I just got into an argument with my mom regarding bone marrow donation. I saw it coming from a mile away, because I know that she has a very different way of looking at the world. She's an ISTP and I'm an INFJ, so just by looking at our MBTI, it's quite obvious that we would be in conflict over such a issue. If I discuss this with my dad, an INTP, I'm sure I'll get an even worse response.
I think that the entire notion of self-sacrifice is lost on INTPs and ISTPs. They see it as an utterly foolish and idealistic belief and I can't deny the latter. I mean, it was Lady Windermere who said that "Life is a sacrament; it's ideal is love, it's purification is sacrifice." Sounds utterly religious to me, but despite all the mockery I have for religions in general, sacrifice is something I believe in. Although, I think sacrifice needs to be purposeful and full of good intentions and not rash. You sacrifice yourself knowing that the sacrifice would improve the life of another and compromise the happiness of those who care for you. You don't go sacrificing yourself for lost causes.
Anyway, just looking at the table, you can tell that NTs and STs are both logical types, to whom cost and benefit to the self is the priority. It's not selfish, it's self-preservation. I mean, if humans were not self-preservative, the entire species would have died out by now. In fact, if the human species were made up of just ENFJs and INFJs, we would be extinct within the first 5 generations. ENFJs and their lack of self-awareness and INFJs and their complete lack of situation-awareness. That's one reason why INFJs are easily scared by jump scares. We just aren't that observant about the material world.
The two opposing beliefs in this case would be 1. prioritising the self before caring for others, and 2. caring for others as a way of preserving the self. I can understand where my mom is coming from, but I don't think she can understand my point-of-view. It's not surprising. Ns can understand S, but not the other way round. I can understand the need to be self-sufficient first before spending effort on others. However, for most NFs, one of our basic necessities in life is to feel important to others, not in the attention-seeking way.
This is especially true for ENFJ and INFJ and our SF counterparts, ESFJ and ISFJ. Let's ignore how miraculous it is that I know one person from each of the mentioned types. What differentiates these 4 types is the presence of the Extroverted Feeling (Fe) function in our dominant or auxiliary functions. For ENFJ and ESFJ, Fe is dominant while for INFJ and ISFJ, it is auxiliary.
While people do argue about whether the Fe function is more sacrificing than the Fi function, I will take a stand right here and declare that it is the former. The most important differentiation comes from understanding the differences between INFP and INFJ, with Dominant Function Fi and Auxiliary Function Fe respectively.
From a simple glance through the table, you can see that INFPs tend to be more introverted on the scale of introversion than INFJs. Particularly in the fourth row, INFJs are said to be people who "serve others to get to own needs met", meaning that we derive happiness and satisfaction from counselling and helping others. INFJs are people who "honour own experience to honour others", meaning that they believe that whatever makes them happy in a certain situation will make another person happy in a similar situation. INFPs are also more inspirational while INFJs are more insightful.
This proves that Fe types are more focused towards producing happiness in the outer world. This is more apparent in ENFJs, but I've not done adequate research on ENFJ and ENFP to prove anything. Since INFJs are just ENFJs with more perceptiveness and less people skills, we do just as well in the comparison.
Where do ISTP and INTP stand in all this? ISTP and INTP are people who look after their interests first and I can see that very clearly in my parents. As a child, I wanted to be a vet to end the suffering of animals. Then I wanted to be a psychologist, to soothe the mental states of patients. It's funny how while they acknowledge such sentiments, all it comes down to in our discussions is "Well, these are very profitable professions and you can probably support yourself."
I'm sorry if I don't really care if I don't earn that much. As long as I can earn enough to allow myself to continue in the said career, I'm fine. So as long as I can continue to help whoever or whatever I'm trying to help, then I have no problems with the salary.
The whole bone marrow issue was like that too. My mom was outraged because she thought it was ridiculous that I would be willing to sacrifice myself for a completely stranger. Well, firstly, the chances of the extraction going wrong is quite slim, though not as slim as blood donation. Secondly, I think it is a great cause. If I die from doing the extraction, it's probably going to be more meaningful than my entire life anyway.
Not only underground are the brains of men/Eaten by maggots./Life in itself/Is nothing/An empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs.
It makes sense, no matter how nihilistic the poet may seem, to me. Of course, without the help of a Literature teacher, I can only end at "I share her sentiments", but with her guidance, I've learnt to better explain what exactly I agree with. The poet expresses how at least in death a dead person can provide sustenance to another living creature, but while living, life is purposeless.
That's what I mean. It makes perfect sense to me to risk sacrifice in order to save the life of another, because it's one chance I actually get to do something meaningful with my life. And all I have to do is sit in a hospital bed and allow some needles to poke me? It's a wonderful idea to me. Does it matter that it's a stranger? Definitely not! How can you measure the value of another person's life? To me, it is absolutely selfish to say that just because someone is a stranger, he is not worth saving.
I sound like I'm preaching here. INFJs are supposed to be great at religious work...if I have one to speak of. I call it my "Religion of Humanity", obtained from Silas Marner. I don't need an institutionalised religion to impart to me values that I gain from simply experiencing life. I've said before, forgiveness, sacrifice, and all that stuff are things I have learnt from going through life, I don't need a religion to preach me such ideas. With my personality too, the more you preach to me ideas without giving me hands-on experience, the more I'm inclined to disbelieve anyway.
But I will do what I intend to do. There is no guarantee that my life is going to be purposeful, because there is no guarantee that I'll ever be able to serve in a career where I'm actively helping others. This is one opportunity to guarantee that, for at least one time, I made someone's life better (completely discounting the 6 people who I talked out of suicide, because they were friends and there's a little bit of selfishness involved because of friendship). I just hope that my mom can understand that this is what is important to me. I don't care for living a long and comfortable life if I'm not going to do anything productive with it.
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