bookworm's journal

[7Wannabe5]

On a walk yesterday, I thought of my Fe as a little girl...it helps me conceptualize in a different way if I throw in the gender aspect. I was also a bit gender non-conforming despite male central tendency ("too sensitive"...etc.) and have complicated sexual preferences.

This is more how I visualize Fi. My nearest sister and my first husband had primary Fi, so I am quite familiar with the "sensitivity." This sensitivity can be both moral and aesthetic. Fe is more slobbery with emotion, less refined. I associate Fe more with the adult or maternal feminine, because humans with primary or secondary Fe are often found in caretaking professions or positions. Fi will retreat when hurt by other humans. Fe will become exhausted by trying to over-extend circle of care. Fi sits with her kitten in the window seat and watches the rain, and then composes a sad piece on her piano. Fe hostesses the fundraiser for the cat rescue and doesn't say "No" when her ex hits her up for sex...again.

OTOH, it could be the case that I visualize Fi as more juvenile because further down my own functional stack and vice-versa for you, but I am pretty solid that Fe as a little girl likes baby dolls, because not a baby herself, but Fi prefers fashion dolls and cries for an hour every time she gets her hair cut and thinks she looks ugly when she sees herself in the mirror, so then Daddy has to go to the deli and buy all the special sandwich ingredients she prefers, because also kind of a picky eater. Of course, Daddy also has to come rescue eNTP every time she climbs up in a tree with a book and a snack, but then can't get back down again, but that is more of a primary Ne issue. Good thing Daddy was a 6w5!

[bookworm]

@berrytwo Thank you. I ordered the book from library so I'll see what I think...Type 5 seems like a good base for more self-crit. Also introspective negativity can be good medicine in the right place for me...I guess I had a lot of external negativity early on so I needed to keep internal pride strong (which in turn created other problems), but I've come around a little on internal critique now that some fears have been dealt with. Glad you're enjoying the series.

@7 I appreciate the prompt and the coloring you put in your descriptions. They are helpful for me to conceptualize my own thoughts in this area, once I ponder them for a bit.

I suspect you are right about Fi versus Fe (it may be that the the valence of Fi has shifted from masculine/feminine with time? In that case, I would feel more rooted in my adult masculine energy as well.).

My sense of masculine/feminine seems less developed/detailed than yours. It was something I only started think about relatively recently in my late 20s.

Edit: after writing one of a couple of versions of what follows I shamelessly borrowed your 4-quadrant system which I encountered again recently which subconsciously made it into my thinking crudely as "man", "woman", "girl", "boy"...): viewtopic.php?p=254963&sid=4f49d53b1287 ... 7e#p254963

general note: my self has generally been secure in my masculine valence (although there was dissatisfaction and some crisis points during transitions). Perception, integration, and recession of feminine aspects has been done in the background of masculine function. I'm sure this varies from person to person.

I workshoped level of personal detail a while until it felt authentic with sufficient signal (awareness of gender primary/secondary with time) and level of appropriate sharing...this was a good challenge to me and took longer than expected. could probably revise it a couple more time but seems good enough for now...

dyad1: There was a "boy" (juvenile masculine) in charge, but a "girl" (juvenile feminine) was in the field doing defense. The "girl" (juvenile feminine) was reinforced in consciousness because I was considered too sensitive/perceived inferior to other boys/etc. Ni/Fi loop going strong...( * )

monad: Anyways...a "man" (adult masculine) came on the scene ~15 years to basically run the show through my undergrad (homeschool to large public university campus) and into my first job as a "successful" software engineer. During this period I had experiences/relationships that were perceived to be lacking from previous stage of life (making up for "lost time"). There were also some issues with addictive sensory tendencies combined with environmental conditions, but these moderated due to professionalization and conscious skill development. The Predicament/ERE came to fore at this period (to the extent that I understood parts of both) however the practical response (see selective understanding) became synonymous with leanFIRE/ life-energy-spend at ~20-25k in order to escape 9-5. Fortunately, I kept learning and trying to understand the world (expanding boundaries of what I saw as rationality) and worked on my artistic expression with music with which I was reasonably successful (outside of serious $) in big city playing in different bands/etc.

