Drifting Away on Waves of Sadness

Do we talk much about Nines and sadness?

I find that I often drift off on waves of sadness.

It's not the great loss and melodramatic sadness we typically associate with Fours, it's a far more peaceful sadness. It almost feel like a recognition of the beauty of sadness; the unspoken beauty of loss.

There's no anger there; no regret there... just a reflection on the sadness.

Modern society imprints on us that sadness is "not OK." When a loved one or a beloved pet dies, it's OK to shed a tear or two, but we're advised to "get over" any sadness that lingers longer than that.

And what about the sadness that exists at a "macro" level; at a societal level. Sadness for lost generations; lost traditions; lost species; lost wilderness. 

In Japanese culture, there is a lovely — and not translatable — phrase: "mono no aware." 

As I said, it's not translatable; but one interpretation characterizes it as "the slight wistfulness we feel at the passing of a beautiful moment, with the knowledge that it will never occur again."

In a sense, it is an awareness and acknowledgment of the eternal transience and impermanence of all things.

It visits me, on a regular basis. 

It consists of a thousand moments; often fleeting... the moments we sew together into the patchwork quilts that represent the totality of our lives; of our experiences.

There's nothing to rail against...

Nines as Eternal Students — Avoidance?

Nines are often referred to as "Peacemakers," but it has always puzzled me why this term peacemaker so often is viewed through a skeptical lens. 

When we look all around us, the vast majority of people in the world value peace very highly. We strive for peace. We want inner peace and much hard-earned cash for seminars to ostensibly teach us the way. Politicians say they want world peace. We give out a Nobel Peace Prize.

I guess the skepticism comes from the fact that many people in the world have claimed to be at peace but in fact weren't really at peace. 

But I have a sneaking suspicion that part of it also comes from the fact that many people still have a very strong fighting and debating instinct and so perhaps they feel a little bit threatened by the idea of peace. 

Perhaps they consider "peace" and think to themselves, "Who would I BE, and what VALUE would I bring in a world where PEACE — rather than conflict — is the norm?"

I don't spend a lot of time looking at the Enneagram these days. It feels as if I learned whatever I needed to learn, and I still have many of the lessons rattling around inside my brain and now it is up to me to apply them rather than continuing to study and study and study. 

I am really not interested in becoming an eternal student! 

That said, I do know quite a few Nines who seem very invested in always studying. Almost as if the ongoing process of studying gives them a "hall pass" to not actually engage in the real and tangible world. 

Studying as avoidance. It's a thing...

Another Year... Revisiting the Enneagram

As I have written in the past, I don't really "do" New Year's Resolutions.

Bottom line is that I don't need to manufacture my own reasons to feel bad about not accomplishing things I set out to do... just to feel like I am part of the "Societal Mores Club."

Are goals a bad thing?

Personally, I don't think so-- what feels "bad" to me isn't the resolutions, but pressuring ourselves, especially when that pressure is the product of societal expectations, rather than our own authentic sense of what we want. Or want to accomplish.

I believe the vast majority of people who make New Year's Resolutions do so because it's part of the collective societal hypnosis and they feel like they "should;" because "that's what people DO." not because they are genuinely ready and able to set goals in a sensible fashion, and then take the organized steps-- with positive intent-- to accomplish them.

There are exceptions, of course.

As of late, I have been "revisiting" the Enneagram... in part because I was organizing my office bookcase and the 30-odd books on my shelf on various aspects of the system reminded me of how much I used to "study" typology... and how I invested almost 20 years in gaining a better understanding of myself and the world around me... in large part through the Enneagram.

As I started to read again... and visited some of the many groups, web sites and forums that have sprung up... I was also reminded of why I stopped: The pervasive focus on "fixations" increasingly felt like the eternal emphasis was on "not being well" rather than on being well.

It seems like there is always this assumption that we are "not well" and need to be "healed," but there is very little information and guidance about actually LIVING and BEING well.

I remember sitting with that-- back around 2005-06-- and growing disgruntled at the realization that it felt like yet another variation on certain branches of religion (and Christianity, especially) where the eternal assumption is "we're all sinners."

In the Church of the Enneagram, it felt like "we're all in our fixations."

Don't get me wrong... I "get" the underlying logic, purely from a psychoanalytical perspective. If you're emotionally healthy, balanced and well, you're not going to BE on the Internet a lot, looking at systems like the Enneagram, you're going to be too busy being "out there, living life." And so... both the "givers" and "takers" in the Enneagram equation are going to be disproportionately those with a perceived need to "fix" something.

And that's kind of why I left... to get out of "analysis paralysis."

So why am I revisiting the Enneagram, now?

Actually, because I like to write (and finally have some time!)... and it's an interesting field, as well as one of my favorites.

I Was a Lazy Kid

For as long as I can remember, I have been a lazy person. I was a lazy kid. I don't say that as some "point of pride," merely as a fact.

In grade school, it seemed like my life revolved around a carefully laid strategy of non-participation. I was always good at "making myself busy" at crucial moments... being in the bathroom when sides were picked for school yard games; "forgetting" something I had to go back for.

It has never been entirely clear to me why I avoided participation. Well... in part because it felt scary to be in the rough of things. Life felt very rough, and I felt ill-equipped to deal with it. Life always felt like it was "screaming" at me, and I wanted no part of it. I also felt somewhat held back by the impending criticism from my parents, should I participate in something and do anything short of "excel." To this day, the words "In OUR family, we _______" followed by some story about how anyone in the family who'd undertaken whatever I'd just been a part of had done to at a world class level.

I was rarely "world class" at anything. Most of the time, I just wanted to remain largely unseen. Unseen was a safe place... and I was all about safety. I "created myself" a solid performer-- someone who was reliably near the "upper third" of things I did. Good enough to not suffer the embarrassment of being "chosen last" for school games, but not so good that anyone would notice me. It meant that when I had to "participate," I could so in a manner so unobtrusive that it still felt like "not being seen."

I also remember the time my mother came in my room and told me (for the 345th time) that I needed to tidy up. And then she asked "I JUST don't understand why you can't keep your room tidy???"

Unlike the typical 9-year old response of "Uhhh... I don't know," I instead chose to reply "Because I am just a LAZY person."

Of course, that just set her off on a tirade about how that was "utter nonsense" and how nobody "in our family" was a lazy person.

When I look at my adult life, I can see all the ways in which I have chosen paths that left me "unnoticed." I have never felt comfortable with being noticed; nor with "taking credit." I think that I used to have fear of being seen-- as an adult in middle age, I just don't care. If you want "acknowledge" something I have done, put some money in my bank account.

I have contemplated those feelings at length. Ultimately, I just don't need my ego stroked... my "psychic rewards" in life have never come from someone putting me on some kind of figurative public pedestal. My reward comes from the internal observation that someone "is better off" as a result of something I did. And maybe that's participant to why I have tended to feel put off by "excelling:" People always want to seem to engage in "deity worship" for those who do good... it becomes all about "recognition." I don't care. If you want to "recognize" me, contribute to my grocery budget.

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 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!"

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.