Explain Inferior Se to me

noisebloom

noisebloom

theory conspirer
Site Supporter
MBTI
INTP
I've read about it enough that I understand the textbook/typological explanation, but I want to hear some more subjective, personal accounts.

Explain Inferior Se in your own words. How does it affect you on a daily basis? How does it play tug of war with Ni or your other functions? How have you developed it, or how do you hope to develop it?
 
noisebloom said:
I've read about it enough that I understand the textbook/typological explanation, but I want to hear some more subjective, personal accounts.

Explain Inferior Se in your own words. How does it affect you on a daily basis? How does it play tug of war with Ni or your other functions? How have you developed it, or how do you hope to develop it?
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Sometimes I’m moseying along and something catches my eye and in that very moment I zone out and it’s just the coolest thing. E.g. I was at the airport last year and this man was playing the piano. An old couple were watching him play and the whole scene caught my eye as I was walking by, and it was as if everything suddenly went into slow motion while I took that moment in. A photo couldn’t have captured what I saw.
 
Pin said:
The INFJs lose to me once again. Se is the ENTJs tertiary function.

What's the matter INFJs, can't smell my finger?

Ha Ha!
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noisebloom said:
I've read about it enough that I understand the textbook/typological explanation, but I want to hear some more subjective, personal accounts.

Explain Inferior Se in your own words. How does it affect you on a daily basis? How does it play tug of war with Ni or your other functions? How have you developed it, or how do you hope to develop it?
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Hi @noisebloom - a lot of the time, I'm just not aware of my surroundings. My shins are almost always bashed to pieces by things that attack me, and I get spaced out after a couple of hours if I need to concentrate on some specific here and now stuff like long distance driving. I like walking in the country near where I live but I'm usually in my head most of the time unless I'm unfamiliar with where I'm going and need to refer to a map or satnav. If I'm stressed out, I spend a lot of time in Se-land, re-watching Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings films yet again, or drifting around the countryside "outside" my head (unpleasantly).

But that's the darker side - this from @Happy Phantom is so right.
Happy Phantom said:
Sometimes I’m moseying along and something catches my eye and in that very moment I zone out and it’s just the coolest thing. E.g. I was at the airport last year and this man was playing the piano. An old couple were watching him play and the whole scene caught my eye as I was walking by, and it was as if everything suddenly went into slow motion while I took that moment in. A photo couldn’t have captured what I saw.
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Sometimes the whole external world is lit up for me by an inner light - it feels magical and alive and glorious, and I feel like I'm one with it.

I'm into photography - Se and Ni can work together in perfect harmony for me there with Se capturing what's there and Ni shaping the image - when I press the shutter, I'm really there, now, in the moment, both Ni and Se together. A lot of it is below consciousness, particularly in pictures that need exact timing:
Surfer Whistling Sands.webp
 
Pin said:
The INFJs lose to me once again. Se is the ENTJs tertiary function.

What's the matter INFJs, can't smell my finger?

Ha Ha!
Click to expand...

In all seriousness this can be a big advantage for ENTJs as it encourages them to act in the moment and take calculated risks, particularly as they develop this side of themselves. It's a big driver for their absurd success rate in business.
 
@John K im clumsy af. lol When I was a kid my mom and I were going to the mall and I was so deep in thought I ran right into a glass door. lolz

Also @infinite dreams says I zone out when animals (squirrels) are around. We were at the park in DC and I made friends with a cutie pie squirrel. :p

I would like for my Ni and Se to work together when I need to be creative. How do I do that @John K ?
 
My theory on inferior functions (which, along with $5 will buy you a sizable cup of Starbucks premium coffee beverage) is that they're something we continually use, but just aren't very good at or lucky with. It's a thing you definitely have, but not a thing that's consistently reliable or trustworthy.

So inferior Se users might be clumsy or inattentive of their surroundings (except when they aren't, randomly) or may have an impulsive streak that gets them into trouble or causes them problems. This being opposed to an upper-tier Se user who more skillfully maneuvers the external world, and takes risks that work to their advantage.

And before you NJs feel bad about that - remember that the SP who can walk without tripping, or win multiple hands of poker, is also the same person who makes shitty long-term decisions because of tert/inferior Ni gut feelings that are just flat out wrong.
 
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Inferior Se is going to a flower garden and being able to notice all the different little creatures and colors and absorbing all of the experience and then on your way out tripping and falling into a bed of petunias because you were too busy using Ni to correlate a bunch of shit.
 
Wyote said:
Inferior Se is going to a flower garden and being able to notice all the different little creatures and colors and absorbing all of the experience and then on your way out tripping and falling into a bed of petunias because you were too busy using Ni to correlate a bunch of shit.
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Oooo I think I need to go to the butterfly garden soon! They’re so beautiful and colorful and will sometimes randomly land on you.
 
