Our Function Awareness

I’ve seen some people say that to help figure out your type, you should write out your use of each of the four functions that you believe yourself to have. The one with the most “evidence” under it will probably be your dominant, and then the rest should have less and less, scaling downwards according to your order of preference. I always thought that was an interesting thought, until the other day when I noticed something strange.

For an upcoming project, I was working on listing out my four functions and how each affects my life. While doing so I realized something: it was far easier to write out the effects of my lower two functions. Based on the above, one would think I might be an INFJ, but that’s most definitely not true. Yet, it strangely took a lot more thought to put information under my dominant Ti and auxiliary Se.

From the moment I started looking into the functions, it was very clear to me that I’m a Ti dominant. It just fit. Ti ruled my life. However, that’s a very broad statement to make. How does it rule my life? And that’s where the catch came in. In my brain, it ruled all aspects of my life. How could I start listing out individual ways?

This article may seem a bit strange and scattered to you, but I am writing it to share a specific point: namely, our awareness of a function can be directly tied to the level of conscious effort it takes to use it.

When I was doing the aforementioned exercise, I naturally started from the top and worked my way down. I’ve always been the type that tends to move on quickly from a hard question, to come back to it later once the easy stuff is out of the way. I blinked at the Ti section, and felt my mind go blank. After a moment, I managed to come up with one thing, and then decided to move on. When I hit the Se section, it was the same idea, but I managed to come up with two or three before proceeding forward. In the Ni section, my thoughts flowed a lot more freely, and I wrote a decently large list. Fe ended being similar. After completing my first run through, I remember looking at the thing as a whole, and noting how odd that was. I’m going to share a few of my thoughts with you in regards to this.

1. People are hyper-aware of their inferior function and its negative effects

One of the first things I noticed, beyond my inferior Fe section being the easiest to fill in, was that it was primarily negative. Of course, when I thought about it that made a lot of sense. Fe is my weakest function. I’m very aware of all the trouble it gives me, and everywhere I go wrong with it, just like I’m very aware of all my insecurities. In fact, many of my insecurities tie back to my inferior Fe. Plus, when I have a little victory in Fe, I feel way too excited and proud of it, in spite of how minor the accomplishment actually is. Usually the accomplishments that we feel the most compelled to talk about are the ones that we found the most challenging.

2. People tend to be aware of the conscious effort it takes to use their tertiary function

My tertiary Ni wasn’t nearly as bad and in fact, was overall pretty positive or at least neutral, but it was still easy to explain how it affects my life. Once again, all of my Ni achievements are easy to remember for me. I feel proud of my Ni accomplishments, because to use Ni effectively is not very natural. Even though I believe myself to have decent use of my Ni, it has taken effort to develop it, and it takes conscious effort to use it in any kind of impactful way. Because my Ni is not strong and not default, I can easily turn it on and off, blocking it out of my life if I desire to do so.

3. The auxiliary function, while strong and natural, is still not fully subconscious for many people.

It was initially easy to come up with a few points for me Se, but it wasn’t until the second run-through that I was able to write a long section. (The section ultimately did end up longer than the others one, but it required more thought.) This is because the auxiliary function is far more natural for me to use. I’m not thinking about every little Se thing that I do. I don’t need to. I just subconsciously react with it.

4. The dominant function is so natural to use that it can be fully subconscious.

Our dominant function permeates everything that we do. We rely on it, and even crutch on it. It’s nearly impossible to turn off, and it doesn’t take conscious effort to use. Ergo, we are probably barely aware of the nuanced extent, if it all. People don’t tend to talk up their dominant function a ton. They might sometimes, but to be proud of every little Ti accomplishment that I have would be like walking around all excited that I know what 1+1 is. Everyone would think I was an idiot. Of course, in this scenario, everyone is me. I wouldn’t recognize 1+1 as an accomplishment, anymore than I’d recognize little Ti victories. Ti is so natural to use that I don’t feel the need to call it out constantly, and I don’t hardly even notice when I’m using it.

As mentioned earlier, my first run through of that exercise only produced one point in the Ti section that amounted to “brain won’t shut off”. It wasn’t until my second time through that I realized “oh yeah, and there’s this.. And this.. And this… and this…” It took way more focused effort to be able to start thinking about Ti in that way for me, in spite of having all of this cognitive function theory in my head. (Although, I literally had to think about the theory to start categorizing Ti’s affect on my life. Pretty sad, eh?)

In conclusion…

Like I mentioned earlier, I’ve known since initial research into the cognitive function that Ti ruled my life, so I’m definitely not claiming that knowing which function is your dominant means it can’t be and you’re wrong. I don’t want to flip everyone upside down, or anything that extreme. I’m not spouting rules or making any specific claims. You could easily be far more self-aware of your own mind then I am. I have no clue how I measure up compared to others in this regard. I just thought I’d share… my thoughts (:D) with you all. I kinda feel like I need a new category for articles like this… I also have this vague memory of saying this before in another article. Mara’s Musings, maybe? I dunno. Anyways, I’m done now.

Comment below with your thoughts! (About the article I mean.. Or the category. Whichever strikes your fancy. -shrugs-)