#ennea4

Brainstorming with Niko (7w6 ESFP, he don’t need no Tumblr), moulded bread at the midnight crossroad and a chant rendition of American Pie:

1: connection

2: reception

3: mentorship

4: expression

5: stimulation

6: unification

7: inspiration

8: liberation

9: manifestation

Imagine this. You’re an enneagram Five.

You feel the need to hide from the world. It would suck up all your energy. You feel the need to occupy as little space as possible, so that the world won’t make any demands on you. You feel the need to close off and keep the world at a distance. The world is just so demanding. It tires you out - physically, emotionally, mentally. You retreat in your cocoon, where you feel safer. You observe the world from the outside.  You vaguely wonder what it’s like to roam around freely and occupy as much as space as everyone else seem to be doing naturally. Then you decide that you’re better off staying where you are. At least here you don’t feel invaded all the time. You remember vividly the times in the past where you felt invaded, or can remember if you try hard enough. It felt overwhelming. It felt like you were being teared apart, dissipating, disappearing. Like you were nothing and no one. It hurted. It hurted so much you now just closed off the entire world out, so as not the end up in that situation again. It somewhat makes you nostalgic, because you feel like you’ve given up on love. But if that’s what it takes to be an individual and find yourself again, then that’s fine. That’s fine, you tell yourself. Rather than reliving that nightmare, giving up on love is fine, you say. So you catch yourself resisting. Resisting to the flux, resisting on giving up yourself again to that person who seemed to demand too much out of you, who spoke with you gently and wanted to make you feel seen. Resist, resist, resist. Resist the impulse of giving yourself up. Maybe in the past this need was almost neurotic and brought you regret. Resist - that’s the way you find a sense of self, almost. What are you resisting? What are you trying to avoid to be impacted by? Why do you try so hard to isolate and find a sense of self? Deep inside you know. It’s because you feel so desperately the want and desire to be loved and to love that it’s overwhelming. You fear you may give yourself up too easily if you were to just give a tiny tidbit of yourself to the world. If you accept feeling seen once you’ll want to be seen over and over again. If you accept to be loved by someone you feel like you may end up being engulfed by that love and to lose yourself in it completely. But you need to resist that impulse, so that you won’t lose yourself. Why do you need to resist so much? Because you would otherwise lose yourself in the flux of reality and people. Because you would otherwise be invaded by the world, pulled in, lose control of yourself, your wants and desires. Yeah, maybe this is all a recurring theme of yours, I can’t possibly know. You realize your little bubble and space is indeed related to the outside world, in the sense that you’re resisting to be involved by it so much. Maybe one day you’ll be able to be involved and touched by it like everyone else. Maybe one day you’ll be able to love and be loved again. But right now that sounds a little terrifying, truth be told... If you were to be described like a lonely rover on Mars you would giggle, thinking that’s cute and makes you feel independent and all, but also... deep inside you feel it’s actually kind of sad, and you wish there was a way to at least keep some kind of contact to the earth.

I don’t know how to break it to you but this is all Enneagram Nine. Throw out the window all the generic descriptions about being a fucking doormat.

From here:

“9’s aren’t consciously afraid of being separated. They are just unconsciously always in a place where they naturally become everyone/everything. The gut centre focus is on ego boundaries and 9’s have a fluid one. This can often cause 9’s to consciously revolt against this natural process and crystallize some kind of separate identity. In a way, 9’s can end up being the most stubborn about exactly “who they are” as they try to keep their feet firmly on the ground in terms of their own ego boundary. So when a 9 reads that the core fear is “fear of loss/separation” they might think, “Hell, I’m the opposite.” 9’s often equate being different/unique with ego boundaries. I often catch 9’s mistyped as 4’s using specific language that points to type 9. For example they might say that they are just trying to be themselves as if the world is forcing them to be otherwise. This implies that there’s a natural propensity to lose themselves in others that’s essentially unconscious and they are fighting against that impulse and desperately want the validation that they are in fact a specific separate personality. It is in our nature as social beings to want our own unique identity.“

What are Fives then? Are they really actually SEPARATED THAT much? Like they were “a lonely rover on Mars” and GENUINELY happy by that idea? Apparently yes. “Oh but that’s unhealthy” yeah it is, from your Nine point of view of wanting to be connected to someone/something/reality. I don’t know much about Fives but if your enneatype is UNCONSCIOUS and its desires are as unconscious as mine as a Nine are, then yeah, they are genuinely happy by that idea and don’t think themselves of “getting over it” anywhere near the future, or ever, for that matter. Is it difficult to imagine a person like that? I guess. Fives are rare, in fact. “Oh but everyone wants to be loved by people deep inside” I don’t know? But that may be untrue in that most people are Nines so it makes sense that “oh but everyone-” and Nineish stuff actually follows. They may want/find love but it will only be in their rigid terms... and certainly not in the form of being liked by people in general or whatever. Having a repressed need to be liked by people around you is just not Five, sorry. “Oh but who wants to be hated/disliked by people around them?” I don’t know, some do I guess. There’s many people in the world not everyone will work like you do. Fives are rigid about what they want and how they spend their time. As I tried to connect with people, I was kind of malleable - I mean, not too much, in that I wanted to respect myself and my space, but I still had very little expectations from others coming in and was willing to adapt.

