I see, I see. That's something I'm not really familiar with IIRC. I don't think I need to take care of everyone, just the people that I can help and have a interest in.
Yes, this is consistent with the INTJs I know. You guys are surprisingly benevolent, but always practical about it. One of the greatest ways INTJs can help people is by offering practical solutions to others. I know this has helped me tremendously over the years, as I don't have much of the Te practicality (even though I had always considered myself practical. Turns out I am much more Ti logical than practical, the the difference is very noticeable to me now that I've become so close to three INTJs).
Interesting. Can you explain this in more detail or is it really just as simple as it sounds? Also, how can you determine if someone has a need? For example, if you see someone that is sad, how exactly do your discern if she's going to be okay in the long run (perhaps she got grounded or something) or if she needs help (Her father just died)
It is as simple as it sounds, but something that isn't simple for most people to understand. I think this ability truly defines the use of Ni > Fe, and to be honest, when I've tried to explain this to most people they look at me like I'm loony, and I can understand why. In essence I'm telling them that I have a super power.
Here's how it works as best as I can describe it...
I am extremely empathic and this ability is involuntary, just like hearing. When I am near someone I can feel their emotions as acutely as if they were my own, but at a distance and distinct from myself. The best analogy would be it is as if they are radiating a complex set of energy or light (though, I do not 'see' anything literally, I feel it). In fact, it is important to note that this ability is not tied to any of my physical senses. I can feel the emotions of people I cannot see or hear. For example, I can feel the emotions of people who sit down behind me in restaurants, even though I never turn to look at them and they make no audible expressions. The closer a person is to me, the more clearly I can sense the 'details' of their emotional state. If I am physically touching someone, the acuity is exponential. At no point do I ever mistake their feelings for my own, so this isn't a sympathetic response. However, knowing that someone is feeling something may cause a reaction in me, but the reaction in me by no means has to be to adopt their emotions. In fact, I very seldom do.
I've
always been able to do this, even before I could speak as a child. I could inherently tell if someone was good or bad. If they were good, I would talk to them from my shopping cart seat. If they were bad, I would shy away. When I was at this age, my mother had a lot of apprehension over my 'talking to strangers'. However, as I got a little older, this ability was proven time and again with the people in her life that I told her were bad people - who always proved me right. By age 10, even my ESTJ mother didn't doubt that I was right about people to an almost mystical degree, even though to this day she still can't wrap her head around how I do this.
However, when I was younger, I could just as acutely feel people's emotions, but in most cases I had no idea what they meant and had to learn the meaning of what I was feeling if it was an emotion that was foreign to me. For example, I remember being around gay men when I was younger, picking up on the fact that there was something very clearly different in their 'vibes' that I didn't understand and wondering what it was exactly, but had no idea until one of them explained to me that he was gay. From then on, I was armed with the knowledge of what I'd always been able to sense.
The acuity with which I read / feel people is extreme, but the specific details often require me to know the person very well, and have learned this feeling means this, that feeling means that, in order to almost have a telepathic connection with someone. Note - I do not claim to have anything resembling telepathy. It is a combination of very acute empathy and logic. For example... I can sense when someone is hurting. I can even tell the difference between different kinds of hurt, like the loss of a loved one vs being rejected or snubbed or having a plan fail. But, I cannot tell what it is in relation to unless I know the person and have been able to construct a sense of how their mind works by listening to what they are concerned about while they roll through their emotions, which allows me to then figure out which emotions associate with which thoughts. That's as close to telepathy as I get, and because it's based on association, sometimes I can make some serious mistakes when someone has an emotion that they normally associate with another subject.
The closer the bond I develop with someone, the longer the distance I can feel the person at. For example, when my wife cheated on me, not only did I feel it, I could feel what she was doing (specific foreplay and sex acts because I knew how she felt when she was performing them with me), when she was doing it (in real time as it was happening) and with who (despite not having any reason to suspect this guy though I can't explain how I knew this because I never met this guy and she never spoke of him), even though I had no logical reason to know (I was at a birthday party with Justin Timberlake - seriously - when all of this happened, so there was a lot of distraction). When she came home and I told her what she did, when, and with whom, she went utterly pale and asked how I knew. I asked her how she could ask me that after being with me for so long. She nodded and admitted everything. I forgave her, because we're all human and these things happen, and she never cheated on me again. Heh, and she frequently commented on how she should have gone to the party with me, because Timberlake showing up was a complete surprise (he is from the Memphis area, and was childhood friends with my friend's husband, and happened to be in town when we had the party).
When I am in a room full of people, this ability works on everyone at the same time. I can feel all of them. This is why harmony is so important to me. If a crowd is harmonious, I can handle it, no matter the size. If the crowd is chaotic, even small numbers overload me quickly. To go back to the hearing analogy, if 100,000 people are all singing the same song, it's beautiful even if powerful. If 10 people are singing different songs at the same time, it's terrible. And this is really a good way to imagine it, everyone singing a song. The more harmonious the songs are, the better it feels.
