What is more significant to you:
1) Recognizing/Living in the nuances of life
2) Seeing the true nature of things
Go with your first instinct. Don't over-analyze. Obviously everyone has to do both, but where does your passion lie?
1) Recognizing/Living in the nuances of life
http://personalitycafe.com/cognitiv...obing-functions-archetypal-analysis-type.htmlSi is motivated by Ne in such a way as to always be on the lookout for changes and possibilities that would threaten or alter the unchanging environment that Si prefers. Si is best understood, when it is dominant, as symbolic of the way certain people spend a lifetime developing very specific interests and preferences. Like, their eggs have to be cooked just so, and they only try new things insofar as they are trying to discover their preferences and "nail it down" so they can then repeat the same thing over and over. Once they know what they like, they know what they like, if you follow.
So, the dominant Si need for stability and consistency in physical experience is compensating for a deeper desire to recognize every possibility and every potential for change. They are so focused on just whatever their preferences are precisely because in doing so they establish the nuances of every difference that could manifest in their experience.
It is like saying, I am going to focus on this one specific thing with all my attention, and in doing so I am establishing just how many possible changes there could be to this specific thing. If my experience was broad and unspecific, caught up in numerous things instead of particular things, I wouldn't be able to distinguish the finer details of particular things enough to recognize their potential variations, you see?
This is why Si-doms can be excellent critics or develop very reliable tastes and impressions when it comes to the things they obsess over. They spend a lifetime so focused on the things that interest them that they are keenly aware of the finer nuances of those things and can recognize tiny differences that others can't. Their senses and minds become like a microscope that can see fine details in the extreme. They usually have very informed and excellent opinions when it comes to their realm of experience, especially the things they experience on a regular basis - which can be anything, including psychology and other scientific enterprises.
2) Seeing the true nature of things
I know you are debating between ISFJ and INFJ, but this will still apply:
http://personalitycafe.com/cognitiv...obing-functions-archetypal-analysis-type.htmlFor instance, with an INTJ, Ni is the hero, and Se is the soul of the hero. So the hero seeks his soul, which defines his essence. The INTJ relies on their ability to abstract outward and perceive the transcendent in order to catch a glimpse of the "real world" of Se "as it truly is." They so strongly long for concrete sensation that they automatically reject and doubt the "surface" and "ordinary" sensations in life in order to grasp the true essence of things, because this grants them a much stronger tangible experience of the actual external world, do you see? Their dominant introverted intuition is compensating for a deeper desire to connect with tangible external reality. It is out of fear that they try so hard and love their dominant function - so hard that they become dominant introverted intuitives.
Go with your first instinct. Don't over-analyze. Obviously everyone has to do both, but where does your passion lie?
