Season 3, Episode 9 Transcript

Chase: Hey there. This is Chase of CSJoseph.life doing another video on our series for the 16 personalities according to Jungian analytical psychology. Today we’re going to be doing a deep dive in the first of the charter course also known as the see it through or finishers types. Today’s type is going to be the scholar, also known as the ISTJ, introverted, sensing, thinking and judging.

Chase: For those of you that don’t know very much about ISTJs, they’re really a very interesting piece of the traditionalists, that’s their temperament, past focused, duty based, protectors, safety oriented. In a lot of ways, I mean they are that, but they also do it from a very interesting point of view, and that is, they focus on collecting knowledge. They are the scholar and they approach things from this scholarly objectivity in almost every single area of their life.

Chase: That can also cause some difficulties for them in their personal relationships from a social standpoint, because they’re so focused on gathering knowledge and wisdom as much as they possibly can, it ends up taking away from their social skills. Often times ISTJs are completely unaware of social rules, social norms, social cadence I guess, where they’re just not able to really get with the social program. Any social situation like you throw an ISTJ into, they’re going to come out in some case, way, shape or form in socially awkward basically. They can come off socially awkward very easily in that area.

Chase: Now, luckily, they can learn from that, because they have a lot of memory. For example, let’s look at our trustee whiteboard here. Introverted sensing hero, because they’re able to remember all of their past experience as much as possible, because they have literally like the largest hard drive of the 16 types. The ISTJ is able to remember those social failures, and can compensate, well, poor INTJs they don’t really remember that, because they have Se inferior and it’s like, oh, it could be different this time and then they end up forgetting their past failures so they are doomed to repeat the same mistakes again and again and again. That risk is actually less so with ISTJs.

Chase: They are direct, responding movement, because they’re part of the chart the core see it through type. They are obsessed with finishing things. If they’re on a quest for knowledge or trying to get an answer to a particular question, they’ll obsess over trying to acquire that answer and research constantly book after book after book, article after article after article after article, spend time in the library, spend time in encyclopedias, being on Wikipedia at all times.

Chase: Even though ISTJs are the first type of all the 16 types to tell you how worthless and horrible Wikipedia is as a source, it’s often the very first place they ever go, which is hilarious to me. It’s kind of a little bit hypocritical in that way. I’ve been criticized many times from ISTJs about how I never cite my sources or my sources are not good enough, or my bibliography is crap or what’s my annotations. They are always the first person to ask what my credentials are at every time. To which I just respond to them, “Okay, Mr ISTJ, I don’t have credentials and quite frankly credentials are for people who would rather take what I say at face value instead of doing research on their own, because they’re lazy.”

Chase: That’s something really core to an ISTJ. Actually a lot of ISTJs end up getting stuck in this laziness rut, and that’s because of Si hero combined with Fi child. Fi child is like, “Oh I don’t feel like it or I’m not in the mood to find the answer right now, I’ll do it later.” They end up procrastinating and then they’re like, “Well, I’m not having good experience right now. I’m uncomfortable, I’m also not in the mood, so I’m not going to do anything about it right now.” That is very typical of ISTJs.

Chase: The problem is, is that they could get stuck in that position or that rut of familiarity, that rut of trying to be as comfy as possible, that rut of whether or not they’re in the mood to do something for the longest time. I know this guy that’s literally been in that same rut for 20 years, and he is like going nowhere as an ISTJ. You’d expect that he’d be the most intelligent person in the world, given that he’s a walking encyclopedia. The problem is, is that, he’s been so lazy going into that knowledge and trying to verify that knowledge, because you use your Ti critic to verify what you know. Why?

Chase: ISTJs are very critical towards what they know. They’re constantly concerned and critiquing themselves with whether or not they consider themselves an intelligent human being, and because of those critics, they expect other people to know. Why? Because they’re responsible with what other people know, they’re responsible with reference points. ISTJs talk reference points all the time.

Chase: Like they’re constantly talking history or this person said this or that person said that, or this article said this or that magazine here or that periodical here. They can really reference everything. They’re walking reference masters, reference machines. They do that. The problem is, is that very few ISTJs are in the mood or are comfortable enough in the moment to actually verify anything that they’d actually do know.

