valaki
New member
- Joined
- Jan 1, 2014
- Messages
- 940
- MBTI Type
- SeNi
- Enneagram
- 8+7
- Instinctual Variant
- sx/sp
Pretty much that. Yeah.
Actually, I was working full time in a fast food restaurant and was pretty much chained to the table during the lunch rush. It was stressful (I had just graduated high school, where I was used to doing nothing, slowly) and made me feel "trapped" which set of an extreme sense of avoidance. And then I just got really nervous all the time and thought I was going batshit (I'm not normally nervous).
No, I'm OK now. It was just an adjustment issue and there was no disorder.
Ah, interesting...
When I first read about the function, I ID'd with Ti/Fe right away. Everyone else tried to persuade me I was an Fi user because I write with "conviction" and believe in things like treating others equally. When I read about Fi online, I was like OMG, I'm Fi-dom. I do fit their little blurbs about "seeing humanity in everyone, including criminals".
Then I realized we're looking at cognitive processes here, not descriptions, and certainly NOT philosophies. I can tell you that my Ti is great at finding underlying principles. I would guess Fi would be similar, except regarding other people and/or ethics. Which functions do you relate to, though?
I relate to Ti/Fe, recognized those functions right away just like you. As a contrast, Ne/Si vs Se/Ni, I didn't understand them at all for a long time so that was hard to decide. (Well Se was easy to understand but it seemed too simple as a definition but apparently it's just hard to imagine for me that some people are simply not thinking much in the way of Se.)
I was seen as Fi by some because of things like the following:
I was creating chaos in someone else's rigid theory so he first said I had to be ESTP then apparently I annoyed him enough so that he said I had to be ESFP lol. No I didn't take that too seriously, just mentioning it as an example.
Not readily agreeing with someone else's views on a theory. (This wasn't the same person as above)
When responding to a type questionnaire, I was being short, not giving any kind of objective reasoning for my choices for my answers. I saw it as just simply not bothering with that. Actually, it was asking about lots of simple life related things and indeed I don't think through stuff in those situations, I just act etc.
Someone also said I "vibed" SeFi. (That was socionics actually so nevermind)
I am also seen as very direct and expecting just such an answer in return, seems like several people associate that with Te-doms.
The first two cases I find really silly, why couldn't two Ti types disagree? It actually happens a lot between Ti's I think
The being direct thing I don't think is exclusive to Te.
The only one that got me thinking was definitions that say that Fi doesn't need much reasoning to make decisions because they are well aware of what they want/desire. That is true for me, I often do this quickly from instinct. But really there is nothing else I relate to about Fi so whatever. For the sake of being open-minded, I still have the ESFP option in the list in my profile if you saw that.
I will admit that I don't relate to all that sort of Fi stuff like "seeing humanity in everyone, including criminals". I mean I'm sure it's cool but I'm just not like that. :/ The equality stuff I relate to on some level, but why's that Fi, it could be Fe just fine!
Go by the triads.
As soon as they can explain everything, sure.
Well, there can just be this wall of "I'm not going to listen to you even if I nod and smile" and my roommate would simply stick her nose in the air and refuse to engage. She was a shit head.
Heh I don't do this sort of thing at all. I hate it when someone does it to me.
So wall is only in the sense of blocking others out of my "inside". And sometimes in a physical sense as well. But I don't like to ignore people who want to talk or something.
That's great...where was it?
PersonalityNation and I think that site died afterwards :/
Every type me thread I've ever done, people have told me I'm a 6w7. No matter what I say. To me, that just sounds...weird.
Did they not try to use some reasoning for it? The vibe stuff is quite misleading I think.
Yeah, it seems to me they describe an off-the-wall multitalented person who can't settle down in life...which I am. They leave out the optimism (I suck at optimism) and that whole "you're OK, I'm OK" thing (I live in a state of hatred towards everything, including myself). Can be permissive, though. LOL.
Permissive what?
The bolded... is totally me too
As for sucking at optimism, do you wake up in the morning thinking this day is going to be shit? I don't so I relate to the optimism somewhat.