I felt like I was “growing and getting healthy” as I started to connect with people more and more, and in a way I am, but the main thing is that I’ve been satisfying my Nine desires more and more through the years. Allowed myself to recognize those desires and do something to satisfy them. That’s nice, but that’s Nine. Even an healthy Five wouldn’t be as happy to give away their time like that or something idk

The happiest times in my life where those where I felt connected to reality, to my own life and to the people around me. I struggled to get that feeling for a long time, truth be told. And when I got it, I was afraid I could ruin it. That sounded basic but apparently it really is just Nine. I heard a podcast with a couple Fives in it and it was just mindblowing how differently they operate lmao..... I mean when I first heard it I still thought I was a Five but I was sad and hurt at the idea of being lost in space and disconnected THAT much from everyone and everything. That was Nine kicking in. Fives aren’t that scared of this - actually, they want this. Again, unconsciously - like they don’t even notice it. I did notice when I retreated myself in my cocoon, on the other hand.

INTJ | 4w5 | 458 mood board ?

Not sure how much this can be generalized since it's only my personal experience. When I was a pre-teen my best friend used to be a so/sx 6w7, while I am 9w1 sp/so. Sp dom vs Sp blind... some stuff went down and it’s fascinating to analyze such differences to me (I feel like I'm fascinated by sp blinds in general wtf).

She was the V immature of the pair, throwing herself in any possible weird experience she could have just for the sake of it. She would always cause so much drama it was legit concerning and I always was on the sidelines, not participating and sometimes suggesting her to stop, but did she listen to me? Never, and also, in some ways, I think I did in fact understand her desire to feel alive and feel stuff and do dumb stuff, possibly in that I am sx-blind and I won't fucking allow myself to do that, while she totally did. I guess, I don't usually pay any mind to my sx-blindness but the only time that it kind of felt like I was missing on something was when I would spend time with her? And also now that I'm actually studying the instictual variants I guess I'm starting to realize it (but also not really there's a shit ton of work to do). She would always act as if she was the protagonist of some weird 19th romantic novel but, make it dumber (we were 11-12 after all, how smart could we be?).

I deeply, deeply understand her need and wish to be like a novel protagonist. I do think of myself in that way quite often. But while she did it by acting and getting actively involved in stuff, I’ve always done the same by hyper-interpreting my simpler, more boring experiences (9 basic bitch here, feeling attached to something while being withdrawn and out of touch with your body results in amazing fantasy sky castles). She was never satisfied by this.

If she wanted intensity, she would create it by idk, doing some dumb stuff she would for sure later regret. While she went on to feel so alive, I would stay in the back overthinking my more boring life. An example would be that while she actually acted so that everyone around us hated her and shunned her, I would simply feel and think I was being shunned as well, but in practice I would never do something that would elicit a strong reaction out of others. I basically fantasized about it. As you can tell her being a Social Dominant I guess she got the sx juice she wanted through social stuff (her reputation, going against the social system (social 6s often do that)).

In so many ways, if I were to simplify it, she was a mixture of Dorian Gray and Heathcliff and I was Des Esseintes. She was an edgier version of Dorian Gray, wanting to experience everything but make it dark and painful and tormented (a là Heathcliff), not once holding herself back. Des Esseintes, on the other hand, would also feel like a misfit and a tormented soul but he did so by staying inside his house and hyper-interpreting his experiences to an insane degree, until he basically starts to hallucinate. He barely goes outside of his home and when he does everything seems weird, scary, magical in its own way, and while a bit creepy that’s also part of being sx-blind I think? You secretly want that way of feeling alive via the dark things in life (not sure if my fixes have a part in this as idk other 9s may not relate to this maybe) but also you want to go about it safely (sp) and by not exposing yourself (9), so it becomes like wearing a pair of glasses that adds a layer of poetry and beauty and suffering to an otherwise normal, boring and inane reality (again, 9 fantasy shit). But that’s about it. It’s a magical pair of glasses that at times I feel like I can remove and put on at will when I’m bored and I feel like I want more out of life. Outsourcing sx if you will w/o ever acting on this shit. I relate to Des Esseintes even though he was possibly a sp 4 but whatever I guess...

My old friend, being sp-blind, of course did not feel the same need for “safety” and had nothing to hold her back, really... the 6w7 sp blind brings a lot of energy and a way to never be able to fucking stand still, so yeah... it was so fascinating to see her act that differently from me, but also empathizing with her desire to get MORE out of life and dive into the darker aspects of it. I guess that’s why I sticked with her even when I thought she was being unreasonable and annoyingly melodramatic. Most people would shun her and don’t get her ways and while I can’t say that I got her, I would at least sympathise with her wish to experience more and be dramatic, even if I couldn’t quite elaborate it at the time and I superficially thought she was being too immature (this is so funny, we were fucking 10 and we were already doing instictual stuff with me acting like the adult one idk. Also w1 may play a part in this shit. Me being sp dom felt like I was supposed to check on her but also I didn't really do it because it was fun to tag along with her dumb stuff). But while she had the courage(?) to act on such a wish, I did not - I never had it, and instead compensated by having an hyperactive mental landscape...

