Fi is a function that defines an object by its essential nature (Ji) while also experiencing the object as having an animate (F) character. Objects are registered as having a living property, thus triggering a personal relationship to that object's character, whether it is one of personal resonance or dissonance. This occurs even if the objects are inorganic, in which case they are not seen as alive but still have a character defined by how they relate to animate concerns.
Seeking the Truth to Life
As a compass function, Fi is driven by an unrelenting quest to find the principles lying at the core of the universe and the nature of being. As a judgment function, it treats all information as subject to an ever-crystallizing explanatory framework, which is shaped according to the laws sensed to govern reality. Truth means approaching this elusive but unified nexus of all things, which does not preclude meaning and value. Fi considers how the divine principle ties everything together, including the living and non-living. Thus, for Fi, the truth of "what is" cannot be separated from the essential questions of what constitutes intrinsic value. The Fi user understands that even our pursuit of knowledge is predicated on an impulse that takes the value of knowledge for granted, thus pressing the question further back than knowledge for its own sake. We cherish knowledge as part of a higher, intrinsic value that must be approached and uncovered through a convergence of subjective and objective information. The Fi user will be a rationally motivated individual but one who does not eliminate the information of their body or emotional register but instead uses it as a compass to discover what is simultaneously the reality of existence and the truthful way of "being" in that existence. Approaching this nexus means eliminating any incongruencies that might muddle the path to that purity and knowledge. It means resonating with its core structure and having it live through them, an occurrence which, for many Fi users, is synonymous with harmonizing intentions with the Divine. However, each Fi user will discover different things as they construct their private gnosis due to their journey; some describe this apex principle as Love, Reason, Goodness, or God. However, for the Fi user, the questions of truth and goodness are inseparable and irreducible. The answer is to be found from without, but also from within -- and for that, one must necessarily be a clear channel and vessel into that truth.
Attunement & Purification
The Fi user is left with the difficult task of making sense of themselves - and, by extension, humanity and the cosmos - from the inside out. However, the human interior is multi-dimensional and prone to express distorted emotions, thus mishapping our view of reality. Like ripples on an ocean surface or the static noise of a crowded room, the complexity can be overwhelming and obstruct even the most fundamental truths. In order to abate this inner confusion, the strong Fi user is forced to spend a great deal of time teasing apart emotions to see the reality of being and other beings. They will constantly ask, "Am I seeing the truth of them? am I seeing myself?" -- focusing on clarifying motivations, intentions, and the meaning of sentiments. A lack of clarity can lead to complete freezing and a sense of being utterly lost. For Fi, actions can only rightly flow out of them when the channel is clear and the intent is understood and pursued earnestly. Moreover, lacking this can feel like a foggy cloud or miasma rests over their inner vision, which they cannot look past. Their soul may feel sloshy, dense, and thick like molasses. Their compass' needle becomes disoriented in its direction, affected by the energetic interference of inner and outer vectors. This distress will lead them to think obsessively about the right cause, motive, and intent, creating a constant state of inner "maintenance" to alleviate tangles, which quickly feel like a state of suffocation. The principle motif for Fi becomes "attunement." It becomes the aim of the Fi user to be a calibrated tuning fork capable of giving the right tune no matter the situation. Over time, the Fi user becomes keenly aware of the dynamics of the heart and tries to pierce through into a transcendent actuality that is not muddled by personal feelings and hang-ups. They may understand that none of those emotions are contradictory at the highest level. However, they are explicable from the right kaleidoscope lens, which sees everything as a faceted but ultimately harmonious whole. Nonetheless, this active purification remains a constant activity of the Fi user, as they will likely be disturbed by evocations from themselves and the energy around them due to their permeable nature.
The Fi user exists in a constant state of high permeability, an uncontrollable receptivity to other people's emotional energy and the world. When that energy is undesired, this can lead to hypersensitivity and jarring friction as the emanations of others register like a violent attack on their clarity and private alignment. A conflict develops between the Fi user wanting to have their inner state undisturbed and resisting being drowned by the states of others. They may feel like the outside is trying to change who they are against their will, swallowing their existence and making them subservient. However, if the emotional energy is desirable, the Fi user is gifted with an empathic ability and turns their attention to analyzing the emanations from the place of the singular individual, discovering how situations may feel to them from the exact position and context they stand in. To do this, the Fi user steps into the shoes of those whose energy they evaluate, opening their heart's membrane and viscerally assimilating all the essences and sensations of the other from the specificity of their life and coming to know them thoroughly. This unbidden permeability is not only emotional but also carries sexual and erotic undertones woven into it as Fi assimilates all emitted energies indiscriminately – leading eventually to a sensual permeability and overtake. Fi carries a naturally feminine and submissive charge as they experience multiple types of penetration from the environment and unfiltered contact with others around them. When contact is not being resisted, their susceptibility to "letting others in" contributes powerfully to a higher openness to sexual exploration and the exploration of atypical conjunctions. Many Fi users discover within them latent sexual affinities as they dis-inhibit sexuality from their ego, accounting for the much higher representation of Fi users within the LGBTQ+ community. The boundaries between people become easily blurred, and affinities for all types of energies are readily discovered within them.