Consider social in your stacking, then. The instincts are the hardest part to figure out, most of what you hear online is shady at best, and I'm still not sure I understand them.
Riso and Hudson do the best job, so consider their words on the matter.
I currently type as sx/soc, though I'm open to considering soc/sx since I can really ruminate about people when lost in social affairs. However, sexual-first issues seem to have caused me the most pain in my life, so I am inclined to keep that.
Well for me Sx and So both caused a lot of issues. Sp never causes issues, I have an easy and natural focus on Sp needs when needed. I can't say it's a constant focus though But it's important in a sense.
She doesn't get it that it matters when people ostracize you, for instance. She'll say things like, Just be who you are and everyone will accept you!! That's a lovely thought, but not how the world works. She also doesn't care much about what's happening in the world--no sense of community involvement. She likes staying in and reading fantasies and murder mysteries and only turns on the news for events like 9-11. She's a 9w1, which may influence it, but my step-father is 9w1 as well, and he's always getting upset about workplace politics and what's happening in the news. He's one of those anti-social socials--he hates everyone and just bitches and moans all the time.
Yeah I'm not like her at all. I find news interesting when I do bother to read them. You talk about the Arab Spring later, I find that phenomenon fascinating too, etc. Doesn't mean though that I think very often about all this because I don't.
Well just this, I don't have community involvement much in practice. I'm just sort of interested but I just don't "do" it for some reason. When I said I did things for people in a community, that was also done in a way without really ever getting "mixed with" the community. I thought they were cute and I got lots of admiration but I just did nothing with any of that. I really got this distinct outsider quality. I do still have a keen sense for noting hierarchy related things, just I don't act on it much.
Perhaps if some people actively tried hard enough to draw me in, it would be different. I don't know. It happened before and I really enjoyed the participation in terms of superficial interacting at least but when it was gone I wasn't thinking about it again on my own, not for a while I mean. Not much until I turned 13 What I'm more aware of is the issues themselves, since I aged a bit. And I sometimes think I'm missing out on a lot. (4-ish? 7-ish? Lol) As I said I like interacting with people for fun and whatnot, so that's part of it. But when e.g. I'm talking to people in groups, either online or offline, I talk to each person as a different and interesting being. I attribute that to Sx being stronger than So.
Btw, I once read this question along these lines: "what would you do if you suddenly became immortal and then something killed everyone on Earth, how would you spend the remaining two billion years before Earth gets swallowed up by the Sun?" Haha, I don't normally try to imagine unrealistic scenarios in detail but for some reason this took my interest. It would be interesting But I see that some people would just go totally apeshit alone...? Not that it wouldn't be better if I had some people to talk to, do stuff with, etc. Also, two billion years is a fucking lot of time so I couldn't imagine life much further than a few hundred or thousand years before I gave up on the thought experiment
What does all that sound like about So, then?
You could also look for your "blindspot"--ie, your crap instinct.
That would be So in a sense. In another sense the Sp instinct because I don't focus on it all the time that much.
Can't there be something like, switching between Sx/Sp and Sx/So? lol that could describe me
Well one of the criticisms of enneagram is that it makes us all out to have something wrong with us, when actually, most of us don't. If you're content with your current levels of mental health, I'd say there is no particular need to "grow".
No, not content.
Don't misunderstand me - I'm basically fine with myself, just I want to solve some specific issues that tend to come up in my life. That's why I said not content.
It means like talking your way out of trouble rather than strong arming your way through things.
Ah I see. Well I don't relate to the charming my way out of trouble at all, only to strong arming my way through Either physically or by using logic.
Yeah, I guess others are just vaguely part of the background, or an abstraction. It doesn't reach full-on levels of dehumanization till you go unhealthy, though.
