# Fi types.



## mushr00m (May 23, 2011)

To Fi types - Describe or illustrate an example of the images that come to mind when in a situation that triggers it.
If it's in tone, you can use images to describe those and perhaps a brief explanation or a few words that triggered this tone/feeling like a conversation you had or an opinion you heard.


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## Eventive (Sep 27, 2014)

Oh another "Fi types are selfish" -thread, I must go talk some sense into these people. Why do I even care, it's that Fi again!


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## mushr00m (May 23, 2011)

Eventive said:


> Oh another "Fi types are selfish" thread, I must go talk some sense into these people. Why do I even care, it's that Fi again!


It's meant to take a different route, an opportunity to explore what actually goes though Fi types minds rather than be a topic involving directly debunking stereotypes. Fi is said to feel through tones and images and so am curious to learn more about this from Fi types.


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## ferroequinologist (Jul 27, 2012)

mushr00m said:


> It's meant to take a different route, an opportunity to explore what actually goes though Fi types minds rather than be a topic involving directly debunking stereotypes. Fi is said to feel through tones and images and so am curious to learn more about this from Fi types.


That's just an effort of someone who doesn't really understand how it works trying to explain it in terms they understand. I feel in feelings. Nothing more. Nothing less. Sometimes I may have "images", but I don't think in terms of color, pictures, sounds, etc. It is just feelings--sometimes even just the raw emotions. Sometimes, external things--colors or pictures, or music can influence or help recreate feelings, but I usually just experience feelings, memories, and even, events, conversations, etc. via the raw feelings--like a playback of a record, but not sound--feelings. And I'm sure it doesn't make sense to anyone else, but that's how it is for me. Also, any attempt to reduce what I'm thinking into words tends to collapse or destroy any impact of what I'm feeling. It's like trying to take a photo of the Grand Canyon. I've been there. The real thing practically brought me to tears when I first saw it. Its immensity, it's beauty, its overpowering-ness is just something that cannot be communicated with words, nor with photographs. It just is. I can feel all of that when I look at my photos, but the photos don't in any way do it justice. Neither do words. 

So, forget trying to understand it or describe it in a way you can understand. If you aren't there, you just aren't there. If you've never seen the Grand Canyon, you will never understand the Grand Canyon, regardless of how much you try by looking at photos, watching videos, and reading descriptions. There is absolutely nothing that can prepare you for the sensory overload, and the impact it will make on you--nothing.


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## Entropic (Jun 15, 2012)

I think I am mostly aware of this when it comes to music and such, so I'll post an example:






I think of sadness when I hear this song, and I think of how it's about this bittersweet feeling of departing with someone that you love. I've seen them play this song live and it's an incredibly powerful experience, to be so fully emerged into the feeling of sadness that it evokes. I swear that very few people in the audience weren't a little teary afterwards. It's one of those things that can't be explained, to have that feeling of the song wash over you and since it's a collective experience also, with real instruments, real sound, real singing, real emotion, it's incredibly powerful and evocative. It's one of those things that really touch your heart, quite literally so. I'm pretty darn sure most of Insomnium's fans are Fi types, because their music oozes so much Fi. That's why I love them. Their very best songs always manage to capture something about the human experience of emotion like loss, sadness, grief, separation, those things. Sad emotions mostly because I prefer sad over uplifting. I suppose it makes your heart weep for the words that always remain unsaid and never uttered, only remaining as a faint whisper, lingering and left behind because it never ceases to truly stop bleeding. Even with scar tissue, it acts as a memory of what was broken but cannot be mended into what it were. 

In socionics it's said that only Fe can detect emotional atmosphere but I don't think that's true. I think both Fe and Fi can detect emotional atmosphere but I think what they detect are very different things. Fe less prone to for example focus on what feelings a piece of art may invoke in them like this song, and the content of sadness that lingers, as much as it pays attention to a collective emotional tone of a more general and less specific and individual nature. Less about how it affects you and more how it affects everything else. 

Another example I can think of is the game Shadow of the Colossus that invokes this extreme sense of alienation, sadness and loss:






The images Fi ties to would be images that touch on the fundamental human experience, things we can all universally feel. It detects the archetype idea of say, sadness, loss and grief, something along those lines. So not so much actual images in the same way perception does it, but still in a sense, images. Anyway, my description may be tainted since I'm Fi tertiary with leading perception, so it may not be the same as it is in rational doms.


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## Sangmu (Feb 18, 2014)

I just know evil when I see and hear it.


