind-spot. No matter how much you try to improve upon it, you're just not going to have a good or instinctive eye for it. You're never going to understand how it works; it will remain a mystery to you how exactly to achieve things with the polr, and how it operates in other people.

Fi-polr: This is ILE and SLEs polr. Consequently, it is the best polr. (jk). This involves not having a good gauge for how your actions impact others' inner worlds, especially their dispositions towards you. It's always nice to compare and contrast polr with HA, as they cover the same rough territory and HA is often used to compensate for polr. So, XLEs are fairly good at gauging their interpersonal effect in terms of external things: external expressions of emotion (laughs, smiles, sadness). Given that both ILEs and SLEs are given to axiomatic thinking because of the in their ego, they will often have nice one-to-one signfier-signified relationships in their heads, like "if people laugh at my jokes, then the conversation is going well." (This is part of the way that the -creative incorporates its complementary function, Fe.) However, if, as is often the case with Fi, there is no external sign of the internal feeling (-egos often feel that this cheapens the feeling, or leaves them excessively and unnecessarily vulnerable), the -polr will have very little way to "guess" how the other person is feeling. Also, -polrs are not very good at anticipating

Also, it's good to compare and contrast the polr and creative, since they also cover the same territory as far as temperament (I theorize that functions of the same temperament serve a similar psychological function). Introverted judgment is often used in the psyche to create codes of behavior. Of course it has a thousand other functions, but one of its most common functions is to create ideas relating two or more things (be they people, items, objects, other statements, etc), and to refine these so as to make them as static and unchanging as possible (statics of fields). likes for these codes to be objective, to have reference to general rules outside the self, even though the processing of those rules and the application of those rules happens wholly inside the self. The classic example is formal logic, which makes use of rules that are considered to be perfectly objective, available to all through reason, etc. The rules of logic are considered to be perfectly static and perfectly objective: they are true no matter who you are and they are true no matter when and where you are. However, they must be applied within the self: logic does not apply itself to a proposition, I apply logic to a proposition (whereas with , extraverted thinking, facts are facts totally independent of me). So, with any given code of behavior or code governing the relationship between two things, the -valuer reasons, I should be able to apply an objective standard to determine whether or not it is valid, or worthwhile. However, many ethical codes of behavior (which can be associated with either or ) cannot be reduced to rational, objective standards. This is fundamentally true of even some of our most basic beliefs. For instance, the taboo against incest. It turns out, if you do enough science, that there is a practical purpose for avoiding in-breeding. But we don't avoid incest because of fear of inbreeding, we avoid incest because it squicks the hell out of everyone. This is an extreme example of an -style idea: it is just as static and unchanging as the rules of logic; it's never going to be okay for Oedipus to sleep with Jocasta. It also governs the relationship between two or more objects; in this case, the relationship between the abstract objects "parent" and "child" or "brother" and "sister" (or what have you). But rather than having reference to something "out there," "available to reason" like logic, it has reference to something "deep inside," that you "just know," that's "just true." It is as unquestionable as the rules of logic. But its reference point is radically internal and subjective.

Of course, incest is a taboo that everybody almost universally agrees on (except for people in Arkansas), but that's just an extreme example. Many people feel that public officials have certain obligations to their constituency based on something subjective like "basic decency" or the like. But might come in and say, "well, if you apply an objective metric, really, neither the constitution nor the laws of the state actually say that this person has this obligation, so they shouldn't really get in trouble for not doing what they're not required to do."

So, the point of this whole long detour is to point out that -polrs more than any other type hate dealing with expectations and rules that any sort of idea of how a relationship between two things is supposed to go that they cannot justify through their own internal evaluation according to objective principles, i.e., that they cannot justify with . This is especially true if such activity prevents them from pursuing their base function, or . So if some expectation prevents an SLE from driving towards some goal he or she has set, or prevents an ILE from pursuing some idea they've got in their heads, it's extremely frustrating. You just don't understand why your polr is important.

Now, you also asked about being effectively counterphobic with your polr, about people who overemphasize their polrs. This happens in environments in which people are frequently berated for failing to handle their polr, so that they begin to see it is a major area that is holding them back, or a major flaw in themselves. In the case of -polr, an XLE may become completely paranoid about offending people or hurting their feelings. They may walk on tenderhooks afraid to pursue the things their base function is constantly telling them to pursue for fear that they will step on an ethical landmine. Since they never know when something they do is going to be really bad vs. just kinda bad vs. not an issue, they may constantly check with trusted others to make sure they haven't done anything wrong. Above all, it creates an unnecessary check on the base function, slowing down base function activity (i.e., those activities that the person would ultimately be best at) for the sake of avoiding an error.

side note: JCW3 had a thread a while back about Fe egos saying that they love everything and everyone, and some half-asian, half-irish comedian whose name I forget (who could very well be an Fi-polr---comedians often are) says basically the same thing in a joke. And now that I think about it, this could be a sort of Fi-polr/Fe-HA related thing insofar as the XLE is sure that they've finally found a way to make emotions comprehensible by virtue of external signs of emotion, and then the external sign all of a sudden becomes confusing and unclear not because the person is failing to give an external sign of their internal world but because they're throwing out signs all over the place. So it no longer becomes a good gauge for the internal world, and we're back with the problem we started with vis a vis Fi-polr. Given that the SLE has weak Ni on top of that--so it's not always easy for them to find the meaning of unclear, shifting symbols--it seems like

[Creepy-male]

I'd like to also add that Fi PoLR seems to also have insecurities relating to its own inner world.