Duxwing
I've Overcome Existential Despair
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INTPs often complain that their trickster inferior Fe leads them on disastrous quests for love, validation, and appreciation, and their MBTI-aware peers often call this problem inherent and intractable by anything but aging. I tentatively counter that those whose minds Ti dominates will consciously and totally reject Fi and the emotional self-validation thereof as irrational or evil. Some generalized sample quotes from such people might be, "I need objective meaning," "How could you just do that for yourself?" or "I need to be needed". With Fi silenced, INTPs must process their emotions through Fe alone and therefore require--not merely enjoy--external validation of their selves and lives to replace Fi until they recognize the role and importance of the-oft rejected function in their minds.
The subtext of the three aforementioned quotes is as follows: "I need objective meaning" means "I need validation and a sense of security regarding my conscience and concept of self," "How could you just do that for yourself?" means "I don't believe that my wants and needs are worth fulfilling relative to those of others," and "I need to be needed" means "I can't feel good about myself or my actions unless they help others". Enjoying happiness brought unto others by one's actions and feeling the importance of others' needs are healthy and important, but allowing these thoughts and behaviors to dominate the psyche denies one one's Self and places one's most tender feelings at the mercy of the world.
Yet Fi, upon being removed from the conscious mind, is not destroyed, but rather shunted like a railway car into the depths of the unconscious mind wherein, like a runaway train, it causes untold harm. Expressing illogical thoughts to an INTP, however, often quickly raises Fi from its depths in the form of frustration, anger, and attempts at correction because many INTPs have an ideal--a subjective purpose and meaning from Fi--about making their thoughts logical. Recognizing that this feeling is not an objective meaning is therefore a good first step in unraveling the Fi of an INTP and preventing such woes as existential despair, which amounts to the emotional starvation cause by an absence of Fe validation in finding the often sought after Meaning of Life in philosophy and the rejection of Fi in the mind.
Some INTPs attempt to 'integrate' their inferior functions through many and sundry methods. One popular and ill-fated attempt is taking up philosophy, wherein INTPs see a playground of Ti, Ne, and Si with a huge prize of validation and appreciation (Fe) along with internal security (Fi, Ni, Si); incidentally, INTPs rarely think much of life after finding the meaning of life, but my thoughts of it greatly resemble an eternal paradise of childhood--think of animated Disney movies and Magic Treehouse books--wherein all the eight functions can safely roam and play. Ti can rest and derive at leisure, Ne can chart a course for the future, Si can enjoy continuity forever, Fe is warmed by the warmth and love and worship of untold billions to come, Te can finally draw a hard-nosed conclusion and write its definitive tomes, Ni can explore and wonder without madness, Se can be freed to see the world, and the Fi ideal--which describes all of the preceding paradise--is finally achieved. In deriving the meaning of life, the INTP becomes a god with his or her own religion--the ultimate grandeur, the ultimate life. Yet as we feel the glow of this Fi we all know that knowledge--much less objective meaning--cannot be ascertained: to become a God, the INTP would already have to be a God. And as the ideal crumbles, so does the INTP.
Another method of integrating the inferior while rejecting Fi is intellectual activity in the service of others. This pursuit differs from philosophy in that its goals are achievable, but the same psychodrama remains: newly minted INTP coders want to write a strong AI or architect the Singularity, fresh-faced INTP physicists want to complete the Standard Model or understand Dark Matter, and greenhorn INTP mathematicians want to best Galwa. Were they to acknowledge that they don't need external validation to accept themselves and their lives and decided upon what they wanted to do by how they felt after a thorough review of the associated facts, such problems would not occur. And moreover, grandiosity comes up again and again: Fe judges and acts, deciding for others and ruling their lives with a cotton fist--yet it needs power to do so. In considering the impact that their work may have on others, INTPs assume that their work will ever amount to anything at all; that fundamental assumption about an undecided question will drive unwitting INTPs insane with frustrated narcissism.