Interesting. By diplomatic you mean being honest with a person but not in a way that would insult them, yes?
Yes. Whenever possible, I try not to insult when speaking the truth. Sometimes it's unavoidable, and in those situations I often still speak the truth in as uninsulting a manner as I can muster, but I will speak the truth if need be.
Ah, I see. That's an unique way of viewing it. Since you are developing your Te, what is it like to use it with your other more natural functions? Specifically Te and Fe, can you tell when you are using one or the other and in the long run, what's the differences in the choices that you make using each function.
I can absolutely tell. Fe is a clear sense of how things should be... which is often not the reality of the situation. Te is a clear understanding of how things relate... which is often not how it should be. Fe for me is the drive to make things how they should be, while Te is the capacity to take advantage of how things actually are. Fe forms a master plan and adapts as variables are thrown at it. For example, I feel that this has to be a certain way. I will make it that way, despite whatever obstacles arise, and will overcome them and stick to my original vision with as little alteration to this goal as possible, because it is an emotionally based drive. As I'm learning Te, I'm finding that goals are much less definitive and can be altered much more and still achieve the most important parts of the intent. Certain elements can be sacrificed to allow for greater efficiency, and this understanding has led me to conceive of contingencies. If I know in advance that everything is relative, and I'm willing to let go of whatever I have to, I can then make plans to cover these other possibilities.
For me, Fe is like a very direct force that pushes head on toward whatever it has to accomplish. Barriers and obstacles are overcome with sheer brute force of will, sometimes when a more efficient route is patently obvious to everyone. Fe will only circumvent an obstacle when it cannot surmount it, and when it does, it will immediately correct its course upon circumventing... staying on a straight line of focus to the goal as much as possible. This seems to be the classic use of Fe defaulting to Ti for leverage when Fe can't solve the problem, then back to Fe as soon as the problem is solved.
Te is allowing me this amazing ability to see the obstacles, the path, the battlefield, and many other factors. Rather than just using Fe to barrel headlong toward my goal and occasionally sidestepping with Ti, I'm now able to plot a series of courses and even consider using the obstacles to my advantage in the process. I'm clearly not a master of this approach, but I'm gaining skill with it and it's proving to be extremely valuable. I now find myself seeking a goal, looking at the alternative routes before I begin, and keep them in mind when I need to leverage around an obstacle. In essence, Te is giving me the inclination to cover my moves - to use a chess term - something I have always had a lot of difficulty with.
I hope that makes sense. I'm still learning Te, and it is definitely subjugate to my Fe and my Ti, which seems to be looking at it primarily for more leverage... but every now and then my Fe will skip directly to Te and consider changing the goals entirely, and it certainly is allowing me to be more flexible.
Hmm. Do you find yourself compromising yourself more with Fe for the group or sticking to your values (Fi)
It depends on the situation, but I am more inclined to compromise and regret it than stick to my values - in direct proportion to how close I am with the people involved. For example, I am almost not able to say no to people I love, even if the requests are unreasonable (but I may resent them for taking advantage of me, especially if it becomes clear that they are deliberately taking advantage of me rather than just operating on the fact that I'll accommodate). But, while it is difficult for me to say no to strangers if the request is reasonable, I can do it if it is unreasonable (had to learn this skill... until I did, I was a master of dodge and evade tactics).
I've noticed that my INTJ friends are
much better at sticking to their guns when they are in a situation that calls for a choice in harmony vs personal values... sometimes to a degree that I find offensive if they are willing to sacrifice harmony entirely for something that is not even close to equitable. For example, One of my INTJ friends was venting to me, and I was listening to every word. However, her Se is not so good (as I've noticed that INFJs tend to have better Se than INTJs... or at least manifest it a little differently), and she was developing a very long ash on her cigarette that was about to fall into her drink. When I pointed this out, she quickly ashed it into her drink on purpose and in a rather angry way. Her logic was 'okay this is distracting you from listening to me, I'll make it not a problem, next'. I took it as 'Because I am offended that you would rather try to look out for me and create harmony than pay absolute attention to what I am saying, I will deliberately destroy harmony to punish you!' We had a massive fight over that because her Te saw the situation one way, but my Fe took it another. It was the emotional equivalent of me nudging her foot under the table to keep it from a puddle, and her hauling off and kicking the hell out of me for it. It took a long time for her to understand why I got so mad, even though I was being very clear and specific - most importantly, she still can't understand how acutely I can sense her emotions, so when she had that flash of rage, I felt it very clearly. The problem came from me assuming what that clear flash of rage meant, because I have a lot of trouble thinking in Te and Fi terms, so I make a lot of false assumptions about what it is that I can sense her feeling when her feelings are intense. Harmony just isn't something that she inherently understands or values... her Te is dominant over what little Fe she has and in that instance, she strongly resorted to Fi emotions. I have a lot of trouble seeing how things relate when I'm emotional... because my Fe is dominant over what little Te I have and I resorted to Ti reasoning focusing on the little details that she found irrelevant... even though we were both very much on the same page to begin with... Ni dominance in both of us.