dyad2: After inner work and sufficient experience in previous stage, I had a subtle-realm(?) experience where a Gaia-like entity showed up, temporarily overpowered my masculine valence, and gave some blunt feedback about some additional blindspots with the feminine (pointing me towards actions to mend/improve relationships with women in my life). This combined with some adverse circumstances, brought out a "woman" (adult feminine) to conscious awareness. Pouring more life energy into relationships and gardening, for example, became more salient.

triad: In addition to "man"/"woman", I felt in touch with a "boy" as well through more sensory activities (hiking/"fun" intellectual pursuit outside $ payoff frameworks, among other things). The "boy" has good-enough parents who help him stay out of trouble in adult world.

pentad: in last year or more, there's more awareness (to this mind) of the "girl". She is shy and only comes out in times of high stress or...openness. So the work is to keep her safe.

mbti note: I see my cognition functions to be following quite different paths than this gender expression. for example, during much of monad at least the primary stack was pretty clearly in place in mind with varying levels of maturity.

developmental note: "man" or "woman" doesn't denote maturity level. Plotkin would help with transition from adolescence, adulthood, into elderhood...I am only concerned with the expression of gender.

[7Wannabe5]

My sense of masculine/feminine seems less developed/detailed than yours. It was something I only started think about relatively recently in my late 20s.

Well, you are well ahead of the curve than me, because I didn't really start thinking about this sort of thing until I found myself in marital crisis in my late 30s. Although, I would note that the younger generations do have a bit more scaffolding made more readily available. OTOH, this was in part due to my book-snob refusal to read anything resembling self-help or pop psychology until my self hit near rock bottom.

dyad1: There was a "boy" (juvenile masculine) in charge, but a "girl" (juvenile feminine) was in the field doing defense. The "girl" (juvenile feminine) was reinforced in consciousness because I was considered too sensitive/perceived inferior to other boys/etc. Ni/Fi loop going strong...( * )

My original monad Ne functioning has been described by my mother as she who "would not stay down for a nap, because afraid she might miss out on something." Even though I core identify as feminine (or, at least, heterosexual female), I consider Ne to be aligned with my "juvenile masculine energy", but this may be due to "exploration/curiosity" being culturally viewed as positive for males and negative for females, as in Pandora and the box or Eve and the apple. My first dyad NeFe is the Fun Mom/Big-Sister. However, I did feel different from other girls due to often being more interested in "boy stuff" like collecting snakes and frogs and playing marbles, and less interested in "girl stuff" like comparing tiny purses and hop-scotch. I've also always had as many male friends as female friends. Recent research seems to indicate that at the genetic level gender/sex is more of a spectrum, with the somewhat unexpected evolutionary motivation being that people find those of the opposite sex who are a bit less than thoroughly at the end of either spectrum more sexually attractive.

Anyways...a "man" (adult masculine) came on the scene ~15 years to basically run the show through my undergrad (homeschool to large public university campus) and into my first job as a "successful" software engineer.

I became "self-authoring" around age 13/14, pretty much simultaneous with becoming an Atheist, but I wouldn't describe my secondary Ti which I associate with the adult masculine (The Snowy Owl) as "running the show." More like "watching the show from distant cold perch in high tree." I also dropped out of high school at this age, so conventional success has only intermittently entered into my Adventure-Cottage-Library vision-quest, usually as more towards a back-up or parachute plan, kind of like when a homesteader might have to work on the railroad to make some cash before going back to central purpose on farm, whereas for a male INTJ it seems to be more like an intermediary level to be achieved in a video game.

This combined with some adverse circumstances, brought out a "woman" (adult feminine) to conscious awareness. Pouring more life energy into relationships and gardening, for example, became more salient.