Yet an INTP who acknowledges their Fi despite its subjectivity and uses it appropriately without letting it silence their Fe may very well have the drive and will to achieve such feats. Thus we are left at the question that has driven me--for much of this essay has been a reflection upon myself--and others to intellectualization and despair: who am I? The answer comes from inside each of us.
-Duxwing
The subtext of the three aforementioned quotes is as follows: "I need objective meaning" means "I need validation and a sense of security regarding my conscience and concept of self," "How could you just do that for yourself?" means "I don't believe that my wants and needs are worth fulfilling relative to those of others," and "I need to be needed" means "I can't feel good about myself or my actions unless they help others". Enjoying happiness brought unto others by one's actions and feeling the importance of others' needs are healthy and important, but allowing these thoughts and behaviors to dominate the psyche denies one one's Self and places one's most tender feelings at the mercy of the world.
Yet Fi, upon being removed from the conscious mind, is not destroyed, but rather shunted like a railway car into the depths of the unconscious mind wherein, like a runaway train, it causes untold harm. Expressing illogical thoughts to an INTP, however, often quickly raises Fi from its depths in the form of frustration, anger, and attempts at correction because many INTPs have an ideal--a subjective purpose and meaning from Fi--about making their thoughts logical. Recognizing that this feeling is not an objective meaning is therefore a good first step in unraveling the Fi of an INTP and preventing such woes as existential despair, which amounts to the emotional starvation cause by an absence of Fe validation in finding the often sought after Meaning of Life in philosophy and the rejection of Fi in the mind.
Some INTPs attempt to 'integrate' their inferior functions through many and sundry methods. One popular and ill-fated attempt is taking up philosophy, wherein INTPs see a playground of Ti, Ne, and Si with a huge prize of validation and appreciation (Fe) along with internal security (Fi, Ni, Si); incidentally, INTPs rarely think much of life after finding the meaning of life, but my thoughts of it greatly resemble an eternal paradise of childhood--think of animated Disney movies and Magic Treehouse books--wherein all the eight functions can safely roam and play. Ti can rest and derive at leisure, Ne can chart a course for the future, Si can enjoy continuity forever, Fe is warmed by the warmth and love and worship of untold billions to come, Te can finally draw a hard-nosed conclusion and write its definitive tomes, Ni can explore and wonder without madness, Se can be freed to see the world, and the Fi ideal--which describes all of the preceding paradise--is finally achieved. In deriving the meaning of life, the INTP becomes a god with his or her own religion--the ultimate grandeur, the ultimate life. Yet as we feel the glow of this Fi we all know that knowledge--much less objective meaning--cannot be ascertained: to become a God, the INTP would already have to be a God. And as the ideal crumbles, so does the INTP.
Another method of integrating the inferior while rejecting Fi is intellectual activity in the service of others. This pursuit differs from philosophy in that its goals are achievable, but the same psychodrama remains: newly minted INTP coders want to write a strong AI or architect the Singularity, fresh-faced INTP physicists want to complete the Standard Model or understand Dark Matter, and greenhorn INTP mathematicians want to best Galwa. Were they to acknowledge that they don't need external validation to accept themselves and their lives and decided upon what they wanted to do by how they felt after a thorough review of the associated facts, such problems would not occur. And moreover, grandiosity comes up again and again: Fe judges and acts, deciding for others and ruling their lives with a cotton fist--yet it needs power to do so. In considering the impact that their work may have on others, INTPs assume that their work will ever amount to anything at all; that fundamental assumption about an undecided question will drive unwitting INTPs insane with frustrated narcissism.
Yet an INTP who acknowledges their Fi despite its subjectivity and uses it appropriately without letting it silence their Fe may very well have the drive and will to achieve such feats. Thus we are left at the question that has driven me--for much of this essay has been a reflection upon myself--and others to intellectualization and despair: who am I? The answer comes from inside each of us.
-Duxwing