Our dreams and ideals are among our deepest sources of meaning. But they aren’t just pretty pictures hanging on the walls of our inner life. They call us. They move us. They want to be materialized—to be made real. And the only way that happens is through us. The onus is on us to give them form, breath, and embodiment. Every idea is, by nature, linked to action. Even mundane acts like going to the store are predicated on an idea. No idea, no action.
But here’s where things get tricky. The most meaningful ideas—the ones tied to our identity, worldview, or sense of purpose—also tend to be the most ambitious. The bigger the idea, the greater the gulf between its essence and its expression. And the wider that gulf, the more daunting and uncertain its realization becomes.
This creates a dilemma: big dreams fill us with meaning and purpose, but they also demand more of us. Eventually, they push us to act. But once we begin to act, we encounter resistance and obstacles—internal doubts, external setbacks, and painful disillusionments that can shake our belief in our original vision.
For those of us who are meaning-sensitive—especially Intuitives (N) and Introverts (I)—the emotional cost of these setbacks can feel immense. When our attempts to bring our visions to life are thwarted or fall short of our expectations, we may spiral into self-doubt, retreat into abstraction, or even fall into despair. If these frustrations occur often enough, we may conclude that no effort is ever good enough—that trying is futile. And from there, depression can take root.
So how do we navigate this chasm between vision and reality?
One common strategy is to narrow the scope of our vision to make it more achievable—more “realistic.” While this can aid implementation, it often feels deflating for idealists. Scaling back from “changing the world” to “helping my neighbor” may increase our odds of success, but it can also feel like a loss of meaning or grandeur, as though we’ve traded something vital for something merely manageable.
Another strategy involves developing resilience, learning to stay the course and maintain hope despite struggles and setbacks. This route works well for some individuals, while proving challenging for others. For those who burn out or get overwhelmed, it may seem easier to retreat to their dreamspace and try again later with a rekindled vision.
A third path—sketched by Elaine Schallock in her insightful INFJ book, Beyond Rare—involves the use of “simulations,” which she defines as:
Low-stakes experiments that make use of the faculties routinely employed in everyday life, but which are instead conducted in highly controlled environments where the actual consequences in the outside world are minimal.
For example, INTJs might play strategic war games or build models with Legos—symbolic stand-ins for military planning or engineering—without incurring real-world risks. Artists, philosophers, and scientists do something similar, constructing abstract frameworks, stories, or symbolic systems that mirror or model reality while keeping it at arm’s length. It’s a way of practicing reality without fully entering it.
Despite their utility as a source of meaning and preparation, Schallock suggests that simulations may not be fully satisfying in the long run. Wittingly or not, something in us realizes that we’re still not engaging in “real life” but are stuck in preparation mode:
Though they may not be consciously aware of it, by continually engaging in simulations, they are ostensibly preparing themselves for that elusive moment when they can “finally start living.” Once complete mastery is achieved, they reason, they can finally move into action.
Let’s go a level deeper by considering what part of us feels unprepared for real life and requires simulated training to achieve more competence. Usually, it’s the area we feel least confident in. It’s often the domain of our inferior function—the psychological opposite of our type’s dominant function.
As an INTP, for example, I’ve spent much of my life circling around my inferior Feeling (F) function—trying to understand human emotion and the social world from a safe, intellectual distance. Rather than diving into emotionally vulnerable or relationally complex experiences, I spent years observing, reading, and analyzing—essentially simulating them.
Marie-Louise von Franz offers an important insight here. She notes that our inferior function can often feel like the most real and most important part of us. It’s the missing piece we long for. And it draws us—sometimes obsessively—into quests for mastery, integration, or wholeness. She writes:
The inferior function subjectively feels itself to be the real (dominant) one. It feels itself the more important, more genuine attitude.
This makes things even more complicated. While the inferior function may feel like our Holy Grail—the key to everything we’re missing—we can’t rely on it in the same way we do our dominant function. It’s more unconscious, elusive, and unpredictable, like a mysterious muse who appears and vanishes on her own terms.
Still, the pursuit of the inferior function is vital to our sense of meaning and our longing for psychological wholeness. It fuels our curiosity, sustains our hope, and keeps us reaching beyond ourselves. If we could master it too easily, we’d lose interest. If it remained forever out of reach, we’d lose heart. Its value lies in the tension between possibility and limitation.
Now in the thick of midlife, I find myself oscillating between direct and abstract engagement with my inferior function. After periods of immersion in emotionally vulnerable or relational spaces, I often retreat. I fall back into simulations and abstractions to reorient and regain a sense of coherence and hope. Indeed, that’s how this post was born. Following this process of inner realignment, I step back out into the world again.
This engage-retreat cycle can be a bit disheartening if we measure our progress by linear standards. We may wonder why, despite all our insight and effort, growth still feels slow or uneven. Why our inferior function, after all these years, still trips us up.
This is why patience and grace are essential. Not the kind of grace that lets us off the hook, but the kind that softens our inner critic. The kind that realizes growth isn’t a straight line.
Earlier I mentioned resilience, which we often equate with grit, toughness, or sheer will. But there’s a quieter type of resilience too—the kind that’s rooted in acceptance, trust, and wisdom. It’s the resilience of not giving up on meaning, even when we falter. Of honoring both our effort and our limitations.
The truth is we can’t fully control the timeline of our transformation. But we can participate in it. We can continue to co-create with life—showing up, retreating when necessary, and returning again with renewed vision. If we can keep this dance alive, we stand a better chance of making meaning not just a dream—but a reality.
If you’re currently navigating questions of identity, direction, or life purpose and want a more structured path forward, our online course—Finding Your Path as INFP, INTP, ENFP, or ENTP—was designed with you in mind. It builds on many of the ideas explored here, offering reflective guidance and exercises to clarify your vision and help bring it to life. You can learn more here.
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