However, because of this remarkably visceral and intimate permeability, the Fi user is inescapably forced to develop powerful charges for or against specific types of emotional information, as it is impossible to allow all emanated energies equal access into their being. However, because they cannot be neutral or indifferent about it and are permeable, they must meet undesired energies with strong reactions of repulsion and disgust. An emotional push-back is executed whenever the Fi user says "no" to allowing an experience from another person or the world to enter their otherwise sensitive interior. The Fi user exists in a constant limbo of attraction and repulsion as their heart becomes a selective valve to people. Moreover, each Fi user will be particular about what content they allow in and which they cast out, tailored from a lifetime of bombardments that have made a custom allowlist for acceptable things. This case-by-case approval of emotional content will make Fi users appear picky or finicky to onlookers who may be unable to guess when they will appreciate or depreciate their remarks, appearing to them as a frustrating game of chance. A particular word, gesture, or look will be enough to flag an individual on the wrong side of Fi's emotional palate, causing a significant barrier between them and that person's energy. Over time, the stringent use of this palate causes an Unseelie attitude to arise, where the majority of energies from others are repulsed and repelled by default. The Fi user's continual use of this palate develops over time into a very idiosyncratic aesthetic, their own uniquely created castle made of all they approve of. Through discovering their tastes and affinities, they also uncover their intrinsic essence.
Discovery of Inner Essence
The Fi user is aware very early on that every individual possesses a unique and sacred soul which remains unmodified at its core but which can be tarnished and crippled by our necessary collision with an imperfect world. Through years of conditioning, the environment misshapes and warps that essence when we are forced to live through imaginary characters and personas to fabricate egos and narratives atop our neglected and parched nativity. When Fi is strong in a person, acute aspiration buds forth to boldly return themselves and others to their sacred spark, that purity that always remains incorruptible but buried beneath a mountain of faces; Fi will initiate a rebirth process, a shedding away of skins to decouple our true dreams from outside expectations and to cease being a molded and polished copy of an ideology that is not one's own. Moreover, as many Fi users dive headlong into the unconscious to find their essence, they may discover something feral, wild, and untamed. The essence of a human, they find, is animal and creature-like. This creature, the uncivilized soul, is intimately connected to nature, just like the rest of the animal kingdom. The Fi user discovers their eternal roots with the rest of life and their kinship with birds and beasts. Many Fi users who discover their inner animal decide to take on the life of a naturalist, living in agriculture with no makeup or intervention from the loud machinery of the world, and where they can choose not to shave or cut their hair. They will thirst to "be" themselves in as naked and unmodified a way as possible.
Idiosyncrasy & Self-Expression
However, in other expressions, the Fi user can choose to eliminate the cultural persona to make their own as a reflection of their idiosyncratic nature. This can lead to very off-beat existences, such as the exhibition of cross-dressing, queer or counter-culture identities. They can be creative and eccentric as well as decorative. As a Ji function, Fi cares powerfully about individuality and aligning self-expression with self-identity, leading the Fi user to beautify themselves per their aesthetic personal vision. Some Fi users will embody a diva or prima donna that radiates their sexuality freely as an expression of their raw existence. Others may be asexual and choose to be androgynous in their appearance by growing or cutting their hair to neutralize their gender's energetic tilt. As many variations will exist as there are Fi users, all will carry the imprint of a culturally indifferent decision-making process. This often places the Fi user in the headlights of brutal social criticism, harassment, and verbal abuse. However, by their continual advocacy of the individual, they can transform society away from the shame of our raw nature and into a higher integration of our primal instincts and inner beauty.
Hypersensitivity & Overwhelm
As noted, Fi will give a person an unordinary level of sensitivity to incoming energies, and when the stress and gravity of life cause a fall out of emotional health, what began as a blessing in understanding others through assimilation inverts into a disability amidst the raw static and noise of an overwhelming situation. Their empathic abilities backfire as their heart's open channel lets more acute emotions in than what can be healthily processed. They will become hyper-stimulated, far too sensitive to negative vibes, and utterly unable to tolerate hostile environments without collapsing into tears. They can come to feel physically ill in emotionally weighted situations, needing to get away from them as soon as possible. There is freezing and paralysis, volatility, and hysteria. This will cause them to exist like a raw, flailing electric line — still hot but exposed. Everything is noisy, and knowing what one believes or stands for becomes difficult. Those around the Fi user may criticize them as moody, sulky, and volatile. Their behaviors may appear melodramatic and passive-aggressive from the vantage point of an outsider who is unaware of how sharply affected the Fi user is by their emotional stress. At other times, they will pour out poetry and songs to encapsulate their condition, indulging in passive-aggressive commentary on the world while containing glimmers of squelched hopes. This Fi user will be a broken bird, a disenchanted idealist who realizes that the world is too wretched for beauty to last within. They will talk about their difficulties in life openly with a mournful spirit. The same transparent emotional radiation that was once bashful and giddy becomes melodramatic, sullen, and woeful. They will wear their bleeding heart in open display, emanating a private sorrow that also saturates their environment.
Alexithymia & Dissociation
However, if the stress and trauma of life persist even beyond this intolerable threshold, the Fi user may shut down their heart entirely and enter a state of profound dissociation. When it becomes impossible for the Fi user to exist in connection to their permeability, the channels of the emotional register are cauterized. They become depersonalized from themselves, unable to sense or track emotional energies. The rivers of the heart run dry. A blank look falls over their face, and their body ceases to belong to them. Reality feels surreal and dream-like. Those in their surroundings may appear as lifeless silhouettes with no more of a soul than they can sense within, inevitably leading to alexithymia or a dysfunction in emotional awareness, social attachment, and interpersonal ability. In these moments, the Fi user superficially resembles a Ti user. However, for the Fi user, this detachment represents a neurotic state that applies immense stress on their body and psyche. The dissociation will be unnatural, crippling, and inhibiting their everyday operations. The Fi user may appear to be on the Asperger's or Autistic spectrum, lacking any grace or ability to connect with anyone as their primary channel for contact has short-circuited. However, beneath that stoicism, the unaddressed heart will continue to wail, expressing itself in silence, with private tears that may appear to start flowing perplexingly without origin.
