It ALL feels like "work..."

I recognized-- quite early in life-- that I was fundamentally a lazy person. At age eight-- when I told my mother that the reason I hadn't tidied my room was that I was "too lazy"-- I had no idea there was such a creature as "The Enneagram."

Laziness carries very negative connotations in the western world, especially in the US... a nation driven by a work-work-work ethic.

Claudio Naranjo sometimes uses the word "accidia" to describe the inner states of enneagram Nines. Accidia is derived from Greek, and refers to the original "Deadly Sin" of Sloth... ultimately with a definition that touches primarily on emotional and spiritual apathy.

I have been trying to drill down into how I feel about "laziness," and how I experience it-- and don't experience it.

In my core, I experience pretty much all activity that requires me to "engage" as WORK. Besides this sense that everything feels like "working," I experience a subtler subtext that working places me in a position of "obligation," and I harbor resentments about "feeling obligated."

In simple terms, I live with an inner dynamic in which "doing anything" or "movement" (spiritual, physical, emotional, psychological) never equates with "fun" and always equates with "work."

I think it is human nature-- unless we're truly mentally ill-- dictates that we're drawn towards whatever feels "rewarding" and makes us "feel good." Similarly, we tend to shy away from things that do not "feel good." That has nothing to do with enneagram type, and everything to do with being alive.

So, if your nature is to be a super-active person, being in motion "feels good," so you do it. And "sitting still" probably "feels bad" (or "incomplete") so you avoid it. For me, "sitting still" feels good. Movement, work and "obligations" do not feel good.

There are few things I like more (aka: that "feel good") than sitting down, with the knowledge that "nothing needs to be done." There are few things I like more than completely emptying my head of all activity, to where there is just silence.

Is this laziness?

Rather than make an argument "for" or "against," I'll answer with a question: "By WHOSE yardstick do we determine what constitutes laziness?"

Who-- if ANYbody-- is "right" and "wrong?"

If we throw social norms out the window and momentarily forget that we "live in the US of A, where we work HARD, by golly!" and instead look at activity levels as a spectrum of "preferences," what do we end up with?

Metaphorically speaking, some people like coffee a LOT, and some people don't like coffee, at ALL. Some people are COLD when it is 70 degrees, some people are WARM. Some people like to be very ACTIVE, some do NOT.

For me, one of the downfalls/shortfalls of the "modern" (psycho-spiritual) enneagram is its tendency to focus very heavily on the enneagram types "in their fixations." Aside from the work of Riso & Hudson, remarkably little time is given to describing and characterizing what a healthy ennegram type "looks like." The problem with this approach is that it fails to sort out simple preferences (i.e. "I like coffee"), from the mental/emotional disturbances that are our "fixations" (let's call that "I'm AFRAID of coffee.").

Of course, I'm not blind to the fact that the majority focus of the "modern" enneagram is on "fixing" people through books, self-help seminars and so forth.

I guess the "issue" I have with all this-- and the reason I started writing-- is that this extensive focus on enneagram fixations can easily get to a place where we put a lot of effort into "standardizing" humans... and humans are so NOT "standardizable." We must be discerning. Using blanket statements like "Nines are too lazy" and "Threes are too driven" does nobody any favors because it ignores individual preferences.

Of course, there may be those in the peanut gallery who are thinking "Yeah, that's written like a NINE. Advocating NOT doing anything. Laziness!"

I can only offer my perspective.

My primary enneagram Teacher was an Eight who taught the enneagram from a tradition of nonduality. We spent a lot of time reflecting on-- and learning-- how to "sit in silence." We learned critical self-inquiry, and specifically how to recognize the difference between acting from "presence" and acting from "fear."

I'm a Nine. I'm sitting here in my office. It's fairly tidy and I can find everything I need, in order to run my two businesses from home. My bills and taxes are paid. I'm taking next week off. I have a lot of work to be done in January, and I WILL do that work.

All in all, I'd rather be sitting still, doing nothing. That's my preference. I'm not going to, but it's my preference.
That makes me a Nine.

All in all, you'd rather cancel Christmas and get started on that work... NOW. That's your preference. You're not going to, but it's your preference.
That makes you a Three.

But it makes neither of us wrong.

So here I sit, on Christmas morning, writing. Because everyone else in the house is slothfully sleeping!

That was a joke...

Happy Holidays!

Nines and Being Present

Of course, as I write these words, I can only write them from my own perspective; my own experience.

I have recently thought a lot about the whole issue of "Being Present." Someone close to me-- whom I love, respect and care about-- has pointed out that I "don't seem to be present."

Of course, the stereotypical Nine is perpetually "zoned out." I don't doubt-- or question-- that I zone out.