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## Zeta Neprok (Jul 27, 2010)

Entropic said:


> I think I am mostly aware of this when it comes to music and such, so I'll post an example:
> 
> I think of sadness when I hear this song, and I think of how it's about this bittersweet feeling of departing with someone that you love. I've seen them play this song live and it's an incredibly powerful experience, to be so fully emerged into the feeling of sadness that it evokes. I swear that very few people in the audience weren't a little teary afterwards. It's one of those things that can't be explained, to have that feeling of the song wash over you and since it's a collective experience also, with real instruments, real sound, real singing, real emotion, it's incredibly powerful and evocative. It's one of those things that really touch your heart, quite literally so. I'm pretty darn sure most of Insomnium's fans are Fi types, because their music oozes so much Fi. That's why I love them. Their very best songs always manage to capture something about the human experience of emotion like loss, sadness, grief, separation, those things. Sad emotions mostly because I prefer sad over uplifting. I suppose it makes your heart weep for the words that always remain unsaid and never uttered, only remaining as a faint whisper, lingering and left behind because it never ceases to truly stop bleeding. Even with scar tissue, it acts as a memory of what was broken but cannot be mended into what it were.


This is a really great and well thought out explanation. Insomnium is a great band, and I listen to tons of bands that are similar because of the raw emotion in their music and lyrics (and if you're looking for more music like this, I can recommend lots of stuff :wink. 

As for introverted feeling, I only want to speak from my experience, but it's very individually focused. If I'm sitting with someone, one on one, I find it a lot easier to connect to them while I often have a hard time connecting to a group of people. I'm a big metal fan, but even when I go to concerts I sometimes feel not part of the group. For me the experience is between myself and the music that's playing. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I can very easily connect to individuals, but I find it very difficult to connect to a group as a whole (I'm hoping I'm making sense here).

But I generally agree with the theme in this thread of raw _feelings. _It's very hard to explain, but I can easily become overwhelmed with raw feelings, and music is usually a vehicle that drives them.


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## Entropic (Jun 15, 2012)

TheSonderer said:


> This is a really great and well thought out explanation. Insomnium is a great band, and I listen to tons of bands that are similar because of the raw emotion in their music and lyrics (and if you're looking for more music like this, I can recommend lots of stuff :wink.
> 
> As for introverted feeling, I only want to speak from my experience, but it's very individually focused. If I'm sitting with someone, one on one, I find it a lot easier to connect to them while I often have a hard time connecting to a group of people. I'm a big metal fan, but even when I go to concerts I sometimes feel not part of the group. For me the experience is between myself and the music that's playing. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I can very easily connect to individuals, but I find it very difficult to connect to a group as a whole (I'm hoping I'm making sense here).
> 
> But I generally agree with the theme in this thread of raw _feelings. _It's very hard to explain, but I can easily become overwhelmed with raw feelings, and music is usually a vehicle that drives them.


I'd be curious to hear your suggestions, though unfortunately I think I've emptied the genre long time ago.


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## perpetuallyreticent (Sep 24, 2014)

It happens a lot when I'm listening to music that is relevant to how I generally feel in that moment. eg; when I'm dealing with a lot of personal problems that strongly tie in with sadness, melancholy or things like that and I'm listening to a song that incorporates a lot of melancholic lyric or undertones, then my Fi really kicks into gear and I slip into this internal state of self awareness and the need to discover what it is exactly that I'm feeling and why.


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## Hespera (Jun 3, 2011)

I definitely have an impressionistic way of experiencing Introverted Feeling, a "feeling it in my bones" if you will. There's this tinge of "not quite what I'm looking for" or "yes, just right!" It's like being Goldilocks. Or like the Supreme Court Justice that famously said "I know it when I see it" when defining obscenity.

One way I'd describe it is like resonance. I can feel the energy or vibration of something and sometimes that something (like a song or a movie or a person or a moment) hums at the same frequency as mine and it's sublime. 

And sometimes it's very hard for me to understand what doesn't match my own experience.


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## mikan (May 25, 2014)

Eventive said:


> Oh another "Fi types are selfish" -thread, I must go talk some sense into these people. Why do I even care, it's that Fi again!


Who the fuck said that.


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## mikan (May 25, 2014)

I guess you could say it's a moment of great self awareness- I'm different. It's like you have your own principles that make sense to you. It's not 'selfish' in any way as much as it is self-absorption. You feel special, simply thinking that no one is like you lends you with energy. You are very aware of how different people are, making you a very open-minded person. It feels great sometimes thinking that you are the center of the universe, but it hurts when you start to sonder. lol.