This seems very Fe to me, very much the Cottage in my Adventure-Cottage-Library. I was only forced to consciously inhabit my juvenile feminine Fi when she was injured during the course of Ordinary Marital Sadism within my Naive Level Green first marriage. My ex was a 4w3 AKA The Critic, and it takes a lot of criticism to finally get through my rubber ball like soul, but eventually he succeeded in making me feel "unpretty" and also care about feeling "unpretty" and my arguments along the lines of "It was my observation that I was only in the 40th percentile of chubbiness amongst those waiting in line at the donut shoppe this morning." no longer worked for me. So, I entered into a period where all my Fe care I had previously provided for others was consciously focused on self-care for my own internal juvenile feminine Fi. This actually proved to be a fairly easy task once I became self-aware, because it was like my internal juvenile feminine was quite small, but essentially solid. Kind of analogous to a guy who has natural talent for sports, but doesn't really value or enjoy sports. IOW, I core believe that I can "make myself pretty, inclusive of pretty behavior' if I want to, but it's so fucking boring, I usually don't bother unless I am for some reason compelled to want to romantically engage a human in their masculine energy. Look at my cute little hands fixing my cute little face. Look at my cute little purse that matches my cute little shoes. (and now, please, excuse me while I barf a cute little bit in my cute little mouth.)

developmental note: "man" or "woman" doesn't denote maturity level. Plotkin would help with transition from adolescence, adulthood, into elderhood...I am only concerned with the expression of gender.

Yes, and it's also fairly obvious that if you engage the Parent/Child/Adult model of TA, that a Parent perspective, as I somewhat hold in my tertiary Fe, may be less developed or less towards Adult than another function which seems more child-like.

[bookworm]

I would note that the younger generations do have a bit more scaffolding made more readily available.

Two examples come to mind:
1) reading ERE for the first time and clicking on jlf-quick-update-1.0.exe
2) having male friends/roommates who went to therapy for their issues and were open about their feelings

I became "self-authoring" around age 13/14, pretty much simultaneous with becoming an Atheist,

If interesting/helpful to answer, what images and/or feelings were associated with this transition?

[7Wannabe5]

If interesting/helpful to answer, what images and/or feelings were associated with this transition?

Well, in retrospect, I was quite depressed at age 14/15. More so than I have ever been since. Kind of like I was suddenly viewing society as being like a movie where all the sets and scenery are obviously fake. I dropped out of school with intention to educate myself in the library, hitchhiked, shoplifted, smoked a bit of weed (substances were never my thing), had sex with a guy in his 20s, etc. However, it wasn't a get a tattoo and a mohawk kind of rebellion. More like I was looking for an exit from the expected-lifestyle-escalator. I think this was partly due to my ability to intuit that very few of the "successful" adults around me were very happy with their lives.

One of my Fe patterns (the consistent ability to pass as a conventional adult "good woman") that has repeated applied to the way in which I dropped out of church attendance at age 13. Instead of attending the service, I volunteered at the baby nursery, and then I was cast to play the wife of our Episcopal minister in a Passover play, because I had the appearance of an adult at that age. My mother was in love with him, so that was kind of weird. Anyways, my parents were intellectual in their religiosity, so agreed that I could stop attending church after I went through the rite of confirmation which made me an adult in the church. I never attended a church service after confirmation except for the odd wedding or funeral, and never received any flak for my choice beyond my mother occasionally trying to sell me on accepting it all as metaphor. I dabbled in Islam during my second "marriage" in my 40s, but it didn't stick.

Anyways, I never felt the Level Orange need to "get a full-time job" as passage to adulthood at age 22, because I had already proven that I was competent in all adult female role tasks at Level Blue by the time I was 15. IOW, it's not that my value-meme was Level Blue, but that I recognized that it was a cheat-code for skipping over boring Level Orange, and jumping directly forward to Level Green Hippie Mom in my early 20s. IOW, "caring for others" is generally a more socially acceptable excuse for not having a full-time job than even "writing a novel" or "living off my investments" or "saving the planet." The trick is training the others you are caring for to not bother you too much when you are reading a book or working in the garden.