However, the discussion got me to contemplate why I am not more Present. After all, I have spent a large part of my adult life in pursuit of self-development, trying to become a better person.

Whether it applies to all Nines-- or just this Nine-- I have discovered that Being Present is a lot of work. Whether this is true for all people, I don't know.

Imagine, for a moment, the feeling that goes with threading a needle. You have to really concentrate, really look at the eye of the needle, and then focus intently on getting the thread to go through the impossibly tiny hole. This-- for most of us-- takes pretty intense focus and concentration. This is how I experience Being Present. It's not that I "don't know how." It's just that it requires intense concentration and focus, and a lot of effort... and it just plain tires me out, after some minutes... or half an hour, or whatever.

I admire those who can "stay Present" all the time. I have not yet figured out how to.

Nines and what Feels Good

I'm going to make a few sweeping assumptions, before starting this post.

For one, I'm going to assume that-- as a species-- we are inclined do be drawn to things/activities that "feel good." I find it difficult to wrap myself around the idea of someone thinking "Oh, this is going to make me feel really BAD or IN PAIN, so let me rush out and do it!" as a modus operandum for life. It just doesn't make sense... sure, it may be the "reality" of someone with a psychological disturbance, but I just can't parse it as "healthy behavior."

Second assumption: We are not "all the same," even at our core. What constitutes a "Healthy, Well-adjusted Life" is not a generic concept-- it will vary from person to person, dependent on a whole load of different factors.

That said...

For many years, I have been contemplating the core issue of "WHO decides" what an ostensibly healthy well-adjusted life "looks like?"

After a lot of self-inquiry-- and reading the better part of 50-odd books on the enneagram, as well as scores of others on psychology and self-improvement-- I reached the conclusion that two of the most important words in this whole "self-awareness" ball of wax are:

".... to ME."

We talk a lot about enneagram Nines and their desire for peace. I'll be the first to admit that most of my choices in life are motivated by desiring a peaceful outcome; to maintain a state of inner (and outer/environmental) peace.

Being at peace feels good.. "... to ME."

Being in a state of turmoil where it seems like everything is chaos and I live with a constant sense that I am falling off a cliff into an ocean of disruption and chaos... does not feel good... "... to ME."

I'm totally aware that it may feel like a perfect way to live, to YOU... you, who crave constant novelty, excitement and change, and who gets bored if you have sat still for more than three minutes straight. And I honor that.

Where I get angry (<-- Yes, Nines DO get angry!) is when I somehow get labeled as "psychologically unhealthy" and "in my fixation" because my choices don't look like yours. In Western society-- and especially in the USA-- we tend to idolize "Adventurer Daredevil" personality traits, while dismissing those who prefer to peacefully go with the flow as "colorless doormats," or-- at the very least-- "sheeple."

I'm sorry, but I just don't buy that kind of blanket labeling.

To ME, part of living a "Healthy, Well-Adjusted Life" includes the capacity to not only examine, but also understand and embrace, the difference between simple "preferences" and unhealthy "fixations." We are not "sheeple" and we are not "all the same." We must honor the "Peacekeeper" just as much as we honor the "Adventurer/Daredevil."

Part of my "issue" with the enneagram-- and I have written about this, at length-- is its tendencies to place a huge emphasis on our fixations; our defects; the ways in which we are "broken." Very little time is given to examination and description of the healthy manifestations of the nine enneagram points.

And that feels wrong..."... to ME."

Practical Zoning Out

Contemplating the whole "zoning out" thing, again.

Unless a behavior is directly toxic or damaging, I have always preferred to work with it, rather than change or delete it. In enneagram circles, the infamous "zoning out" of type Nines always feels (to me) like it is this horrible thing we Nines do.

After more than 20 years of studying the enneagram and using some of the healing tools it offers, I have come to question the "horrors" of zoning out.

I thought to myself "Well, maybe I can USE this to my benefit..."

Over a period years, I experimented with minor behavioral changes when I felt a case of "zoning out" approaching me, from around the corner.

These days, I live by a system of "meaningful zoning out." I neither blame myself, nor disallow zoning out in my life. However, when I do feel the inclination to zone out, I go on autopilot doing necessary things. For example, yesterday I got really tired of some writing projects I needed to work on... and I could feel my attention slipping. So... I allowed my attention to slip. I turned on some moody music, and spent an hour "mindlessly" processing, cutting, editing, color correcting and re-sizing photos for eBay auction. This is an activity that requires NO brain input at all... yet it is also necessary and essential. In essence... I was... practically... zoning out. I NEED those photos... they are essential in my work.

Zoning out is not a bad thing, if you understand how to work with it.