It's like... hmm. You basically judge on things based off how much it affected you. Difficult to explain it since it's all solely based on hunches. It's like you're having a tangled yarn of feelings, it's all mixed, you don't know what you want exactly, but you feel there is something wrong.
Here's an example: A famine does not affect me as much as seeing a homeless person on the street. I get moved far more seeing a homeless person, than a whole famine in africa. It's only about what is affecting me now. In my city, it's more possible for me to experience homelessness more than being in a famine. This is why when I look at a homeless person, I think of what if one day I became homeless too. I get moved by that. It's all about 'What if it was me instead' sort of thing that moves me to help others.

But that's just an example. I only get affected if I knew what something felt like. I know you've heard this quite often before, Fi's love to relate to other people. Suppose I am experiencing a great deal of depression, suddenly found out that one of my friends is also dealing with depression for the same matter. Suddenly I feel a great connection between us- I would love to relate and talk to them more about it. It's energizing.

I think, an ESFP or ENFP would explain it better because I am an introvert. It is difficult to explain a dominant function that is introverted.


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## Grandmaster Yoda (Jan 18, 2014)

This is all extremely difficult to relate to.


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## ferroequinologist (Jul 27, 2012)

Grandmaster Yoda said:


> This is all extremely difficult to relate to.


Maybe this song will help. I don't really know Linkin Park, and can't say I'm into their music, but someone posted this today on the ISFP forum, and this song really, really resonates to me. It is _very_ Fi.


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## perpetuallyreticent (Sep 24, 2014)

My problem with people who don't understand Fi is that if they don't think it's primarily just a selfish function, they consider it self centered. And not that the Fi-user themselves are self centered, but that the function in itself, as a function, is self centered. Which... let's say it is, but what about Ti? And pretty much every other function?

Ti is also an Introverted function, and when placed as a dom-function (Intp, Istp) it's also fairly self centered. Ti users are pretty much only interested in dissecting and analyzing things they are interested in. If it doesn't spark their interest, goodbye. That's fairly self centered, imo. But the problem with this notion is, is that people derive a negative definition from the word. It's not negative, it just is. 

Back to Fi- yes, it is primarily focused around one's self. It is focused on our own inner workings, but that's just how it works and selfish or not, no one will ever truly understand the mechanics of Fi unless they're either very developed tertiary users, or Dom/aux users of the function.

Dom-Fi users have a head start, imo, as me being one myself, I know Fi all too well. Like others have stated, it can be very difficult to explain what exactly it is and what it does, but some of us have explained fairly well.. and I'm proud. *proud* 

Basically, it's this overwhelming sense of self discovery, as some have put it. And whether this self discovery centers around just the user, or others is really dependant on their specific situations at the time or what is of primary importance to the user at the time.

One thing non-Fi users don't get is that Fi doesn't just analyze the self, it analyzes things around us as well. Fi for me helps me understand how others are feeling, because I often redirect things back to myself to gather a better understanding. Non-Fis have often described this as an annoying and selfish trait, but whatever. I see it as the very opposite, and I think it often gets confused as Fe, but it's really totally different. Fe is external and people of dom/aux Fe typically use their F function externally to help others and understand others, where as with my Fi, I can understand people better, but it's usually internalized and only used to help me better understand the people around me. 

Pretty much for me, Fi is overwhelmingly deep and complicated and I haven't even scratched the surface with what it really is, at it's core, for me.


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## ferroequinologist (Jul 27, 2012)

perpetuallyreticent said:


> One thing non-Fi users don't get is that Fi doesn't just analyze the self, it analyzes things around us as well. Fi for me helps me understand how others are feeling, because I often redirect things back to myself to gather a better understanding. Non-Fis have often described this as an annoying and selfish trait, but whatever. I see it as the very opposite, and I think it often gets confused as Fe, but it's really totally different. Fe is external and people of dom/aux Fe typically use their F function externally to help others and understand others, where as with my Fi, I can understand people better, but it's usually internalized and only used to help me better understand the people around me.


