[INFJ] Seeing An Argument From All Angles

[5r6jhd]

So, there's this INFJ ability to see an argument from all angles. Sometimes it's great, sometimes not so much.

How do you other INFJs manage to stand your ground when you have a case/point and the other party is manipulative? How do you stop yourself forgetting where you stand and just start feeling bad about everything?

 

[Saru Inc]

i just grab a handful of ashes from the our long lost tree friends from the ground, i rub them into my eyes. as the tears stream out i drink them, and spit it into my hand that i mix with dirt and then with that dirt i throw it on the ground and its patterns lead me to the correct answer.


EITHER THAT OR I JUST REACH OVER AND FINISH JACKING OFF THE OTHER INFJ TO COMPLETE THE CIRCLE JERK THAT IS THIS FORUM.


also you will soon learn that seeing the argument from other angles is irrelephant.

 

[5r6jhd]

o.0 I'm not entirely sure you have any idea what I'm talking about.

 

[Blackmountainside]

i know what you mean neverwhere.

so you can see (insight is a very good thing)--- and you understand why and how about other person. perhaps, you feel your own pain, but you understand theirs, too.

some situations are far from perfect and so the answers are also far from perfect. sometimes there comes a time where you have to choose. you wish there was best outcome for everyone, but you know there cannot be.

what are you willing to negotiate? what are you willing to compromise? is this achievable? what about your wellbeing?

there have been times in my life where i have had to make peace with things which made me very sad. things outside my control. i never stopped understanding and caring for other person, but i made choices which had to be made. conviction in my heart. but there was still pain. and it felt cruel. but i knew there was no other way. and i knew my heart; it was soft and kind and it meant well. it wanted them to be happy, too.

 

[Trifoilum]

Fear not, @Saru Inc is just.......extremely sensitive to the........either
a) New Age-ish vibe of personality talks,
b) metaphysical aspect of humanity / personality

within INFJ discussions, seeing it 'circle jerk-ish' (was about to type jerky, which...circle beef jerky?) and probably, it gives a 'speshul snowflake' vibe like "LOOK AT US WE ARE AWESOME WE ARE THE CHOSEN ONES ENLIGHTENED MUAHAHAHAHA WE ARE AWESOME RITEIEIEIEEI!?!?!?!?!?!?!1/11111/1/1/1/1/1/".

Add that your question, @Neverwhere , give a 'trodden ones' feel to the entire thread, and it augments the vibe that...
Essentially, "INFJs are speshul".
And Saru is well documented to have been highly averse (and reactive) of those.

That's me, trying to look at his perspective.

And my response is to assure that relax, Saru; the ability to see different arguments / perspectives from different angles is not a superhuman/natural ability. Nor was it confined to one particular type. And apologies if I offend you in any way.

Speaking as a PERSON, I agreed, it is not beneficial at times to look within different perspective; how do you move forward to a direction if you can see how that direction is wrong and how that other direction is right, from another perspective? When you can see that everyone is, in their point of view, right, you start to dissect on 'what is right or wrong, then?' and that.....will lead you onto an endless existential cave.

I wrote about this on the other thread;

accessing possibilities / perspective WILL create a logical paradox; where one is wrong from one side, and right in another. Thus most of the time, the middle side; the clash WILL be addressed. Sometimes via cognitive dissonance, other times via revelations.

For better or worse, these sort of thing is also the reasons why conspiracy theories, apologists, and extremists are rampant and popular. When you're confused and conflicted and your brain decided to create an absolutely insane 'reasoning' as per why those two, seemingly paradoxical events are existing.... and your heart decided to believe it.

Eh.

Speaking as an INFJ, when the other party are manipulative, I might try to figure out what their intentions are. Then I either 'shift' to evade those implicit intentions, rather than the arguments. Or I'll just vanish and be invisible, socially speaking. Other less holy choices are to snipe that first, but... Not good.

Now, forgetting where I stand...that is unfortunately, my flaw. Still. :|
But in general, trying to figure out who you are, what had happened and what do you want; as well as where do you want to go is my questions of choice. @Blackmountainside 's suggestion would also be good.

