Internal Conflict

[unknown]

Alex made an interesting vlog and posted it on discord.

I would like to hear your thoughts on this topic.

• This topic was modified 4 years, 5 months ago by unknown.
• This topic was modified 4 years, 4 months ago by unknown.
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• This topic was modified 4 years, 4 months ago by unknown.

[Juan E. Sandoval]

I love the idea of further discussion!

I watched Alex's video too, and found it quite insightful.

@alexandertheless would you be okay with sharing your video here? 🙂

[Alexander the Less]

I don't mind at all!

Here's the link to that video: https://youtu.be/afhHI9YcJ0c

As I said on discord, I only beg for forgiveness concerning the quality.

 

 

[Roger Hannagan]

I saw this on the Discord feed channel and I keep forgetting about the purpose of the forum. I watched the video on the Delta & Beta Psychology and coincidentally wrote a L E N G T H Y response because I was also inspired by Auburn's point on the conflict within the Delta types. I'm going to paste it here because I think it fits the scope of this thread and I think is also in relation to what Alexander talked about in his video!

I have additional comments I want to make in addition but I'll share the YouTube comment first:

Interesting to hear about the conflict of the deltas as this struggle between "what is" and "what could be". When I think about my worldview I think of it as a series of "rules"/"laws"/"expectations" that I can traverse in order to exact my will onto the world. Systems, regulations, pathways, etc that sort of jump-out at me and from these coordinates, I can draw my path. This carries a certain expectation with it. Meaning, I know how to operate with the bounds of the coordinates and know what outputs are necessary in order to traverse to the next point. Because these points are so concise and clear, it carries with it an expectation on the performance within that bound. Even with my learning of CT and Vultology, I recognize there's a certain level of quality that I must operate within and if I fail to meet that standard by even a little, then I have failed. There's no exceptions, the result of my work either achieves the quality within the bounds or it doesn't. I understand that this is likely a personal thing as opposed to a universal personality thing, but I wanted to touch on the oscillation between the Ne+Si axis and my dominant Te+Fi axis.

These systems and the coordinates between them creates this map that I can sort of plan my trajectory between. The way I'm thinking about it now is sort of like a constellation map of the night sky. Something that this video got me thinking about was how I sort of use this map I've conjured to sort of "game the system". I understand how the various systems of society work which grants me two particularly useful advantages:
1. I can achieve my goals and build my career quite easily. If I can't, I know where the weakpoints in my skills and knowledge lie, and from there I can patch up what I'm missing in order to produce results within that given coordinate. Allowing me to add it to my path and trajectory.
2. It allows me to find who I am as a person and how I want to make an impact on the world through these various systems contained within the coordinates.

In my inner world, I have a rather vibrant mental landscape. Dreams, aspirations, hopes, goals, ambitions, etc. When I start ruminating and exploring these desires (which admittedly are sometimes idyllic) I then cast them outwards and sort of "test" them on various trajectories in the coordinate system I've mapped out about the world. Some of these dreams involve taking my inner essence and mapping them to the coordinates that reflect some aspect of myself within it. There exists a certain desire to take what exists in the various systems and "elevate" it to levels that may or may not be possible. Sometimes, this leads to a clash from within. A clash of what I want to see the world to be vs what the world really is. A good example of this is the Justice System in the US. I want to see the Justice System put all of its emphasis on reform, not punishment. I want to see people who've made mistakes (sometimes terrible ones) converted to functioning members of society. See more love, rather than punishment and shame. But the systems that currently exist don't allow for this happen easily.

Politics, cultural biases, prisons often being privately owned and operated for profit, an outdated legal structure, and of course, the general human tendency to be harsh and unforgiving. These are some of the systems that I've mapped out in relation to the Justice System as its own system entirely (some larger systems have their own coordinates from within, so there's a bit of "system nesting" involved). When a goal is particularly strong, I can chase after it. Never yielding. Making changes necessary onto each of the systems within the larger systems until finally, the system and all of it's sub-systems are reformed, producing the result I wanted to produce. Of course, changing the Justice System is a monumental task and not one I can do on my own. But in my head, I can do it. Or so it seems and I play it out from within and observe the results that need to occur within each of the sub-system's bounds.

However, this results in an eternal struggle of what I WANT to do vs what I can ACTUALLY do. Sometimes I erroneously put the pressure onto my self and blame myself from not being enough. Not being strong enough. Not being smart enough (a frequent insecurity of mine), not being skilled enough, etc. Other times, I feel this call from within to be "realistic" and sometimes crush my own dreams before they get started. Other times, I throw caution to the wind and attempt to try it anyway. Ignoring what's realistic and choosing to operate in "fantasy land" because the call to make a difference is so strong that I just want to try! And then it fails. And then I fall-back and operate within the bounds of the system. I know that I can produce results within the system's bounds but I ALWAYS hunger to push the bounds, to move out of the small results and conjure a larger output that makes a difference.