Chase: They end up, because of that inert inner laziness, they’re just willing to follow the bouncing ball. They’re willing to go with the general narrative of the collective. Even though culture as we know it is basically in a state of mass hypnosis, and the ISTJs perfectly fine with sticking their heads in the sand, simply because they’re not in the mood to do anything about it. That’s really sad.

Chase: An ISTJ who’s actually mature is someone who goes and verifies what they know, verifies all those reference points that they’ve gathered with their Te parent, verifies with their Ti critic and that’s how they actually develop true intelligence. That’s where they’re able to take all of the knowledge, this giant knowledge castle that they’ve gathered their Si hero and their Te parent. They’ve created this giant tower of knowledge inside of them, but the foundation is extremely weak. Well that foundation is built with Ti critic. Once they start verifying all that information, they have a strong foundation and that knowledge tower basically starts converting into a tower of wisdom, which is extremely important from a core philosophy standpoint of the ISTJ.

Chase: The ISTJ can start espousing wisdom based on all the experiences that they’ve learned as a result of gathering all of that data and referencing it with their Te parent, but then verifying with Ti critic. I cannot express how important it is for ISTJs to do this. If you know an ISTJ that’s being super lazy, and just as they are accusing you of verifying all of your information, you need to make sure that they are verifying theirs. Guess what, ISTJs for the most part in general don’t. They actually don’t verify and that’s the problem. They end up believing the craziest things.

Chase: Like they end up believing the lie that cholesterol causes heart disease, that was debunked years ago, right? It’s because they’re so many ISTJs, it’s one of the most common of all the types to be honest, because there are so many of them, people still believe to this day that cholesterol causes heart disease, that’s not true. It’s sugar actually. I mean, if ISTJs collectively would actually verify anything for once, maybe the collective would start believing things differently, okay, right, that would make sense.

Chase: Why is it that ISTJs didn’t even do that? I’ll tell you. It’s because of their subconscious, their ENFP subconscious. Remember, we just talked about ENFPs. ENFPs are all about bringing social change and advocating and championing the proper ideas. Being sympathetic with a cause. Well, the ISTJs are to be sympathetic with the truth, because they verified with their Ti critic. Then if they know the truth, they need to be sympathetic for, which means they need to advocate for it and tell it to people to stop being stupid. That is what ISTJs are made for.

Chase: They exist to prevent other people, prevent society from being stupid, because they are these walking library of Alexandrias, all over the place, these ISTJs, but nope, they’re too lazy. They don’t feel like it. They’re not comfortable with doing that right now. I’m in my comfort zone, I’m cool, I’m stuck in my rut, it’s all good man. I don’t need to advocate for this right now. I’m not in the mood for it.

Chase: They’re like, come on guys. Why the hell are you even spending so much time trying to be objective and gather all this information where you’re not going to even use it even one time. Like seriously, stop and get off your ass, and do something about it. I am so sick and tired of ISTJs doing this, and then they just lower it over to everybody else.

Chase: Like, “Oh hey, I know so much more about it than you do, so obviously you have no opinion right? You’re not even able to cite your sources and I can, just fine, yay. That means your opinion is irrelevant.” Like, “Okay Mr ISTJ, whatever. You obviously haven’t verified anything yourself either,” because they’re too lazy to use their own Ti critic. Like come on, stop it.

Chase: That’s the difference between mature and immature ISTJs right there. Like a mature ISTJ would verify everything they know, and then come out and finally have that inner wisdom, that inner tower that’s based on a foundation of truth, not a foundation on references. Just because we feel good about these references, doesn’t necessarily make them true.

Chase: Credentials, in front of names, certifications, oh this guy is the label of expert, we must trust him. Okay ISTJs, yeah, no that’s not how it works. You can have all the experts in the world and they’ll tell you one thing, but you know what, there’s a really good chance that those experts collectively are wrong. Why is that? I can’t believe I’m going to say this, but Men in Black, Tommy Lee Jones played a character named K and he looked to Will Smith playing a character named J, and he said, “People are dumb, crazy animals, but a person is smart.”