 

[5r6jhd]

i know what you mean neverwhere.

so you can see (insight is a very good thing)--- and you understand why and how about other person. perhaps, you feel your own pain, but you understand theirs, too.

some situations are far from perfect and so the answers are also far from perfect. sometimes there comes a time where you have to choose. you wish there was best outcome for everyone, but you know there cannot be.

what are you willing to negotiate? what are you willing to compromise? is this achievable? what about your wellbeing?

there have been times in my life where i have had to make peace with things which made me very sad. things outside my control. i never stopped understanding and caring for other person, but i made choices which had to be made. conviction in my heart. but there was still pain. and it felt cruel. but i knew there was no other way. and i knew my heart; it was soft and kind and it meant well. it wanted them to be happy, too.

Thanks for the input!

Where do you feel you draw the line for yourself?

I'm curious as to how other INFJs deal with these kinds of conflicts. From my observations/experiences INFJs are full of angry talk they usually don't follow through on.

 

[5r6jhd]

[MENTION=2172]Trifoilum[/MENTION] I personally don't care how Saru Inc took it. As a forum made up largely of intuitives I don't see how me making a thread pretty much about intuition should be a problem. It was not directed at him, so his reaction was overkill. It pissed me off because it seemed to reference forum drama which I have no desire to have dragged in here...I apologise if I am taking it the wrong way, but it's how it came off and it seemed disrespectful.
I was not trying to paint a down trodden picture of the INFJ, we're well capable of standing up ourselves, I was curious as to others experiences with a particular negative aspect.
Sorry, this should be more aimed at Saru than you!

I suppose people's reactions would be dependent on how their brains are working...for example, one person might be able to just say "OK whatever" and brush it off, while another persons brain might be working a mile a minute and have difficulty transitioning away from the subject.

 

[Trifoilum]

@Trifoilum I personally don't care how Saru Inc took it. As a forum made up largely of intuitives I don't see how me making a thread pretty much about intuition should be a problem. It was not directed at him, so his reaction was overkill. It pissed me off because it seemed to reference forum drama which I have no desire to have dragged in here...I apologise if I am taking it the wrong way, but it's how it came off and it seemed disrespectful.
I was not trying to paint a down trodden picture of the INFJ, we're well capable of standing up ourselves, I was curious as to others experiences with a particular negative aspect.
Sorry, this should be more aimed at Saru than you!

I suppose people's reactions would be dependent on how their brains are working...for example, one person might be able to just say "OK whatever" and brush it off, while another persons brain might be working a mile a minute and have difficulty transitioning away from the subject.

And my point is more like, 'relax, you didn't do anything exactly wrong; you just stepped on his personal landmines.'
Again, insinuation, insinuation. ;P

Yes, but as you'd implied, the problem are so much more, more personalized than that. I guess it takes practice and knowledge (and to some degrees, familiarity; for better or worse. For familiarity breeds comfort and comfort stifles growth, personally speaking)

 

[Paladin-X]

So, there's this INFJ ability to see an argument from all angles. Sometimes it's great, sometimes not so much.

How do you other INFJs manage to stand your ground when you have a case/point and the other party is manipulative? How do you stop yourself forgetting where you stand and just start feeling bad about everything?

Genius question! I have been trying to figure this out for years. It never dawned on me to ask!

 

[Jill Hives]

You know, this happens to me too. A lot. It's a large part of why I don't like getting involved in debates or arguments because I can't really just pick a side most of the time. Every now and then a subject comes up where I just KNOW where I stand and that is really not likely to change, but that isn't the majority of the time. I don't think I am INFJ though. But...who knows about that.

I'll be watching for replies, because I am interested to know what others have to say about this also.

 

[Paladin-X]

Hypothesis: Speaking in MBTI terms... Fe being higher on the function order list, we are more likely to give in to others. Ti, being our 3rd function, houses our personal principles, but are usually overridden by Fe. Worse yet, with Ti also doubling as the shadow process, it uses logic to manipulate ourselves into believing the other person (or people). Bringing Ti into consciousness and taking control of it will help us balance between the self and others.

However, there is a difference in knowing something and knowing how to apply something. I believe my hypothesis to be true, but have no idea how to implement.

 

[Nixie]

Just because you see things from all sides doesn't mean you are obligated to conform to other's perspectives.

 

[Trifoilum]

Hypothesis: Speaking in MBTI terms... Fe being higher on the function order list, we are more likely to give in to others. Ti, being our 3rd function, houses our personal principles, but are usually overridden by Fe. Worse yet, with Ti also doubling as the shadow process, it uses logic to manipulate ourselves into believing the other person (or people). Bringing Ti into consciousness and taking control of it will help us balance between the self and others.

