Fi+Ne: Lost in empathy?
How do you personally experience empathy? Can you give an example of the process you use?
How do you personally experience empathy? Can you give an example of the process you use?
Fi+Ne: Lost in Empathy
vintage stardust
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Empathy... it's something very strange for me. 
When I see something on tv, like a train exploded and killed hundreds of people, I don't have empathy because I'm more focused on finding the media's tricks to grab attention from the viewers. They try to keep the thing alive for the longest possible time. And it really, but really frustrates me.
I only feel empathy when I see something happen with my eyes. Like yesterday when I saw a dead animal on the side of the road.
When I see something on tv, like a train exploded and killed hundreds of people, I don't have empathy because I'm more focused on finding the media's tricks to grab attention from the viewers. They try to keep the thing alive for the longest possible time. And it really, but really frustrates me.
I only feel empathy when I see something happen with my eyes. Like yesterday when I saw a dead animal on the side of the road.
I am not sure if I can eloquently put my thought process into the words, because I'm not sure I understand it completely myself, but I'll try. I think the reason I can empathize with others so easily is because of my imagination. It is not hard for me to imagine myself living someone else's life, and try to see things from their perspective. My internal dialogue also never stops, and it's almost as if I'm having (seemingly) 100 thoughts simultaneously, so even when it's time for me to move on and stop thinking about something, I probably AM still thinking about how sad/ tragic/ disappointing/ etc. someone's situation is.
Does that make any sense?! Probably not.
Does that make any sense?! Probably not.
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I've learnt not to be squeamish about such phenomena. These occurrences are fantastic opportunities to be again confronted with mortality, and may be charged with the kind of negative creative energy necessary for good writing.Empathy... it's something very strange for me.
When I see something on tv, like a train exploded and killed hundreds of people, I don't have empathy because I'm more focused on finding the media's tricks to grab attention from the viewers. They try to keep the thing alive for the longest possible time. And it really, but really frustrates me.
I only feel empathy when I see something happen with my eyes. Like yesterday when I saw a dead animal on the side of the road.
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I've seen one of you demonstrate this. I saw you feeling a disappointment of someone else--it's not as if you chose to do this thing, you simply became that other person for a thin slice of their life salami/time space worm. I love this! Show me how--I am not sure if I can eloquently put my thought process into the words, because I'm not sure I understand it completely myself, but I'll try. I think the reason I can empathize with others so easily is because of my imagination. It is not hard for me to imagine myself living someone else's life, and try to see things from their perspective. My internal dialogue also never stops, and it's almost as if I'm having (seemingly) 100 thoughts simultaneously, so even when it's time for me to move on and stop thinking about something, I probably AM still thinking about how sad/ tragic/ disappointing/ etc. someone's situation is.
Does that make any sense?! Probably not.
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I feel like empathy comes as naturally as breathing for me... When a friend (or even a stranger) tells me about their problems, I put myself in their shoes without even being conscious of it. Maybe this is part of the reason why so many INFPs suffer from emotional exhaustion...We feel the internal emotional states of everyone around us. Everyone is an open book. With the exception of IxTJs, because seriously, I've stopped trying to understand them...
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Exactly thatI am not sure if I can eloquently put my thought process into the words, because I'm not sure I understand it completely myself, but I'll try. I think the reason I can empathize with others so easily is because of my imagination. It is not hard for me to imagine myself living someone else's life, and try to see things from their perspective. My internal dialogue also never stops, and it's almost as if I'm having (seemingly) 100 thoughts simultaneously, so even when it's time for me to move on and stop thinking about something, I probably AM still thinking about how sad/ tragic/ disappointing/ etc. someone's situation is.
Does that make any sense?! Probably not.
I was on a walk today, it had been 3-4 hours since it had rained the sun was hot and sticky, a lone worm struggled on the hot pavement searching for relief. I made it 2 steps past him/her and had to turn around scoop um up and place them in a wet safe environment. I can't explain it, nobody saw it or will ever know about it, but I had to do it, had I not helped it would of weighed on me for weeks. I have been given the gift of awareness, to much is given, much is expected, we are wired this way for a reason.
Fi+Ne loop is wonderful, diplomatic, and productive. I experience empathy, genuine empathy, with detached objectivity. I almost leave the room and become the other person for little awhile. Then shit gets done.
