Extroverted Sensing (Se) – 4D Valued Base Function
In the beginning of our session, “bold” was one of the words that DJ used to describe himself when it comes to his no fear of failure mentality. He approaches obstacles that are in his path as a challenge of his own ability – and he enjoys mustering the personal willpower to overcome anything in his path.
When confronted with the question whether or not he could handle a task, his rebuff comes in the form of “Absolutely I can do it! Don’t underestimate me!” This motivates him to not only accomplish the task, but to excel in it – even if requires exerting himself past what is comfortable.
Instead of striving to move things toward a more routine orientation, DJ desires to keeping things changing – even if it causes disruption to those who prefer a more routine oriented lifestyle.
The way DJ describes himself in social interactions is best depicted with the word ‘”boisterous.” Sometimes, he feels he needs to refrain as not to affect the mood in a negative way.
In dating, DJ quotes “The way that I connect with people can be very unorthodox. If I’m roasting you, it means I like you. When dating, I’ll poke fun at people for two reasons: One, to make them stronger. Two, to see if they’re worth investing in.” This depicts that he prefers to not only test his own ability, but also that of others.
With his need for pushing against challenge, testing himself and his ability, and even enjoying exertion over rest, his approach to the world is action and expansion. This attitude toward life falls within the realm of Force or Extroverted Sensing.
Introverted Sensing (Si) – 3D Unvalued Ignoring Function
A prevalent theme when talking to DJ is his consistent, never-ending focus on the environment. Whether the environment social, the logistical, or spacial proportions of objects or people in his environment.
When asked about his relationship to comfort, his response was “…not very good…I don’t like being comfortable. I try to resist being comfortable.”
As mentioned before, challenge motivates him and pushes him to do better. When in a state of relaxation, he mentioned that he is “noticeably slower.” DJ puts a constant effort into reminding himself, at times, to not be competitive with others, but instead, to “go with the flow.”
Despite his natural resistance to keep things relaxed and peaceful, he demonstrates an acute awareness of the events actually happening in the environment and the effect that one object has on another. In other words, it can be said that he is very “here and now.”
Though he demonstrates awareness and clear capability to make an environment pleasing or comfortable, it goes against what he believes is effective, competitive, or advancing. His preference of expansion and activity over rest demonstrate his high strength but unvalued expression of Introverted Sensing in the 7th, or Ignoring Function.
Introverted Logic (Ti) – 3D Valued Creative Function
It is clear that DJ’s primary worldview is that of a competitive nature over one that is calm and peaceful, and much like his actions, his ideology supports this further.
Because DJs thoughts may appear to be super clear and concise to an interlocutor, one may get the impression that he spends an abundance of time thinking. However, instead of investing an excessive amount of time reflecting and refining his systems of thought, his ideology forms, refines, and redefines itself through the abundance of real-world experience.
However, when there is a conflict between his ideology and what he wants, he will either remove the contradicting components and start from scratch or increase his real-world participation until the rules makes sense of themselves.
While we see that Introverted Logic is a prevalent theme in his life, he tends to use it as a loose series of guidelines that exist to serve his chief aims. His logic interfaces with the world to become something that is useful to attain his goals and to be called upon when needed – not a higher aim in itself!
In other words, his entire approach or ideology to life (Ti) is informed by experience (Se) and facts (Te) – not reflection. For him, life is the chisel that irons out the rules of the game. This approach to life demonstrates his more creative, malleable approach instead of the firm, rigid, hard-logic approach to you might see from other types in the Socion. This clearly depicts a strong preference of Creative Introverted Logic informed by Demonstrative Extroverted Logic.
Extroverted Logic (Te) – 4D Unvalued Demonstrative Function
One pervading theme in the beginning of our interview was DJ’s collection of large amounts of information. He spends a lot of time reading and evaluating the information to help further inform his experiential knowledge – determining what fits and what does not. The accepted facts are used to give nuance to his structural knowledge, while the rejected “facts” are stored for further proofing.
This abundant collection of information is not to simply make sense of the world, or to simply recite information that is valid, but to serve as a “well-oiled machine” that works in any circumstance. In other words, what is and is not accepted are facts of a universal application – one that can apply in all situations – not just the conditions given.
This creates a need to understand information before simply applying it. The common questions are “why” does this work? What is the truth beneath the surface? What core principle here lies beneath what I’m seeing?
Through the gathering and refinement of a large storehouse of more factual information, he is better able to accurately evaluate what may actually be true and what may really work when that information is needed in a moment’s notice. DJ specifically attributed this to “…being prepared to effectively face whatever life may throw at me.”
Here we see strong Extroverted Logic in an informative capacity, not a valued one, best depicting Demonstrative Te.
2D Valued Mobilizing Function (Fe)
1D Unvalued Vulnerable / Blind / PoLR Function (Fi)
DJ pointed out that his understanding of relationships is very impersonal. He generally looks out for how people work in different situations, such that he can establish a rule for how they will work in other circumstances – heavily relying on Introverted Logic to build some sort of operations manual to how people work.
This makes it difficult for him when he sees people behave in a way that doesn’t fit his predefined rules. He considers them to be acting out of the norm or in such a way that he didn’t account for in the equation can often bring a unique sense of confusion that others with more ethical nuance might consider “obvious.”
When speaking about his interactions with others, DJ revealed that he doesn’t have a sense of what is going on within a person, nor does he prefer to guess. Instead, he relies on what he already knows through experience and obvious external expressions – whether verbally or non-verbally. In situations where the expressions are muted, he more often than not be completely oblivious that someone actually has raised an issue with him, or if they even have an issue in the first place. In other words, such things must be expressed to him, or they will simply get ignored.
When asking about the way that he manages his relationships, he says that he tends to maintain a distance with people whereas he sees others value a continual nourishment. People in a friendship might tell him “you need to spend more time with me, because it’s important.” This tends to feel like a demand to him, making him less likely to do it – even though he still cares. Whereas it feels more natural to him to see value in a person that isn’t dependent on the investment he is putting into them.
The interesting thing we see is that he notices he naturally gravitates towards some people more than others and recognizes that may mean he cares more about them. However, it is not something he has much conscious choice over.
This attitude all depicts weak, unvalued Introverted Ethics (Fi) likely in the Vulnerable Function.
1D Valued Suggestive Function (Ni)
When asking Dj about his ability to predict outcomes, he actually said that he has a decent ability to predict the outcomes of events. However once asking more, he explained that he bases it off his past experience and the current situation. He said “Well, I’ve done this before and this was the result.” This is an illustration of Ni being in a postion of learing experientially, or learning through direct failure. We can see here that the predictions being made are short term as well.
When asking DJ about his views on life, he explained that being a Christian, he has an established grounding for his worldview and purpose. Saying that if he didn’t, he would probably fabricate something as a tool to navigate his reason being here.
2D Unvalued Role Function (Ne)
During a discussion about information, DJ revealed that he doesn’t see data simply as a means by which to understand. But data is but a means by which to act. He goes on to say that he also likes to explore an idea or concept, but at the end of they day exploration for it’s own sake goes to the wayside. Preffering to put that information to use.
As mentioned earlier, DJ also tends to prepare for problems that could happen by expanding his skill set. We see this differ from an LSI or ESI in that they usually have a very narrow focus. Whereas for the SLE, being prepared for any challenge that may come their way is important. DJ exhibits this attitude of preparation for the unknown quite well.