There's the additional issue at-hand here of me wanting discovering what kind of person I want to be in the world. I have the idyllic sense of self where I enjoy living as this "person of supreme power and determination" and then there's the realistic Roger that has strong determination, but is very much NOT a person of supreme power. And even my own determination has limits and I find myself running my tank empty. A conflict between what I believe I can do vs what I can actually do. It leads to a battle of "what I want to be" vs "what I actually am". And this can manifest in the world as well as my exploits within the world. I have my favorite trajectories among the systems I've mapped, but I also explore other trajectories in an attempt to manifest my inner-world onto the outer world. For example, I have (and still am) quite fascinated with law.

I love legal work, but if I were to be a lawyer, I'd ONLY do it pro-bono. I wouldn't do it for money. BUT. Wait. I have to make money right? That's one system I need to be aware of, I can't do that for free especially if I want to be criminal defense attorney for people who I believe are being wrongfully convicted. That's a lot of time, money, and effort and legal work is a full-time job. So I then think I can continue doing my software engineering career and do legal work on the side. BUT. Wait. I can't do that either because then the quality of work I'm producing between the two systems is now sub-par and I'm just not going to do that. This is a classic example of how I want to exact my will onto the world in a fantasy, almost superhero type way, but the reality of the world steps on the throat of that manifestation. Sometimes this is heartbreaking. Sometimes I take it on the cheek and "go back to the drawing board". The conflict of "what I want to become" and "what I'm actually manifesting" weighs heavily on my mind. It feels like the flames of my passion engulf me when I let it go for too long out of control. I find the reality of the world boring but essential to achieve success. I think of my internal world as peaceful and fantastical but a lot of them are just child-like dreams that can't be done in reality given my current mapping of the world systems.

There's additional struggles as well such as the struggle of seeing myself becoming the person I want to become. There's a bit of rebellion involved as well. Rebelling against the way the world operates vs the way I think SHOULD operate. And there's the struggle of how I SHOULD operate within that world vs the way I ACTUALLY operate. There's a war within myself to correct and fix my flaws while simultaneously taking responsibility for the flaws that exist in the world. One silly example I have is I'm legitimately upset with the fact that I can't go back in time and see how the early humans acted. I genuinely got upset about it and even felt hopeless because I have all of these questions, I have acquired all of this knowledge about the human ancestry, but I can't see it. Can't experience it. And yes, I even looked into time-travel and the way it theoretically would work. I even found myself daydreaming about how to make a time-machine and how we could acquire footage of the early humans. Reflecting on it I realize just how out there that is, but in the moment I was emboldened with passion. But, I just couldn't find a trajectory in my coordinate mapping to even remotely make such a thing possible. And that depressed me because in the moment, it didn't even feel remotely possible. I had to abandon the dream and for awhile it killed my desire to learn more about the human ancestry because I just couldn't let go of the hope that I could see our ancestors haha.

Anyway, a fairly long anecdote on my inner and outer conflict as a delta.

I also want to add that all throughout my childhood, I spent much of my time learning about how the world works. Developing that experience and understanding about the important interactions that exist in the "real world" wasn't something I put much thought into. It was just something that I felt like I needed to do. It was essential. I didn't understand how anything worked and often had to figure it out. But I also spent much of my time exploring the creative part of myself. Spent much of my time in my head when I wasn't figuring out how something else works. This naturally created a separation from the way I engaged with the world vs how I lived inside my head. The conflict arises the most in me when putting myself out there in the real-world. I find solace by retreating into my inner-world because I have complete creative control. It's MY world and I can dictate the rules. I think this speaks a great deal about the way I engage with the "real world", even now in adulthood. Its also a great way to reduce the stress and burden of disappointment that exists with how much of the world works. To quote a certain famous Marvel Villain: "reality is often disappointing." 

