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Tell me more about being ISFP!

1504 Views 6 Replies 6 Participants Last post by  Sparkling
Hello there, Sensor-cousins,

I've been curious for a while now about you guys. Truth be told, as I've grown older I've come to envy you somewhat. I've always be more or less comfortable with my INFP status, but I've always said if there were one letter I'd change, it'd be that N to an S.

When I was younger, being an Intuitive appealed to me far more. Abstract ideas, outside-the-box thinking, philosophising, conceptualising, trying to tie everything together and observe some underlying "truth" to everything. Challenging the "mainstream" and "conformist". Believing I was thinking unique and reality-shattering philosophical ideas. I was one of those kid who thought "The Matrix" was the greatest movie ever.

But now... I've grown tired of that stuff. I've grown tired of people talking metaphysics and theory and all these profound-sounding but unfalsifiable ideas there is no discernible way of demonstrating to be right. Tired of endless debates over abstractions and listening to conjecture over the nature of reality. I don't want to muse over life all the time. I want to live it. I want to experience it. I want to participate and know what it is to be alive via my senses, not hover over life with a microscope; detached, aloof, and impersonal.

Our types seem so alike, and yet that N/S dichotomy clearly coms into play somewhere. N and S have always been the hardest functions to describe for me due to their "perceptive" nature. So ISFPs, I'd like to get your spin on things. What do you think are the main differences between INFPs and ISFPs? How do you experience Se? How do you experience life? How do you feel about abstraction and theory and all that stuff? Do you find people banging on about intangible concepts and their disregard for/subjectifying of physical reality tiresome? Do you think such things are largely N/S-related?

Thanks!
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I feel quite primitive around intuitives, because it is like they are able to create second world in their minds. So many great ideas. I hear them with admiration. I live here and now. I have INFP sister (btw she is wonderful!) and though we are both Fi -dom, S-N difference is visible. I'm not good with words or ideas. As a sensor I tune with what is around me. I do not know how to explain it but I have impression that my intuitive sister is not experiencing it as much as me. Her natural place of consciousness is mind, mine body. So when I'm experiencing things it flows first through my body, then goes to my mind.
Attempt of explanaiton how I think: I rarely think with words. I usually experience something and then I get knowledge without formulating it with words. Problem is when I have to articulate it. Then I'm searching words, and this is not natural for me. You can call it intstincts or whatever. I suck at debates. Sensor can show intelligence by bulding something, solving real existing task or giving concrete advice. Things are happening under sensor surface, but these things do not belong to world of words. I prefer to take action and use this "knowledge " in practice than formulate them with words.
I do not know whether other sensors identify with this or it is just me.
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