You describe that well Do you have that? I assume you do? And at the same time believing in humanity in criminals etc? I'm not nitpicking or questioning your views, I just have these questions come up naturally when something doesn't make sense to me. And so I'm curious how the two go together (If you even relate to objectification as defined here)
Anyway I wanted to say that I liked your wording here, "vaguely part of the background". Recently I saw some site with a gallery of empty city photos. I thought they were nice. Then I saw the description and the comments. The description said, the point of the photos is to show how different cities are when there is at most one person in the photo. In the comments some people said it was so scary that they couldn't go on to view the entire gallery Lol, I thought that was weird because to me it was exactly the same in the photos as in everyday life. I live in a big city, I've been to some of the biggest cities etc. So, yeah... I thought that was a good example of the above about your background comment lol
Well sure, you can still enjoy learning and stuff. Most human beings do. I consider myself to be a "smart" kid, too--same family situation, spent years taking overloaded classes in college cause I'm so interested in EVERYTHING.
I'm afraid I was not as diligent with it as you are I did everything mandatory and did well but extra classes?
Maybe your Ne makes you even more intellectually inclined.
Well, I do consider myself to be anti-intellectual, but more in the sense of impractical people who don't "get" life and spend all day splitting hairs. I like learning and exploring, but when I was in college and studying the Middle East, I was subject to years of reading about Egyptian cinema in the 1930s. Then I went to the middle East, and I was just like, WHYYYY??? WHY did I spend the last 3 years studying this???
I saw that the Arab Gulf was vital to transnational affairs in the region and beyond, and that the whole region was filled with well-educated, well-connected, BORED young people. And I went to the university and told them my insights. For this, my ideas were rejected and I was laughed out of grad school--because I didn't split hairs but instead saw the reality. Then, two years later, the Arab Spring happened. I was like LOL.
So, that's the kind of intellectualism that bothers me--folks who don't see reality and instead sit in an ivory tower; these people are called on to advise policy makers. Just LOL.
Eh, yeah I hate that sort of stuff too. Btw it's pretty cool you managed to anticipate some of that stuff.
TBH, I don't know. I just know that the 2 are associated; 7s often have an issue with the mother not being "nurturing" enough somehow.
No I just had that problem with travels. I forced the needed nurturing for myself otherwise. Don't get me wrong, my mother was happy to spend time on things for me or spend time with me in the way I needed it but it felt like I had to force some of it to happen more often. Make any sense?
I think it could be in there, yeah. I don't know you well enough to comment beyond that. The surest thing you can do is to examine motivations--are you motivated by 3ish stuff? I'd expect there to be a 2-connection if you're an 8, but the 4 is harder to explain.
I was actually asking if it was excluding a 3-fix. What I said about my motivations for achieving goals, wasn't that helping any?
How do I examine my motivations deeper than that? Btw I found&downloaded Naranjo ebook just now (Didn't find Maitri yet) Maybe that'll help too.
Yeah, again, you may indeed be 4-fixed--examine motivations.
I do find it important to be unique, I just really don't do anything to be unique, I just am. I also don't relate to building identity out of emotions. I'm simply not emotional enough for that.
I would love to be able to have an identity like 4's can, but I don't have the focus here often enough or long enough. I like other people who are like that (4-ish), though.
Well that's all for 4 motivations I think. Enough for a 4-fix?
As to the sx7s inner life, Naranjo lists them as being "extraterrestrial" in their conceptualizations. Far out stuff man. I don't quite know what it means, but I'm thinking kinda hippie. They are prone to heightened imagination and can "juice" their own emotions similar to 4s. As I experience this side of my personality, there's a lot of epic, Hollywood-style stuff that goes on.
I don't relate to "far out stuff" and "hippie stuff". I can't "juice" my emotions much. I have little control over them in this sense, I used to be able to create one certain deep emotion but it was rare and I haven't done it in a while for some reason. I do think that was 4-ish and not 7-ish though. It was not optimistic or "juicy" or anything.
Don't forget 9s regarding the inner-world as well. You should draw influences from our 9 as well.
I have no idea about what 9's inner world is like...?
Yeah, a number of 8s have had similar gripes about descriptions from what I understand. It's like no one finds a representative population, so they base their studies on dictators and Enron execs and try to report this stuff as though it's normal and common.