However, there is a difference in knowing something and knowing how to apply something. I believe my hypothesis to be true, but have no idea how to implement.

To me it's like people offering chests full of treasures, where there are things we like and things we don't.. (Ti plays here).

For me, Fe works like, the -willingness- to hear; the willingness to consider what others have, what others are saying, their condition, situation, circumstances...and what we want to do with them.
Ni, from the beginning, works both as radar ('this is worthy, I should listen to this') and sonar at the same time ('how deep should I listen? How important is this?'). Sort of a general, quick overview.
Ti, thus; works as nitpicker; picking arguments apart, analyzing values one by one; picking one I agreed, throwing one I disagreed...
and Se, lastly, tries to apply the lessons and understanding in my RL.

@Stormy1 :
Then sometimes, someone, would demand that we PICK ONE.
And. Yeah.
So sometimes we are finding things we do agree (if at least, part of them) but people demand we take everything and not just a piece of them.
That sort of black-white thinking is annoying.

But the ability to see things from all side can sometimes blindsided us, because....yeah, sometimes it gets so hard to pick things up.

 

[Nixie]

Maybe you just feel that someone is making you pick one. Conforming is a choice. Clearly outlining what you can or can't decide even if it isn't complete is perfectly fine. I think it is that J preference that makes certain types feel strongly that things must be perfect and/or complete in order to move forward.

 

[Paladin-X]

Just because you see things from all sides doesn't mean you are obligated to conform to other's perspectives.

I agree. However, the trouble is sometimes we cannot help ourselves. We don't even realize it is happening until after the fact or are away from the person/people.

 

[5r6jhd]

[MENTION=5437]Paladin-X[/MENTION] That makes a lot of sense!
[MENTION=3096]Stormy1[/MENTION] sometimes I think it's more complicated than just not giving in. In debates it can sometimes be hard to pick a side because you agree with a bit of both. In personal debates/arguments and the other party is manipulative it can be really easy to be manipulated and get confused. Thiking about it more, I suppose your level of empathy would play a big factor. If the particular INFJ was very empathetic they might be more prone to being manipulated/swayed ?

 

[Nixie]

If you are confortable with the habits and decisions you develop/nourish in life, don't change a thing. Otherwise you need to recondition how you react to the "other" if you wish to engage them in a manner that is less stressful for you. Part of any evaluation cycle is to reach a conclusion and determine if the outcome was desired or not desired and formulate strategy for change if the result was less than optimal. The feeling of continuous failure or discomfort is the result when you don't choose to modify behavior

@Neverwhere
Edit: It isn't about "not giving in" IMO at all. It is about being comfortable with exercising your personal power and decision making abilities. One of the things I have noticed is that people become overly concerned about being wrong. Big clue, you will be wrong a lot during your lifetime. It shouldn't stop you from making decisions or learning from those mistakes---another big clue--you have to make those decisions first.

Decisions/choices/stands/opinions

 

[Blackmountainside]

this is difficult for me to put into concrete terms, because it is highly dependent on situation. human relations are multi-faceted, and conflict resolution can get tricky.

how do you stop yourself forgetting where you stand and just start feeling bad about everything?

this comments leads me to think that you have an active decision to make; not simply about different perspectives, but a decision which will affect the nature of relationship you have with someone. romantic or familial ties, perhaps. (?)

Where do you feel you draw the line for yourself?

if someone is experiencing or at risk of physical/emotional/sexual abuse, then these are pretty clear indicators when to leave situation. you leave. if you’re having difficulty leaving (sometimes practical and emotional connection inhibit us) then you seek help to make this happen. sometimes our own life experiences and past relationships make it difficult to determine what constitutes ‘abuse’. boundaries can become blurred. when dealing with manipulative people this can make it especially difficult: “oh, but person is apologetic”/threats/ promises of change and better future/sympathy.

but maybe not as serious as this. so then it’s about personal belief systems. (very subjective and i do not know how to explain how i arrive at this place). usually can still really see and feel other view, but i still come to back my own, despite this. can feel very powerful yet sombre when this happens.

i am strong empath, too, and i am still learning that i cannot take on all the cares and worries of the world.

just because there are plausible reasons behind a person's thoughts and/or actions, does not meant you should suffer for them. you are valuable; your life matters. remember this.

 

[Saru Inc]

o.0 I'm not entirely sure you have any idea what I'm talking about.

