Type 7

June 7

One week into June, and the month has been full. Hippos in the Shower is one night over, and one night to go. Jared, Henry and Colin have come and gone. I'm two months from home. I leave for Iona in a few days. The CDs have been handed out. We had our last YAV meeting. Jen wasn't there.

Yesterday for our YAV meeting, Melissa has us go to Scrabbo Hill and as we walked up the hill, we were to think about how we were moving away from our apathy and weariness onward toward a closer spirituality and a more personal understanding of how we need to grow. As I was walking up Scrabbo, I was thinking a lot about the Enneagram, and I wanted to speak about how I was thinking about my own growth and understanding of my personality, this year.

Earlier this year a friend of mine, after seeing a picture of me planting trees with my Boys Brigade group, with my hemp necklace and my longer hair wrote me an e-mail that said, "You are NOT a HIPPIE!" I honestly wish I were as certain about who I was as she seemed to be. That statement struck me as sabrasiveve, even cruel, for her to assume that she could tell me who I was and who I was not. As I look back on the last ten months, I can see the process of trying to better understand who I am and how I need to interact with people. For her to so definitively shut down any sense of self-exploration seemed then and now to be wholly inappropriate.

I'm really getting into understanding that I must both end up being my best friend, and my worst enemy. The wonderful thing about the Enneagram, unlike other personalicategoriesons I've looked at (Myers Briggs, The R-G-B Colour Triangle, Conflict Styles, etc.) is that is suggests that your greatest strengths are also your greatest weaknesses. On some days, my personality traits and how I interact with people is helpful, advantageous, ideal. Other days, it's worthless, doing more damage to the relationships I care about than helping. Those same qualities of wit, and quickness of tongue, passion for a wide range of experiences and hobbies sometimes brings me closer to God and others. Other times it does nothing but drive me away. According to the enneagram, I'm a Type 7:
The Epicure, The Enthusiast- The Busy, Fun-Loving Type: Spontaneous, Versatile, Acquisitive, and Scattered
Basic Fear: Of being deprived and in pain
Basic Desire: To be satisfied and content, to have their needs fulfilled

When at their best: Highly responsive, excitable, enthusiastic about sensation and experience. Most extroverted type: stimuli bring immediate responses; they find everything invigorating. Lively, vivacious, eager, spontaneous, resilient, cheerful. / Easily become accomplished achievers, generalists who do many different things well: multi-talented. Practical, productive, usually prolific, cross-fertilizing areas of interest. To be found on University faculties, theorists, advocates of interdisciplinary studies.

On average: As restlessness increases, want to have more options and choices available to them. Become adventurous and "worldly wise," but less focused, constantly seeking new things and experiences: the sophisticate, connoisseur, and consumer. Variety is important. / Unable to discriminate what they really need, become hyperactive, unable to say "no" to themselves, throwing self into constant activity. Uninhibited, doing and saying whatever comes to mind: storytelling, flamboyant exaggerations, witty wise-cracking, performing. Fear being bored: in perpetual motion, but do too many things; many ideas but little follow through. / Get into conspicuous consumption and all forms of excess. Self-centered, never feeling that they have enough. Demanding and pushy, yet unsatisfied and jaded. Addictive, hardened, and insensitive.

Key Motivations: Want to maintain their freedom and happiness, to avoid missing out on worthwhile experiences, to keep themselves excited and occupied, to avoid and discharge pain.

Check out the enneagram. Sometimes it's jaw-droppingly accurate. There is a lot more written on the Enneagram, and more descriptions of the nine different types. The best thing to do with it, is to find a website and read about all nine types and then think about where you fall, rather than taking a little quiz about where you fall. The tests I've found on-line are poor. They don't do as good a job of telling you who you are, as you can do yourself. Here at the Thorndale House we've gotten everyone into the Enneagram analysis and for the record I live with a 6 (Mary), a 9 (Melissa)and a TEXTBOOK 1 (Mel).