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.