Quote:The traits of Fours and Fives tend to reinforce each other. Both are "withdrawn" types: Fours withdraw to protect their feelings; fives, to protect their security. Thus, this subtype is more reclusive and less ambitious than a four with a three wing. Fours with a five wing will be markedly more observant of the environment, particularly of other people. There is an intellectual depth and intensity here not found in the other subtype, but also a corresponding social insecurity. This subtype can be more insightful and original, but also less likely to do concrete work. Note-worthy examples of the four with a five wing include Virginia Woolf, Edgar Allan Poe, Anne Rice, Ingmar Bergman, D. H. Lawrence, Yukio Mishima, J. D. Salinger, Johnny Depp, Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Saul Steinberg, Soren Kierkegaard, Herman Hesse, William Blake, and "Laura Wingfield".

Healthy, gifted individuals of this subtype are probably the most profoundly creative of all the types because they combine intuition with insight, emotional sensitivity with intellectual comprehension, frequently with stunning, even prophetic results. Fours with a five wing burn brighter than Fours with a three wing, but at the risk of burning themselves out faster. They are often drawn to the arts and social sciences, where their insights into the human condition can be explored. Because of the five wing, individuals of this subtype care less about the opinions of others, so they tend to follow their muse where it leads them. Their self-expression is highly personal and can be somewhat idiosyncratic. They tend to create more for themselves than for an audience.

Average persons of this subtype are given not merely to self absorption but to philosophical and religious speculation. Their emotional world is the dominant reality, but with a strong intellectual cast. People of this subtype tend to be loners, more lacking in social connectedness than the other subtype. Thus, their artistic expressions more completely substitute for the person than in fours with a three wing. They often display brilliant flashes of insight but have trouble sustaining their efforts. These people also frequently have an otherworldly, ethereal quality about them; they are extremely independent and unconventional to the point of eccentricity. They also tend to be secretive, intensely preoccupied with their thoughts, and purposely enigmatic in their self expression. Their creative ideas may be somewhat unusual, emphasizing the mysterious, even the surreal. They are very attracted to the exotic and the symbolic and tend to be more unusual than their personal presentation--bohemian or, at least, casual. Members of this subtype care little for communicating with those who cannot understand them. Rather, they are interested in expressing their inner vision, whether sublime or terrifying, bleak or lyrical. They tend to choose a simpler lifestyle than Fours with a three wing, but can get caught up in the five's minimizing of needs. Aspects of the five's eccentricity begin to manifest, as well as a high-strung nervous energy. Less healthy fours with a five wing can become very reclusive, daydreaming through life with baroque fantasies and ideas, but increasingly tormented by self doubt and unable to galvanize themselves into constructive action.

Unhealthy persons of this subtype inhabit a particularly barren inner world. There is a self-denying, even life-denying, element of inner resistance to everything outside the self, throwing all of the four's existential problems into sharper relief. They may have great understanding of their problems, but can more easily become lost in emotional turmoil--fatigue, depression, and hopelessness. Indeed, pondering the nature of their torment leads Fours with a five wing around in circles, heightening both their self contempt and their nihilism. Since Four is the fundamental personality type, Fours with a Five wing are assailed by self doubt, alienation from others, inhibitions in their work, and self-contempt. To the degree that the Five wing plays a part in the overall personality, unhealthy fours with this subtype will also resist being helped by anyone, thus increasing their alienation from others. They also tend to project their fears onto the environment, resulting in distorted thinking patterns which may include hallucinations and phobias. Not only are people of this subtype subject to torment from their self-hatred, they can see little positive outside themselves, and become very pessimistic about the apparent meaningless of life. Of all the personality types, people of this subtype are potentially the most isolated from themselves and from reality. They are prone to the depressive forms of schizophrenia.

(10-11-2017, 07:43 PM)Benjamin Wrote: With the ennegram stuff i'm curious that apart from some awareness have you noticed it helping you to make concrete changes as compared to other things?

I've never really got into this stuff because in my mind they are generalizations and how can these things really predict what a person is like.

(10-12-2017, 03:12 AM)ALI6NMENT Wrote:

(10-11-2017, 07:43 PM)Benjamin Wrote: With the ennegram stuff i'm curious that apart from some awareness have you noticed it helping you to make concrete changes as compared to other things?

I've never really got into this stuff because in my mind they are generalizations and how can these things really predict what a person is like.

They can't, it's all just mind masturbation. Unless you believe it can help you, then you will get something out of it, how much of something? Well, depends on how much belief you have in it helping you.

All these are very generalising, but lots of kids online take all these things as facts and live by them as their identity and keep their self in quicksand by believing this is who they are, when it is just a self fulfilling prophecy.

But of course, everyone is free to believe what they want to believe, if it genuinely helps you in some way, then what does it matter?

It only matters, when the things that you believe are not serving you in a positive way. Take Shannon's "cycle" for example, a self fulfilling prophecy.