There was a Wilde’s quote that went like, “the artist always represents what they themselves cannot live and experience”, or whatever, and I’ve always related to it way too deeply, lmao. I would represent, think, imagine, write the stories, and instead she would actively live them. Also Wilde was a so/sx so I guess that means something

While I may be bitter, because even as a sx-blind I at times feel....... like I want to live and get involved in stuff more? also I guess 9s have a way to dissociate with their life quite easily so that doesn't help (a sx-blind 7 would probably feel like they're getting involved more). Plus possibly having a 5fix makes it worse? it kind of sucks tbfh. Like it feels I've been dissociated since I was 4 yo and never got back to actual earth wtf. 95x sp/so may be the most fucking boring thing on earth + it may bring a neurotic need to keep your little bubble untouched by real life and finding security in that bubble, to the point that you're actually missing out. Idk. I may *do* stuff to make me feel like I'm going around with people more but it doesn't really affect me that deeply so yeah... fuck all of this. It's not even the same as being stuck in your comfort zone? I guess it is but again I may at times challenge myself in some small ways and have new experiences but it's like nothing really reaches me idk.

Again, I usually prefer to go about stuff safely (aka not disrupting my little bubble too much), and in this way, I’ve always had way less regrets than her - so in this, I’m actually fine with my way of playing it safe. I like letting myself wear that pair of glasses when I feel like it and call it a day. I’ve always been content with very little...

Though honestly I’ve not been hanging out with her in years (at least 8 years, wow) and while I do hear from her I can’t say I can get to see how much she’s changed, lol

It was weird, you’d expect that with such a melodramatic friend the break up would be at least as dramatic, instead it has been quite the opposite - we simply slowly stopped reaching out to each other once we had nothing much in common anymore, and something else going on with our lives, lmao...

Not dumb. We actually have access to the inner void more than others. "Holy crap do I exist?? Am I here??" bullshit

We smart by associating things together and viewing general trends (eg philosphical trends of thought). Can focus on specifics but thats boring man. Would rather study an entire philosophical trend than just a certain part of the theory of one philosopher. Big picture. The whole. How does this fit in the bigger context. Etc. (This is not mbti sensing. You can focus on the specifics of a certain theory and still be intuitive)

Weird capability to be instantly attuned to your own physiological and psychosomatic states but also easily able to just tune them out and ignore them (I notice my emotional reactions through this most of the time. Otherwise I dont think Id even notice them)

I actually like conflict it energizes me. But then like. Not too dramatic though. Not "we actually falling apart" conflict but more like "eh we have highs and lows" conflict. It makes the rp more real and united so I weirldy feel more UnityTM bs after/during a conflict

Maybe I just havent experienced actual heavy conflict? (Doubting your own experiences is also a nine thing. and a pain in the butt)

Going "same" all the time. Feeling kinda comforted that other people are going through the same shit as you do. Oh who doesnt you said? Well. 4s

Again, "I need to find myself again after social interactions" is just a nine thing. Why werent you yourself around others girl? You felt like the universe was pushing you into its orbit and wanted to make you part of the flux of reality? Yeah. Yeah thats the point

Idk how to tell you this but emotional masochism and self harm can be nine bullshit. I need to write an essay on how I spent so much time diving into my own inner pain on purpose and it wasnt fuxking related to 4 in any way. (Spoiler: it gave me a sense of self I didnt feel I had otherwise)

Taking showers, snuzzling in blankets, exercising, eating a bit too much/too little, not actually minding physical pain etc, all just to feel your body again bc it otherwise feels like its just evaporating all the time. Its like idk porous. Im air.

Thinking youre a 5 or a 4 bc your "actual self" its whats "inside" and felt when you "close off", while what you show to people its just "not you" or "for convenience"

I have opinions, likes and dislikes, and can assert myself. Except when its actually crucially important and I may lose a relationship w someone and feel strong emotions

Being like "Oh I care so much about you" a second before and then "I dont feel anything" as soon as the person is actually gone forever

Basically its all or nothing. Either youre part of me and my universe or youre not. Cant actually stand the separation and chaotic bit - your emotions naturally bring you to a static and still place, whether it is w x person or not

Wondering if what youre feeling is real or not. Whatever that means

Disliking strong emotions and reactions

Feeling said emotions and reactions but then they just slip away and you feel empty like nothing ever happened. Did x actually impacted me in a meaningful way? I have no way of knowing

I am sea. My reactions are just a wave after another. They may be strong now, but they wont afterwards.

I think it's capitalism's fault