Chase: That’s true. When people are collectively together, they can succumb to group thinking. ISTJs are definitely not an exception to that rule. They only become an exception when they mature and they mature by using their Ti critic to verify what’s true. I can’t stress this enough. ISTJs out there, if you’re watching this video, stop being lazy, get out of your rut, take action.

Chase: The world will not change until you do. We have to change the world, we have to make it a better place, and it’s up to you to find out all the information and then find out what’s actually true. Develop that wisdom with your Ti critic and then find out what the truth is. Then deliver it to everybody through their ENFP subconscious, deliver it, advocate, show us what the correct ideas are. Prevent us from being stupid from making stupid policies, stupid laws that hurt people, that hurt children.

Chase: You need to help us get a better future. It’s your responsibility, but you’re not doing your responsibility right now. Instead, you’re lazy at home playing video games or not really caring or being a couch potato or just not really being trivial with your life right? That’s what ISTJs are all about. They’re trying to be objective, but they get so lazy that, that objectivity, all of that data that they’ve gathered just becomes trivial. It’s a complete and total waste, an absolute waste. That’s the problem I have with ISTJs. They need to not be a waste.

Chase: I know some ISTJs out there that are not a waste, that do verify everything they say. They absolutely make sure beyond a shadow of a doubt that they are on the side of truth. I know one who’s a journalist, and for the longest time, he was not on the side of truth and he would keep on just getting really lazy and relying on other people, other reference points for his stories. Until one day someone wrote a letter to the editor complaining about how even the reference points that he was positing were not actually true, and actually proved in this little letter to the editor how it was not correct and his reputation was destroyed. Then everyone around them thought less of him and he actually ended up losing his job at this newspaper he worked for. Awesome, because that was a huge life lesson, because of that, to this day, he uses his Ti critic to make sure that anything that he writes is as accurate as possible.

Chase: His reputation, his status, especially those that think about him, his audience is on the line and he never will make that mistake again. Of course, when he did he was kind of fresh out of college. Nowadays, he’s actually a really good journalist and very capable in Washington State. He’s one of the best journalists in the area, and I have a lot of respect for the guy ever since he’s done that.

Chase: Introvert sensing hero, it’s all about remembering things, past focused, it’s where their sense of duty exist, their sense of loyalty exists. It also make someone like remember everything. Te parent helps them collect references points, we just talked about that. Si plus Te it creates that walking encyclopedia. Fi child is all about their moral compass. ISTJs look at themselves and believe that they’re very moral people, and could be sympathetic to causes that matter to them, causes that they feel are good to support or causes that they feel are bad to support and they’ll have nothing to do with them whatsoever. That moral compass is key.

Chase: If Fi child doesn’t feel good about a situation, it’s not going to have anything to do with it, it’s just going to immediately just either mentally checkout or physically checkout. Like they’ll leave, they won’t even do that. Extrovert intuition inferior, ISTJs are often afraid of fate, they are afraid of our collective future. You can talk to ISTJs ask them about the direction society is going, and they’re going to say it’s going to fail. They’re going to say that society is on the cusp of absolute catastrophic failure. That’s because when they look into the future of the first world society or the USA or this country et cetera, they really have that point of view. They see it failing. Why? It’s because they’ve been analyzing the pattern of history, they know the first law of time, all that has happened before will happen again. They see that history repeats itself.

Chase: ISTJs more than any of the other types are aware that history repeats itself. No one is more aware of that fact, and they can measure that pattern better than anyone else of the 16 types, especially with their walking library of Alexandria, where they are constantly aware of history. ISTJs are major history buffs and should absolutely remain history buffs for them to be effective. As long as they’re verifying everything they possibly can, and make sure that they’re not reading revisionist history, which is very common all over the world, not just in the United States of America, but it’s common everywhere.

Chase: It’s because the victor is who writes the history books. You don’t believe me, read the 48 laws of power by Robert Green and then you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about. Anyway, extrovert intuition inferior, so they’re constantly want to feel safe about the future, so they end up not feeling safe about it. It’s one of the reasons why it drives them to become this library of Alexandrias, because if they can realize that they can find a possible future, that is ideal, a possible future that would work for society, for their community, for their family, it’s any group of people, whatsoever.