John K said:
I'm into photography - Se and Ni can work together in perfect harmony for me there with Se capturing what's there and Ni shaping the image - when I press the shutter, I'm really there, now, in the moment, both Ni and Se together. A lot of it is below consciousness, particularly in pictures that need exact timing:
View attachment 43681
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That's a great explanation. My sister (INTJ) is a phenomenal photographer, and this undoubtedly has been developing her Se over time.

I think I'm beginning to subscribe to the theory that integrating the Inferior function into your Dominant is perhaps the most efficient and natural way to develop it. It makes sense, and I think most people in their life figure this out and just do it. I myself have realized that more and more I'm using Ti to help others around me and connect with them (Fe), so I believe I'm on the right track.
 
noisebloom said:
integrating the Inferior function into your Dominant is perhaps the most efficient and natural way to develop it.
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Yep!

noisebloom said:
I'm using Ti to help others around me and connect with them (Fe)
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It will help you lead the tribe while allowing you to maintain sanity, which is what intps desire. But you do have to understand your main focus first in order to not get derailed.
 
Happy Phantom said:
would like for my Ni and Se to work together when I need to be creative. How do I do that @John K ?
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@Happy Phantom that's a hard question for me - I've thought enough about it to describe my own experience, but that's a lot different to suggesting to someone else how they might have the same experience.

I think you're already a lot of the way there the way you described the elderly couple:
Happy Phantom said:
An old couple were watching him play and the whole scene caught my eye as I was walking by, and it was as if everything suddenly went into slow motion while I took that moment in.
Click to expand...
What you're describing is very like the way things catch my eye, and (like my own Ni response), your description is poetic and filled with your own inner world reactions as well as the actual external event. Photography lends itself to expressing things like this in the moment, so if it weren't intrusive, I might take a picture and that would complete the thing, apart from some quick Photoshop or Lightroom tweaks. As you say, a photo couldn't easily capture the magic of that moment as you experienced it - maybe a painting, or a poem could, or perhaps a short story woven around it? For me, pressing the camera shutter brings Ni/Se together at that instant - it seems to me that we could use something similar for other artistic forms. I've seen artists doing rapid sketches to take back home and work up there later (and some use photos for this purpose I believe), or we could jot down the idea for a poem or story "on location" this way too.

Some more thoughts -
  • We need some hunger for creativity and plenty of persistence and experience - not necessarily in any grand way but enough to make us deliberate about it so it becomes an automatic familiar-with-use attitude. With photos there is a large failure rate - I've got a huge stack of them on my hard drive and only about 20% at best are what I think of as any good, perhaps only 5% very good - many of the rest are fit to be thought of only as a photo diary and others I should really bin. I think we need to persist even if it doesn't work out a lot of the time - I reward myself by picking out the best stuff and seeing it in isolation from all the also-rans.
  • Then there is technical skill - I've been taking photos for a long time so I'm pretty familiar with the kit and I love the camera technology and the computer editing tools as much as the pictures. I don't think this is quite so demanding as it used to be - we can take good pictures on middle-range smartphones these days and quite useful computer editing and display tools are familiar to many people through social media culture. Whatever form of art we go for, we need to be familiar enough with the tools that they aren't a distraction. Se is fragile with dominant Ni's - I find it soon gets overwhelmed if I'm having to fiddle with unfamiliar camera controls too much and then I don't see anything out there in the world (and risk dropping the kit on my foot as well !!)
This is a bit of a brain-dump - don't know if it helps.
 
noisebloom said:
That's a great explanation. My sister (INTJ) is a phenomenal photographer, and this undoubtedly has been developing her Se over time

I think I'm beginning to subscribe to the theory that integrating the Inferior function into your Dominant is perhaps the most efficient and natural way to develop it. It makes sense, and I think most people in their life figure this out and just do it. I myself have realized that more and more I'm using Ti to help others around me and connect with them (Fe), so I believe I'm on the right track.
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Hi @noisebloom - give your Ne plenty of support as well if you try that. Looking at the big range of threads and comments you've posted and likes you've got, it's working really well for you out in the community.
 
Se to me is kinda like a primal instinct, like animal instinct. It's like being in the moment and absorb the experience with all 5 senses (or more) at once. Inferior Se to me usually manifests as being mostly oblivious to the sensing detail. For example, an Se-dom may notice that a particular person has just done some nose job, although I don't see any difference with that person's face, until I actually take a closer look.
Developing Se for me is to surrender to the experience, mostly I practice it through walking meditation or relaxing sports, and I find it complement with Ni pretty well, in the sense that Se provides information for Ni to put in the pieces of the already built puzzle. When I think about the merge between Se and Ni I think about a scene from the movie Ex Machina that talks about "engage intellect".

 
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