I want to double down and say that for the most part, I genuinely find the world boring. I much prefer to operate in the land of creativity, ambition, and achievement. When I was younger, my ability to discover how things worked and utilized the newfound understanding of that system became a game for me. Intoxicating. I still get intoxicated with learning new things and that will likely continue forever (hopefully haha). But, that alone is boring to me. Once I have added that system as a coordinate in my system map, I feel the need to do something with it. I will always find myself conjuring up theoretical applications that are novel and more importantly, have some kind of meaning to me with this new system. So there's this interesting mission that takes place where I desire to understand how every single thing works in the world but what I do with that always comes from something inspired from my inner fantasy world. It's almost like two different sides of me that are present. The strict, "this is the way the world works" side and the "I don't want to only exist and operate within the world, I want to do something of importance in it." side. It's quite the polarity but never feels "black and white" to me. More often than not, I spend much of my time looking for ways to make a difference within the bounds that a system allows me to. Sometimes the system doesn't allow for it at all and that can completely kill any desire I have to continue down that path. Moments like that are incredibly disappointing. If I've put a ton of time into learning about a new system and then learn it was for nothing... that's one of the worst feelings. It can quickly take over my mood which can also kill that creative and fantastical inner world until I'm done throwing my temper tantrum around the disappointment.

It may be more accurate to say that I often look for how extreme can I push a system's limits. Some systems allow for an infinite number of applications where I can make a difference and sort of manifest my inner world into the external world. This is actually what lead me to App Development as a career. The combination of writing code and building UI allowed me to tap into that creative aspect. I also have a newfound appreciation for art. But! Art and app development can only make so much of a difference. So as you can probably tell, there's more I'm wanting to achieve and the clash between what I want to manifest in the world vs what I'm currently able to manifest continues. That particular cycle never ends. Only the topics and the ideas change but the goals and desires persist.

Okay that's probably enough for now haha

[fayest42]

Interesting topic!

@alexandertheless, I found it interesting to hear you describe the conflict between a part of you that is more exacting and insists that you must believe and do things in a particular way and a more free part of you that doesn't want to be held down by any rules. At first, this made me question some of my own ideas about the different functions and what they do because I often think of Fi as being exacting and insisting on doing things in a particular way (though I would imagine Ne would probably just want to be free). I just wrote in response to @salomefl's post about how Fi-leads experience Te that my Fi often has an ideal that it wants to insist I live by and follow exactly, but my Te is more practical and willing to consider compromising my ideals to better deal with the particulars of a situation. After thinking more about it, I think I can see the exacting nature of Te+Si too, but I imagine that Fi "rules" and Te+Si "rules" probably work a bit differently - I imagine Fi would get its rules from deciding on a personal ideal that it would want to apply in all circumstances, whereas I imagine Te+Si might get its rules from analyzing a particular situation and deciding what actions will create the best results and then saying "Now, you have to move forward with these actions." What do you think about that?

I still get intoxicated with learning new things and that will likely continue forever (hopefully haha). But, that alone is boring to me. Once I have added that system as a coordinate in my system map, I feel the need to do something with it. I will always find myself conjuring up theoretical applications that are novel and more importantly, have some kind of meaning to me with this new system. So there's this interesting mission that takes place where I desire to understand how every single thing works in the world but what I do with that always comes from something inspired from my inner fantasy world. It's almost like two different sides of me that are present. The strict, "this is the way the world works" side and the "I don't want to only exist and operate within the world, I want to do something of importance in it." side.

@thenotoriousrog, this was particularly interesting for me to read. For myself, I have really experienced a shift over the years related to this. I have always had this desire you speak about to understand the world (mainly the abiotic world, but my interest in the biotic world has increased in adulthood). But for many years I didn't care about doing anything with it. I was happy just to learn and try to figure things out for my own intellectual curiosity. I even took a sort of pride in studying pure math with no care for how it could be useful (I definitely felt a kinship with G.H. Hardy after reading A Mathematician's Apology). But since leaving school, that has completely changed. Now I feel like the things I read and learn about must have a purpose. I actually feel some internal tension around my interest in typology because I'm mainly interested in it for my own intellectual curiosity. While I recognize that it can have some practical applications, I think there are a lot of other things I could spend my time on that would serve those practical purposes much more efficiently. So it's really just for myself that I ever spend time here, and I feel sort of guilty about that. I'm not exactly sure what caused this change in me. Part of it is probably just the fact that I'm not in school anymore so I don't have time set aside in my schedule in which I'm specifically "supposed" to be studying the things I'm interested in. So it feels more like a luxury to spend time doing it. This has probably been exacerbated by having kids, which has made my time much more limited, and so I feel a greater obligation to use that time wisely. And I wonder whether it is connected to developing Te, which is not fully conscious for me yet, but apparently is partially developed.

[Lapis Lazuli]

Entertaining video, @alexandertheless, and interesting post, @thenotoriousrog .

I've never felt an inner conflict like you all are describing, which I suppose could be attributed to my I--- development.  But I'm quite confident that I had Ji development during the first half of my life, so I don't think that's all it is.

