I'd agree that functions are built on experiences. There is evidence to suggest that we are born with a certain outline of personality, which I outright denied until I realised that some things must be genetic, as personality must be evolutionary (otherwise why does it exist?) and that it must therefore be about survival. I need things to make sense
to me before I believe them. I guess this must be personality as well.
From my perspective, seeing as I see personality as a survival technique, I would say that we become whatever is good for our survival. We morph ourselves according to how people treat us and what environment we grow up in. If we grow up in an environment that has a strong community and strong traditions, perhaps we will see the tribal aspect of that as a safe place (some people strongly dislike being away from home, believing their own community to be a familiar, safe place), which you could theorise could develop Si, for instance.
If you ask me about my particular functions, well it depends whether I know exactly what I use
It has become clear to me over time that I might not. But I have thought about this before so I'll just say what I think has shaped me.
Ni and Fe I think have both developed from my need at home and at school to know what people mean rather than what they say and the need to be of interest to strong personalities in order to gain attention as a child. So, for instance, my dad has a very strong personality and has very, very low empathy. He is not an unpleasant person (though he can be very cutting unwittingly) but you need to understand his language to see it sometimes. So I actively translate what people around me say into what they intend to say. I have got used to it with my dad. It's important for me, to avoid me becoming upset, to view only people's intentions as important, rather than what they actually do. This requires me to look behind things, to see the physical world of actions, words and events as arbitrary and less important than the undercurrent behind them, that caused them, that is related to them. It requires me to contextualise in a vertical way - by seeing how things inform each other, by seeing how things are feeding into each other - it requires me to see things from all angles. At the same time that my dad was unempathic, my mother was very depressed and could be tense or shout, and my brother was wild with anger. I think I fit into my family in the role I felt I needed to have, which has developed certain functions in me. It was important for me to develop strong empathy, because this keeps the peace. It was important for me to become what my parents needed me to be at certain times in order for us to have dialogue. I knew instinctively what to say to my dad to gain his interest and I knew instinctively what to say to my mam to gain her interest, but I also knew instinctively what to say to my brother in my defence when we were fighting. So I think that the ability to need to look behind was always there, because it would have been upsetting had I taken things on face value. There was also the confusion of going to school, having been taught "high morals" throughout my life from two parents who placed importance on responsibility and strict moralisation (though when I grew older I realised that they didn't necessarily follow these rules themselves!) However, it was also taught to me that "it is not nice to hate", and I was taught to think about things from other people's point of view. This probably developed both MBTI personality and enneagram. I am an enneagram 1 because my parents valued perfection. Or I thought they did when I was a kid but I realise I was actually wrong about them then. I was under the impression that mistakes could not be justified, both morally and in my work. We weren't religious by the way and my parents weren't pushy, it was more that they were keen for me to understand others in order to be a "good" person and to try my hardest in order to be a conscientious person. There is also the fact they are both intelligent people who did not go to university, mostly due to not being able to afford to. So they wanted me and my brother to do well - living through us vicariously, I guess. It is obvious to look at them now, as an adult, and realise that these things are very important to them, particularly conscientiousness and independence and a belief that one must never impinge on another person (that we must always accommodate for the comfort of others). If these things have been told to me over and over at a young age, then they become automatic. The fact that I needed to be accommodating to live peacefully with my family has also made this automatic - that I will accommodate others regardless of my feelings towards them - not out of any conscious decisions but simply because that is how my mind works. It is what I have learned to do at a young age. And our personalities are almost entirely what we have learned to do. Our culture and environment quickly overrides any genetic functions, because if it did not we may not survive.
When it comes to Ti and Se, I'm not sure. Weirdly, these are the functions I most see in myself rather than Ni and Fe or Ne and Fi, which I can be easily confused about because I can't pinpoint their workings within me. My Se and Ti functions, if I have identified them correctly, are what I would describe as being "me" when someone asks me about myself. I always assumed I was a thinker for this reason. It is also the thing many point out about me, although they often see me as more of a feeler than I see myself. They would more quickly describe me as compassionate, while I would more quickly describe myself as logical. Se, I don't know how it got there, but people laugh and point it out. My attention to what is around me, here and now (which oddly I had always connected to my propensity to daydream). I have always gained pleasure from looking at things - weirdly. And everybody describes me as very "visual" for this reason. I always point out the colour of the sky, for instance, or the colour of the leaves on the trees. I will point out the smells and sounds around us. It does not have an "emotional" affect exactly, it is a way to gain energy, for me, it is exhilarating, exciting to hear and see and smell - I find it just gives me bounds of energy to be introduced see colours etc. The only possibility I can suggest for this function developing is that I played music from a young age and my mother painted. I guess I have, from the beginning, found enjoyment in things such as sound and my mother's art - the colours she used, her showing me colours. I think it has been encouraged in me, I suppose. And it's nice, because it gives me an opposite to my overthinking, constantly in my head, overanalysing side. I find physical sensation and sensory information sort of "freeing" - so yeah. I guess I'd suggest this is because of the environment of art as a pursuit (not with meaning or intent, but simply as a method of enjoying sensory information). It was always about things sounding nice, rather than them having meaning, for me (and still is). This is the only explanation I can offer!
Such a long post! I just
love talking about myself