I have absolutely every idea about what you're talking about, I was more predicting the answers of the people who are bound to say something similar to the thread.

Fear not, @Saru Inc is just.......extremely sensitive to the........either
a) New Age-ish vibe of personality talks,Nope, try again Freud
b) metaphysical aspect of humanity / personality D'oh! Two wrong! Ouch.

within INFJ discussions, seeing it 'circle jerk-ish' (was about to type jerky, which...circle beef jerky?) and probably, it gives a 'speshul snowflake' vibe like "LOOK AT US WE ARE AWESOME WE ARE THE CHOSEN ONES ENLIGHTENED MUAHAHAHAHA WE ARE AWESOME RITEIEIEIEEI!?!?!?!?!?!?!1/11111/1/1/1/1/1/".

No I mainly just think this entire charade is laughable.

Add that your question, @Neverwhere , give a 'trodden ones' feel to the entire thread, and it augments the vibe that...
Essentially, "INFJs are speshul".
And Saru is well documented to have been highly averse (and reactive) of those.

D'oh, incorrect again! The correct answer, would be 'What is... none of the above' Darn, well there's always final jeopardy to get your points back up!

That's me, trying to look at his perspective.

And my response is to assure that relax, Saru; the ability to see different arguments / perspectives from different angles is not a superhuman/natural ability. Nor was it confined to one particular type. And apologies if I offend you in any way.

I was hardly being serious, I was merely poking fun at those who are into the whole "trees are humans too!" forum-phenomena. Also I had nothing constructive to add so I figured might as well be deconstructive since hey, at least its 'constructive' just in a different way, i.e. a different angle. Oh, I'm so witty.

Speaking as a PERSON, I agreed, it is not beneficial at times to look within different perspective; how do you move forward to a direction if you can see how that direction is wrong and how that other direction is right, from another perspective? When you can see that everyone is, in their point of view, right, you start to dissect on 'what is right or wrong, then?' and that.....will lead you onto an endless existential cave.


Exactly, to attempt to be serious in an irrelephant topic, I've come to that exact conclusion. While we may all be on one side of the penny, there is always another side to it (i.e. the face since we're all a collective ass more or less). Since we've placed so much security in our side of the penny, when shown the other side we can become distraught, confused, and then sent on a hungry hungry hippo spree to find out if perhaps there is even ANOTHER side. Perhaps there is (ex: the little ridge part that lives impressions on your finger when you grab it very hard), and then it is raised 'what if..' here's the issue though: as an outside observer, it is clear there are only two sides, but as an inside observer we can only see our side at one time.

This leads to a chaotic coininfest destiny (c wat i did thar) cultivate side after side after side, we then assume because another side can be found, the cause we had in our first side of the coin is lost. But really, no matter how many sides we find or think we find, the fact a side exists lends no validity to the intrinsic nature of the coin. That's what I'm getting at, I agree with the op @Neverwhere, ironically. Well, I agree in that I too can see side, after side, after side and I can get lost in the epistemiological er. So what I then need to question is this: I know I am seeing side, after side, after side, but am I seeing truth, after lie, after lie/lie after truth after truth. etc.

I wrote about this on the other thread;
For better or worse, these sort of thing is also the reasons why conspiracy theories, apologists, and extremists are rampant and popular. When you're confused and conflicted and your brain decided to create an absolutely insane 'reasoning' as per why those two, seemingly paradoxical events are existing.... and your heart decided to believe it.

Eh.

Speaking as an INFJ, when the other party are manipulative, I might try to figure out what their intentions are. Then I either 'shift' to evade those implicit intentions, rather than the arguments. Or I'll just vanish and be invisible, socially speaking. Other less holy choices are to snipe that first, but... Not good.

Now, forgetting where I stand...that is unfortunately, my flaw. Still. :|
But in general, trying to figure out who you are, what had happened and what do you want; as well as where do you want to go is my questions of choice. @Blackmountainside 's suggestion would also be good.