Rather than experiencing pulls on my psyche in opposite directions, I struggle with not having any pulls at all.  I have no desire to see things done certain ways, and I range from skepticism to outright hostility toward man-made systems.  In particular, I view the state, including justice systems, as evil beyond reform, and tending to corrupt those who try to reform it as easily as those who exploit it.

So I would describe myself as an anti-bureaucrat, maybe because I push against, or in other words, repress, that side of the pole (perhaps not only the Te, but the Si as well?).  So the pole may still exist within my psyche, but I don't operate it as it was intended .

• This reply was modified 4 years, 5 months ago by Lapis Lazuli.
• This reply was modified 4 years, 5 months ago by Lapis Lazuli.

[Hrafn]

First of all, for whatever it’s worth I just wanna say I’m not a huge fan of the term “bureaucrat.” There’s the fact that it’s quite unflattering (not that meritocrat or sectarian are all that much better, lol).

But more importantly, I just don’t feel that bureaucrat is the most vivid or descriptive term for the Conductor Delta functions. I experience Si + Te as cartographic moreso than as bureaucratic. My Te loves to measure and quantify everything in a fast, loose way. And then the Si maps things proportionately onto its worldview canvas. (I noticed that in his post above Roger Hannagan also used frequently used mapping as a metaphor when discussing Si+Te). To some extent, I feel like this mapmaking tendency reflects a mistrust between the cartographer and the etherealist. Si doesn’t want to rely solely on Ne’s fickle, impressionistic perceptions for its worldmapping material. So it turns to Te for some measurements or rules to help firm things up. Sort of like using a nautical chart to navigate around a foggy coastline.

I can relate to others’ descriptions of conflict between what is and what could be, although in my case there’s been a clear trajectory between the two as I’ve gotten older. While my youth was dominated by what could be, it’s become harder & harder to stave off the often-bitter reality of what is. Yes, I can still imagine rosy scenarios for the future…but are they actually going to happen? This is probably connected with the fact that I seem to have lost some of my habitual Ne-usage as I’ve grown older.

In a broad sense, the notion of having faith feels to me like a very Ne thing that’s probably propped up by Fi. What I mean by faith is something like a belief that things do/will turn out for the best, regardless of what precedent or other evidence might suggest. Si is too immersed in the rhythm of what usually happens to muster up a whole lot of faith by itself. This is not to say that Si is always dour & pessimistic. It’s more that Si’s outlook for the future is based on patterns I’ve seen or experienced before, whether those were positive or negative. When I was younger, and my Si hadn’t matured, I was much more filled with faith. I often believed what I wanted to, and I saw this as a legitimate way of being in the world. My Si was easier to sideline, as it did not yet have a broad, temporally deep or holistic of a perspective on the world. Yet it would often seem to crop up as a vague sense of doubt, dread or anxiety. (Maybe Ji played a role in this doubt as well?) Is what I believe really true? Does it really fit with the patterns I’ve seen before? I would spend a lot of time concocting rationalizations or searching for evidence to reassure myself. Even when I knew my beliefs were rotten to the core, when I was filled with dread about the reality of what probably was, I still relied on Ne’s ballooning sense of what if to avoid crashing headlong into a truth I feared I couldn’t bear.

I might sound like I’m judging my Ne harshly, and that isn’t my intention at all. I do feel that I was out of balance when I was younger—too much Ne for my own good—and that now I might be out of balance in the opposite direction. Perhaps I could use a bit more what if again.

In addition to the conflict between the conductor functions and the reviser ones, I believe there’s also quite some conflict within these two axes. After all, Je & Pi inhabit EQ’s that are diametrically opposite to eachother. So do Pe & Ji. In my experience, Si’s plodding, disorganized, bucolic nature is like water meeting the fire of Te’s fast-paced, industrious, impatient one. Similarly, Fi & Ne have very different agendas & approaches to life, in concurrence with what @fayest42 noted above. Fi is poised, structured & self-contained, in contrast to Ne’s boisterous chaos & openness to experience. While I experience Fi as wanting to ultimately come to terms with the full ethical weight of a given problem or issue, Ne is masterful at deflecting emotionally heavy topics in a 7-like way. Often, it intentionally misunderstands what it sees in order to avoid the pain that Fi will bring to bear if it’s allowed to truly digest a topic.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 4 months ago by Hrafn.
• This reply was modified 4 years, 4 months ago by Hrafn.
• This reply was modified 4 years, 4 months ago by Hrafn.
• This reply was modified 4 years, 4 months ago by Hrafn.
• This reply was modified 4 years, 4 months ago by Hrafn.
• This reply was modified 4 years, 4 months ago by Hrafn.

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