Fi+Si is self-absorbed. I'm assessing someones emotions solely on how they effect "me" - ego me.
Fi+Si is self-absorbed. I'm assessing someones emotions solely on how they effect "me" - ego me.
I did this recently. I can't imagine walking past worms on hard times!
I also made a shady hospice under a hosta plant for this convulsing and dying cricket I found.
I'm laughing-out-loud right now, because I passed a turtle on the road today. I was going too fast to stop, and someone was behind me. However, I couldn't stop thinking about that turtle, so I drove a mile back, and put the turtle on the side of the road he was heading. I also accidentally ran over a squirrel when I was 16. I still think about that squirrel's family occasionally, and if they're doing okay. I'm 23 now. :tongue:
Oh, being an INFP!
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I experience it through a vivid imagination also, one which seems able to simulate the other person within, so that I can experience what something is like for them, AS them, not as myself. This makes me feel things I have never felt in a way I would never feel, which is strange, to say the least.I am not sure if I can eloquently put my thought process into the words, because I'm not sure I understand it completely myself, but I'll try. I think the reason I can empathize with others so easily is because of my imagination. It is not hard for me to imagine myself living someone else's life, and try to see things from their perspective. My internal dialogue also never stops, and it's almost as if I'm having (seemingly) 100 thoughts simultaneously, so even when it's time for me to move on and stop thinking about something, I probably AM still thinking about how sad/ tragic/ disappointing/ etc. someone's situation is.
Does that make any sense?! Probably not.
The transformative aspect here is exhausting, and it can feel like an intrusion on your own state, so that sometimes I put a barrier up with people. I have to block them out and keep them at an arm's length, because they overwhelm me with their emotions, not knowing they are planting seeds inside of me to grow into contemplations about "the meaning of life" and all that gloriously pretentious junk.
As Jung notes, "ordinary feeling" can quickly express itself with sympathy and then return to "normal" (referring to the emotional affect on someone), but introverted feeling, requiring more than an ordinary expression to accurately convey itself, gets "benumbed" or turned inward (not expressed) and comprises a "whole world of misery". Basically, you stay with it a long time, contemplating it and exploring it in the imagination, and you may have a frustration of no way to express what you've really leaned from it, which is much more than mere sympathy for someone.
I feel like I carry other people around inside me all the time because of this. All of it builds up and can really weigh on you, as if you cannot separate their experience from your own reality. It's probably because most empathy is aroused by pain and suffering, and so it begins to feel like existence is so full of it that it's all bleakness, and this is some predictor of your own life. This is why sad endings and tragedy in fiction feel more "real" and happy endings like silly fantasies.
As a side, I find ExTJs far more confusing (the real robots of MBTI, IMO), but IxTJs have Fi much closer to the surface & readily accessible to me.
I find Fi-Si so focused on the subjective impression of experience that it becomes inseparable from the experience, and so it loses any universal meaning that you could possibly glean from it. That's when you really feel alienated from people and are unable to connect their human nature to your own, imagining yourself a freak of sorts, or an outcast at least.
But it's sometimes that can be turned to for brief times when the Ne processing is overwhelming, due to being an introvert. It's then I put on headphones to go grocery shopping because I cannot even process small talk anymore - it's all some warped hyper-reality that requires too much energy. As long as you don't let that replace the whole of reality, then maybe it's not that bad.
Do anyone feel like the empathy you feel with people get stronger the more you know them?
It does for me and it is really a problem, as people's emotions or possible emotions I think they might have really interfer with my wellbeing. Not just if someone is feeling like utter crap, but also stress and anxiety and withhold anger or annoyence. It is also a problem because I want to be able to support those around me who need it, but quite often my insticts rather tell me to stay far away, because being in their presence will hurt me so. How to learn to feel appropriate amounts of empathy? to feel more compassion than pain?
It does for me and it is really a problem, as people's emotions or possible emotions I think they might have really interfer with my wellbeing. Not just if someone is feeling like utter crap, but also stress and anxiety and withhold anger or annoyence. It is also a problem because I want to be able to support those around me who need it, but quite often my insticts rather tell me to stay far away, because being in their presence will hurt me so. How to learn to feel appropriate amounts of empathy? to feel more compassion than pain?
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