Chase: It also includes their own future along with it, they will find the answers to the questions that would solve those problems. Then they are able to aspire, because they are confident in those answers and they become the ENFP and they start advocating for those ideas properly using their rationale, using their morality. They believe it is their moral duty to tell others about the future that’s coming, a better future that they can have. They do that with their ENFP subconscious and they’re able to drive those ideas to others. Create brands, create awareness, become these insane activists and show people what data and statistics from Te parent exactly how if they just changed their decisions, this one way, we can all have a better future, a better tomorrow.

Chase: ISTJs are fantastic that way, but the only way that’s even possible is if again Ti critic they verify what they know. That way they’re not spitting out lies or they’re not at risk of repeating lies or repeating things that are inaccurate. I know ISTJs all the time who believe their objective when the reality they’re being trivial and then they end up positing information that is completely inaccurate. They don’t even know it. Just because they have confidence and those experts who are credentialed, yay, we must be able to trust them, right? Then they end up succumbing to group thinking and espousing lies their whole lives, instead of actually espousing truth, which is what they should be doing. I mean come on, who actually is mature out there? Let’s be honest.

Chase: Extroverted sensing nemesis, okay, this is a good one. Something about ISTJs, I know this, I had an ISTJ co-worker recently, her name was Susan. She dealt with a divorce and it was pretty crazy. When I met her she was a really big girl, and then when I started working with her, she slimmed down and she’s like really fantastic. She’s gotten really healthy. Why is that? Well, because she worries about what impression she’s showing to other people.

Chase: First impressions are everything to ISTJs. Giving first impressions and receiving first impressions. They know that because they’re heroic and with what they experience and what they taste in life, they expect that they are also giving others a really good experience because they’re receiving good experiences or expect good experiences from other people.

Chase: They are constantly trying to give other people a good experience, it’s like, “Oh hey, I’m going to go out of my way to dress well. I’m going to make sure that it’s always professional or it’s always proper,” and that’s the same thing across any social event they go to. They are always are dressed for the situation. They’re always are committed to giving others good experience, but it goes even beyond that.

Chase: Another way to look at it is, how ISTJs especially in their own homes, especially like the main decision maker of their home or if the home is theirs et cetera, they have ownership of the home. This is male or female, they go out of their way to make sure it is as clean as possible, because they’re always worrying constantly, because the nemesis function is where a person’s worry exist, right? They’re always worrying constantly that the physical environment’s going to give someone a bad experience, so they are clean freaks. They go out of their way cleaning absolutely everything.

Chase: Although ISTJs get into relationships with SPs and SPs let’s be honest are not the cleanliest people in the world, because they’re just constantly moving around in whatever’s interesting to them at that moment in time is not really as much of a big deal. Although SPs after a while things get dirty will trigger them and then they’ll end up springing to action, but usually their ISTJ counterpart is already completely on top of it. The ISTJ counterpart cannot, doesn’t feel good about having an experience of living in a dirty environment, so they constantly are focused on making the environment as clean as possible.

Chase: Now, if they’re not doing that, it’s probably because they’re in their lazy rut, or they’re not in the mood to do it at that point in time. Eventually it will trigger them enough that they’ll immediately spring to action and they will make sure that environment is as clean as possible. Another thing about ISTJs, like they are those people that they’re going to point out that your shoe’s untied, they’re going to, they see like dog hair on your shirt, they’re going to pick that off your shirt. I mean they do that too, just like some of the other types do, but ISTJs join those group of people, they’ll definitely pull that off of your clothing and whatnot and just be aware of that guys, that is something that they do with their Se nemesis.

Chase: We’ve already talked about Ti critic really extensively. It’s just their commitment to wisdom and to knowing the truth, and as long as they verify everything, if an ISTJ goes out of their way to verify everything, all of their references and reference points and then and verify their knowledge, then they’ll be, definitely great. Fe trickster, we’ve kind of already talked a little bit as well, they really struggle with social situations, they don’t always know what the social cadence or the social rules, the unspoken social rules of the situation in terms of how to behave. Luckily, even though they can be super socially awkward and like they could be literally those people that will follow you into the restroom, then they’ll start talking to you while you’re taking a dump.