It's a bit like a variation on the whole New Age and Nonduality obsession with how "evil" The Ego is. "Kill the ego!"

No.
Not so much.
Don't be so fucking militant.
WORK with the ego.
The ego keeps you alive.
Without the ego, you'd be a colorless automaton who cared about nothing.
Without the ego, you'd be sitting in the corner with a little drool running from the corner of your mouth.
Talk about the ultimate "zoning out!"

Don't Should on Yourself!

It was just my birthday-- woo-hoo!

I was never a big fan of "my birthday" because I have never enjoyed being "the center of attention." I'm not afraid of it, and I'm not shy... it just feels like a distasteful selfishness.

Do I feel this way because I am a Nine? Is this a manifestation that "being seen" somehow requires "effort" on my behalf? Can't get that to fit, entirely... since being the center of attention generally involves everyone else "doing the doing," not me.

But anyway...

I checked in here and realized that it had been a long time since I last looked at this blog.

Then I decided that I was not going to beat myself up and start "shoulding" on myself because I'd failed to keep up with it. I decided that I was going to be "OK" with just updating as it occurred to me, and as I had something to share.

I have subscribed (and unsubscribed!) to a lot of blogs over the years... blogs that became "stale" because their owners had an obsession with "publishing daily," while only having enough interesting and worthwhile content to publish once every 7-10 days.

Our world is obsessed with schedules and with time... but sometimes the quality and relevance of "content" seems lost in the mix.

I'm NOT going to sit down here and write an entry that goes "It's Tuesday and I have no insights. The grass outside my window needs mowing and the wind it from the east. I went to the bathroom at 8:30, and I have had two cups of coffee today."

Who cares?
Not I...

If anyone ever subscribes to this, part of the "package" is that they may get three updates in three days, and then no updates in three months.

Flat Feelings

On occasion, people have told me that I seem emotionally "flat."

I don't seem to get excited about much of anything. I don't get angry, and I don't get particularly joyful, and not particularly fearful, or aggressive, or anything else.

I have even been told that I don't seem to possess the normal spectrum of human emotions.

I'm not sure what to think about this. Part of the conundrum is that I only have experience with being me, so I am not entirely sure what "normal" means. Certainly, I can observe other people... and I can see them get "affected" by events in way I don't fully understand.

I see someone fly into a rage, or have a meltdown... and I find myself looking that the causal event and thinking to myself "Why is THAT even something to think about, let alone have a meltdown over?"

When I look at those words, I realize it makes me sound callous. I don't mean to be. I can only conclude that other people's emotions burn with a brighter flame than mine.

It's a mystery to me, what it feels like to be "hot blooded." Although... those I look upon as being hot blooded usually insist that they are not.

Not-choosing, as a choice...

I wonder, sometimes, how many Nines are weighed down by the effects of their tendency to not-choose, when faced with choices.

It is commonly said and written that "Nines cannot make up their minds," and "Nines don't know what they want." My personal belief is that these are not entirely true statements.

I believe it's all a timing issue.

When so-called experts write these words, they are clearly not Nines. My own experience in life is that I cannot make up my mind... quickly enough for other people's liking. Similarly, I do generally know what I want, but it takes me longer than other people to get there.

If you are not a Nine, this could easily be seen as wishy-washyness, and an inability to decide.

Perhaps the "root" issue here has to do with the ability of Nines to "weigh all options," which simply takes time. Perhaps the root "truth" is simply that Nines are "deliberate" rather than "impulsive."

I know from experience that I tend to make very poor decisions, when pressured to make quick decisions.

In the Beginning, there was... a Beginning

In Praise of Specialization...

In general, I need another writing venue about as much as I need a hole in the head. Maybe that's why I need this blog...

Web marketing goo-roo Seth Godin writes that the modern age of the web (and life, in general) is about specialization. It's no good to have a "music site." Nobody cares... music sites are a dime a dozen. How about a music site about reggae music? Still no good. What we actually need... to get to the heart of "what matters," is a level of granularity equivalent to a web site about "Bob Marley's Nose Hair."

The point here being that this site was born out of the fact that my occasional musings about things related to the enneagram-- and specifically to my experience as a Type Nine-- do not belong on any of my other web sites.

So, about these words...

These words are about the direct experience of being an enneagram type Nine. Much has been written about "The Enneagram," but less about individual types. Similarly, much has been written about the enneagram as a teaching to guide people in dealing with their "fixation," but not much has been written merely about the daily interaction between a person and life, from an "enneagrammatic" perspective.

I started studying the enneagram-- originally as a system of "personality types," later as a healing tool-- back in the late 1980's. It has been a helpful tool on my journey... and these are some of my stories.