If we could choose our types...

There's something important that I've experienced the longer I identify as an IEI: there's a realization of the layers of ways I relate to IEI function expressions and a simultaneous disgust with the ways the IEI map codifies my restrictions. I struggle with Te and Si in a way that I don't commonly see discussed in the groups--that is, I am constantly staying on top of my productivity and environment--despite my strong discomfort and self-annoyance with it--where consistent successes cost me my energy and vitality. But perhaps I struggle moreso with generating Se, and feel its lack in my life painfully; and although I have a loving relationship to Ti, I periodically break down in self-disgust at my own inability to grasp the big picture of concepts or systems, which vantage point I could use to understand underlying qualities and generate explanations. Finally, I struggle with Fi, precisely because I am always choosing not bring it to the forefront to serve my Fe+Ti values of close connectivity with important people in my life.

But I am tired of understanding these limitations, and I want to move past them.

It occurred to me that I am pretty motivated when I reach for a structured ideal. I am not sure which type to me is the ideal; in a way I feel the strong qualities of an SLE-IEI match would provide for all my needs, but in the absence of willing SLEs and lacking the Se+Ti qualities myself, I think the ideal personality for myself would not be an IEI.

Of all the types in the Socion, if I could choose my own personality, I would choose to be an LII.

"With a combination of dominant  and , the LII is usually a conceptual thinker with clearly delineated views and ideologies. Unless life forces them to earn a living doing physical labor, the LII prefers to apply their analytical thinking skills to non-material aspects of things: planning organizational structures, developing ideas, analyzing data, and reaching conclusions. No matter what they do or where they work, the LII will have a distinct focus on clarifying thought and ways of looking at things." ~ LII profile, WikiSocion.org

With leading Ti, LIIs live with the sense of understanding the world as a systematized entity, and subsuming constant incoming data to a single worldview, where this view is perhaps biased but not exclusionary. If Filatova is to be trusted in suggesting LIIs subsume Ne to Ti  ("The LII does not come up with ideas simply for their own sake, but tries to relate everything back to "the main point". He quickly becomes impatient or disinterested with discussion that is simply meant to generate ideas, instead of realizing them") that kind of preoccupation with centrality and harmony is very appealing to me. This ultimate desire to create something real, despite the process being one of a kind of mental tinkering with concepts, is in a way aligned with my experience of Ni--I am interested in patterns in reality, not just for their own sakes but also for their meaning and application. Similarly I appreciate that "The LII strives to reduce things to their most essential aspects, and mentally recreate the whole from the bottom up." I especially like the worldview of Ti+Ne, where one is constantly expanding ideas but ultimately doing so in order to understand how they fit into a global structure. Most importantly to me, the LII as depicted is a vision of a person who is capable of fully understanding and thinking about various phenomena, boiling things down to their essential functions and experiencing methodological harmony. They are not just interested in Ti+Ne, they are capable in using them effectively. The rest of the IEs seem to fall into harmonious positions within that type in a way where those IEs seem appropriate to me.

As someone who knows how to create a comfortable environment--even if it doesn't come easily--I feel I could be self-sufficient as an LII, in that that aspect, together with the experience of Ti+Ne as 'feeding' myself on analysis and ideas, would allow me to happily and quietly exist without needing external support as much as I do as an IEI. The kinds of things an LII seeks via 5th and 6th functions do not seem to me to be as difficult to find from others as Se+Ti seem to be for me now... I am already interested in just about everything, but I am missing the ability to generate meaningful structures of explanation for cohesion.

We do not choose our types; types exist to explain and codify us as we are. For my self-development I will not keep looking to my type. Instead, I'm going to see if allowing myself to reach for the ways an LII would interact with and express themselves upon their world might be better for me personally.