I think I know why people are uncomfortable with Fi. Fi is the mirror held up to the world. It doesn't express directly, but reflects back on people, and shows them who they are in their heart of hearts, and I hate to say it, but lots of people don't like what they see there when they see this image of themselves in the mirror. It matters not, really, what I feel or think. People see themselves, whether I would want them to or not. It makes them uncomfortable. I think that's why people don't like Fi. It's a new theory of mine, and I'm sticking with it. ;-)


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## perpetuallyreticent (Sep 24, 2014)

ferroequinologist said:


> I think I know why people are uncomfortable with Fi. Fi is the mirror held up to the world. It doesn't express directly, but reflects back on people, and shows them who they are in their heart of hearts, and I hate to say it, but lots of people don't like what they see there when they see this image of themselves in the mirror. It matters not, really, what I feel or think. People see themselves, whether I would want them to or not. It makes them uncomfortable. I think that's why people don't like Fi. It's a new theory of mine, and I'm sticking with it. ;-)


I like this theory a lot. Not sure I completely accept it right now, and I wouldn't attest to you elucidating on your theory.....but that's up to you. :wink:


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## ferroequinologist (Jul 27, 2012)

perpetuallyreticent said:


> I like this theory a lot. Not sure I completely accept it right now, and I wouldn't attest to you elucidating on your theory.....but that's up to you. :wink:


Well, think about it. First of all, there are the Fi artists--they tend to dig right to the heart of the matter. Lots of musicians are Fi-doms, and it shows especially in modern music. I posted the link to that Linkin Park song. These things tend to cut like a hot knife through butter in people's hearts. But Fi in all the arts tends to cause reflection, and seldom allows the observer/listener/audience to be passive, and tends to cause strong reactions--either positive or negative, but seldom indifference. What is happening in such circumstances, is that people are actually seeing, is not the original intent of the artist, but what they themselves feel. And their reactions reflect that. That's in art.

Now, in real life, my INFJ daughter is home for a few weeks, and she, unlike her mother or sister, tends to be blunt and speak her mind. She frequently "informs" me what my motives are for saying something, or tries to interpret my thoughts through the lens of what I say or do, or don't say or do, but she's always judging based on her own self--or what she thinks might be my motives--and I don't know where she comes up with these things, but they are almost always wrong. Worse, I cannot convince her of that. No complaints here, and there is no conflict or anything between us. She's just trying to apply her typology ideas, and she's constantly getting them wrong. But sometimes--no, frequently--I see in her evaluations her own feelings--what she would mean if she were doing the same thing. It's been an interesting study, for me, into what Fe thinks, and would act in the same situation. She's slowly coming to terms with not getting me, but it's been a weird few weeks for us. ;-) In any case, what I've been seeing is my actions or words tend to be interpreted, not according to how I think or feel, but according to how others would think and feel, were they to do the same thing. I've seen this before, but never really understood it. But the truth is, in my case, at least, people tend to apply their own selves to my actions. By doing so, they are revealing a side of themselves--a side they might not really want to know about. I believe it's called projection--and everybody does it, but Fi is the most intensely personal of all the functions, and cuts to the very heart of our motivations, our deepest fears, longings, abhorrences, etc. I think this is also why people don't like to hear me talk down on myself. I'm perfectly fine with my dark side--with my fears, my inadequacies, etc. I face them and live with them. I don't deny them or run from them. I face them. Sometimes they can overwhelm me, but mostly, I just live with them--but they are in the open, to be honest. And so many people want me to hide them--they want to "help" me get over them, etc. What the real problem is, however, that they are frightened of them--not for my sake, but for their own. It is these things that Fi reveals--like a mirror, both through the arts and through the Fi-dom individual. That's why I decided to call it a mirror. 

Ah... but I'm rambling... I need to get back to work.


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## Dodger (Mar 4, 2013)

ferroequinologist said:


> I think I know why people are uncomfortable with Fi. Fi is the mirror held up to the world. It doesn't express directly, but reflects back on people, and shows them who they are in their heart of hearts, and I hate to say it, but lots of people don't like what they see there when they see this image of themselves in the mirror. It matters not, really, what I feel or think. People see themselves, whether I would want them to or not. It makes them uncomfortable. I think that's why people don't like Fi. It's a new theory of mine, and I'm sticking with it. ;-)


Yes, I can definitely see something here. I loathe double-standards and hold up this mirror easily and readily, and admittedly, often when in a conflict situation. Knowing exactly where to hit is not something that others like - because it works so effectively.


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## Zamyatin (Jun 10, 2014)

Entropic said:


> I think I am mostly aware of this when it comes to music and such, so I'll post an example:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Virtually all of this resonates with me, though I suspect this experience is closely connected to the Ni-Fi pairing because the sense of loss and feeling evoked by that music seems to draw off something innate and primal, which to me suggests the connection introverted intuition has to the collective unconscious, the archetypes that function trades in. When I'm listening to a particularly profound piece of music or something equally emotionally charged, it's like I'm connecting to _the_ emotion in its purest form for a moment. _The_ sadness of existence, or _the_ anger, briefly connecting to the platonic ideal of those feelings deep within myself.


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