@Trifoilum I personally don't care how Saru Inc took it. As a forum made up largely of intuitives I don't see how me making a thread pretty much about intuition should be a problem. The only problem is that you took the post seriously, which is not your fault. I made it too see like it should be taken seriously because one typically doesn't express anger when goofing around. Its kind of like the Lehman brothers, or the potato famine. It was not directed at him, so his reaction was overkill. Oh ho ho, but look at it from another angle and it was just the right amount of kill. I think I should dub this the 'Goldilocks Effect' but I feel like some physicist already took that name. It pissed me off because it seemed to reference forum drama which I have no desire to have dragged in here...I apologise if I am taking it the wrong way, but it's how it came off and it seemed disrespectful. I don't really owe any respect to you, now thats not to say we don't all deserve each other a little respect. But its not the kind of respect one might find in the CEO office. That being said it doesn't reference any forum drama in particular, it more just references the forum.
I was not trying to paint a down trodden picture of the INFJ, we're well capable of standing up ourselves, I was curious as to others experiences with a particular negative aspect.
Sorry, this should be more aimed at Saru than you!

Ouchies, that hurt. Here lemme play the theme song. (gets out double neck guitar)

Your eyes tell the stories of a day you wish you could
Recall the moments that once have
Retract the footsteps that brought us to this favor
I wouldn't ask this of you


Good eye, sniper
Here I'll shoot, you run
The words you scribbled on the walls
With the loss of friends you didn't have
I'll call you when the time is right
Are you in or are you out?
For them all to know the end of us all


Run quick, they're behind us
Didn't think we'd ever make it
This close to safety in one piece
Now you wanna kill me in the act of what could maybe
Save us from sleep and what we are


Good eye, sniper
Now I shoot, you run
The words you scribbled on the walls
With the loss of friends you didn't have
I'll call you when the time is right
Are you in or are you out?
For them all to know the end of us all


Bye bye beautiful
Don't bother to write
Disturbed by your words and they're calling all cars
Face step, let down.
Face step, step down.


The words you scribbled on the walls
With the loss of friends you didn't have
I'll call you when the time is right
Are you in or are you out?
For them all to know


Bye bye beautiful
Don't bother to write
Disturbed by your words and they're calling all cars
Face step, let down.
Face step, step down.


Bye bye beautiful
Don't bother to write
Disturbed by your words and they're calling all cars
Face step, let down.
Face step, step down.



I suppose people's reactions would be dependent on how their brains are working...for example, one person might be able to just say "OK whatever" and brush it off, while another persons brain might be working a mile a minute and have difficulty transitioning away from the subject.

Yeah you have that difficulty with pretty much everything, that's not a judgement, its just an observation.

And my point is more like, 'relax, you didn't do anything exactly wrong; you just stepped on his personal landmines.'
Again, insinuation, insinuation. ;P
1 point for Freud in regards to the final declaration, unfortunately the points don't matter because this is not a game its a post.

Yes, but as you'd implied, the problem are so much more, more personalized than that. I guess it takes practice and knowledge (and to some degrees, familiarity; for better or worse. For familiarity breeds comfort and comfort stifles growth, personally speaking)

I can't tell if you're talking about me, the circle jerk, infjs, or this topic but either way way to be ambiguous.

I always find it laughable whenever I see a post breed hate in some kafkaesque translation of 'love' using lovey words like 'cultural centralization' and junk. Its given tons of thumbs up and reps and quotes like 'oh wow such a great person.' Its really a hateful post, but since so many on this forum are incapable of confronting anything remotely difficult its disregarded and praised. So I'll do little posts like this which sound hateful, but they're not because I really don't care one way or another about the topic. However I am deeply saddened at the lack of approval I receive from members.

I'm not saying the post is a joke, however I am saying the forum is a joke and thus the responses from the forum to the post are ergo thusly jokes.

Also I enjoy saying irrelephant despite being 21 years old.

 

[Paladin-X]

i am strong empath, too, and i am still learning that i cannot take on all the cares and worries of the world.

just because there are plausible reasons behind a person's thoughts and/or actions, does not meant you should suffer for them. you are valuable; your life matters. remember this.

Remembering this is the easy part in hind or foresight. Almost never in the moment though. Any tips for remembering this as the event(s) occur? I cannot speak for Neverwhere, but I am frequently caught in traps of taking on everyone else's cares and worries, whether they are family, friends, lovers, or even strangers. It never occurs to me in the moment that this is a problem. Or even when I do recognize it, it's like a quiet voice inside my head, watching as I take on the burdens of others anyway. It is very frustrating. I am learning, but the learning seems exceptionally hard and slow. More than it should be. I know. Whine, whine, whine. Sorry. It feels ridiculous that at 32 years old, I don't seem to grasp this at all.

EDIT - It is also equally difficult understanding when it is okay to give in and when to stand my ground.