Chase: I mean I’ve seen plenty of ISTJs do that, but when they know that they’ve broken some kind of social code or social rule or people are telling them, “Hey, you’re coming off as socially awkward,” the Se nemesis will kick in and realize, oh crap, I’m giving people a bad experience. Then their Si hero catalogs it and stores it away, saying okay, I did this action in at this point in time. I realized I did something wrong here socially, so I’m not going to do it again.

Chase: Over time the ISTJ can easily cope with Fe trickster way better than the INTJ can with Fe trickster. The INTJ is basically helpless, though the ISTJ, they could actually compensate it with introverted sensing hero in this way. Now I wouldn’t say it’s entirely hopeless for INTJs, but it’s pretty close. It takes them about twice, maybe three times as long to figure out than ISTJs. Of course, then again ISTJs are part of the SJ traditional temperament and we live in an SJ society, so people just kind of give ISTJs a free pass, whereas they don’t give INTJs a free pass at all, which is like really frustrating and unfair. I hate type bias, let me tell you.

Chase: Then Ni demon, now, if you don’t listen to an ISTJs warnings, because they will warn you about the things in the future. If you do not, and if they see something coming and you ignore it, but then ends up giving them a bad experience or if it ends up hurting their reputation or their status, all because you decided not to listen to their warnings, they will want to hurt you. They will want to, okay, fine, that’s how it was, next time you come to me for advice, I’m going to give you advice.

Chase: INFJ super ego is very willing to give advice. It exists to give people bad advice, advice that would literally lead the person to light themselves on fire basically. Yeah, sure, please follow all of my instructions to the letter, so that you can gain the benefit of all the wisdom and advice that I have. Too bad for you that if you follow my directions it will lead to your death. That’s basically how INFJs super ego works.

Chase: They will willfully want to do this to you, because you are being willful in causing them to have a bad experience, because they see the bad experience coming and you’re ignoring their warnings. Do not ignore the warnings of an ISTJ, they know what they’re doing. ISTJs like career wise, this is why they’re accountants. They can see when bad financial times are coming. They’re very good at being lawyers, especially contract lawyers, they can tell you when there’s some dangerous fine print.

Chase: Of course, they would know, right, they have an ENFP subconscious. ENFPs are all about fine print, we just talked about that in the last video. Contracts are very central to ISTJs. They exist to be as safe as possible and warn others that there might be something bad with this particular contract or this rule or this clause or this terms of service or this disclaimer et cetera, because the ISTJ is constantly committed to covering their own ass. You can, because they’re so good at covering their own ass, they can cover the ass of other people.

Chase: Talk to the ISTJs, get their assistance when it comes to legal advice or anything that has any legalize or protection, even accounting, they are amazing at it. If you don’t listen to their advice, you’re going to screw yourself. You’re going to lose and you’re going to find yourself in a situation and then they’re going to be like, “Well, you didn’t listen to me, so why should I bother giving you any advice any more?”

Chase: That’s the external component, but internalizing, do not ignore their warnings, because they’re going to warn you about something. If it directly affects them, and it goes south because you ignored them, their Ni demon will come out and their Ni demon will want to harm you. It will want to destroy your social reputation. It will want to give you a bad experience and make you as uncomfortable as possible. It will be giving you advice, but that advice will be bad and that advice will be tailored specifically to screw you over and to screw over your now basically.

Chase: Yeah, also screw over the relationships of other people and cause you to give other people a bad experience. Then you have even more blow back from those people. Anyway, that is today’s video on ISTJs. If you found this video helpful or educational, please hit the like and subscribe. If you have any questions about ISTJs, go ahead and live it in the comment section, I will be happy to answer any of your questions relating to ISTJs. They’re a library of Alexandria component, they’re verification component or the fact that they’re so scholarly et cetera or maybe their laziness or they’re prone to being lazy, they’re prone to being trivial et cetera. By all means ask whatever questions and I’ll do my best to answer them as quickly as possible.

Chase: With all that, I’ll be doing probably another video tonight, and definitely one tomorrow, so I’ll see you then.