Lol yeah
I also thought it's maybe just me thinking black and white about these concepts. I certainly have such a tendency to interpret things in such a way.
I'm 6-fixed, worry about "alienating people", and spent the majority of my youth in my 5-connection, I think, so I'm pretty reserved about anger till you get to know me. But yeah. I expect people will hate me once they see what a tempermental headcase I am. I'm always surprised how forgiving and sympathetic others can actually be.
I'm not at all reserved about my anger, doesn't matter if you know me or not. The only thing I managed to learn to be "reserved" about is outright raging. I still do it, I just leave/hide first. Unless in a relationship, you see, why should I hide there? So much for growing up enough to build a socially proper persona eh
How do you control expression of your anger when you're with people you don't know yet?
As for experience of forgiving and sympathetic people, I'm afraid I have been less lucky than you, experienced less of that myself or I just didn't notice it enough.
Well that's my position. We're social animals, and it's in our nature to band together. We won't get very far if we're overly individualistic.
That's not actually my position per se, my position is more looking at it from how it's more efficient for survival of the individuals, genes, whatnot.
I don't really believe in expressions like "natural to band together" and "overly individualistic".
Instead I believe one can still live totally alone if they wish (or perhaps with their loved one(s)), they'd just have to abandon much of what the society of the current world offers. So in that sense, sure, that person wouldn't get "very far". It doesn't mean the person can't live that way though.
But for most people it's worth living inside society for certain material advantages (such as better survival, yeah). Also I view it this way, life is more complex inside society, and that's, well, entertaining, as I do like opportunities and variety to an extent. And I like interaction so that too is an advantage. I'm sure there's other advantages too, like this social sense of grouping together that you expressed as "band together". Hey I did say I was individualistic right? I wonder if that's a crappy social instinct still...
Embarrassed, really, about wimping on stuff--though I was unaware of it till the enneagram pointed it out to me. I had all this time to build a case for why I'm precisely NOT an 8, so now it's just really hard to accept. (It was one of the 3 types I initially identified with).
OK just to be sure we are on the same page, what do you mean by wimping exactly? I think I know but just to be sure.
The adaptations for others are largely OK, since you get along to go along--let's not be foolish.
Foolish meaning someone "not getting along to go along"? Do you mean useful compromises?
My problem is, I feel like I'm deceiving others.
Well I see it as it being their problem if they go by stereotypes. It's not your responsibility to worry about that I think
It isn't deceit if your intention isn't that. Also.. you can always put a disclaimer in profile/signature that you don't fit the stupid stereotypes.
Oh ocean moonshine...
haha
As to the 4 and 5 thing, I should prolly reiterate I spent literally years trying to decide which was most "me". It might have helped if I'd had other source material besides Wisdom of the Enneagram, since I frankly don't see 4 at all in Helen Palmer's work, and 5 barely.
But yeah. I'm too aware of all the ways I've taken things too personally, been self-conscious, been too identified with my own suffering, and whatnot--pretty much every stereotype of 4ness. I figured out I was too dramatic to be a core 5, plus I am a reactive type. So that gave me 4. However, I've never understood identifying oneself by one's emotions. I sort of gave up on that and just assumed I was somehow a 4w5 when I came here.
Basically, I had no reason to question being a 4 with an 8-fix till I read the finer points of Helen Palmer and Naranjo and didn't identify...basically I just assumed they didn't know what they were talking about and continued with my typing.
THEN I read Maitri. She's supposedly the top of the field so when I didn't relate to anything about her 4, I basically realized I wasn't one. Throughout her book, I did basically the same exercises listed in the questionnaire I published, and looking at it, it all suggested nothing other than 8. Looking over past journals, I saw that there was also a strong 7 influence of trying to avoid boring things and pretending I'm OK when I'm not (even if I don't identify with this as written, that's clearly what's been motivating me) as well as this 9ish sense of "I don't matter, I'm nothing, no one cares". Given that I'm a reactive type, I had to go with the 8 as the core--the parts are all in place.
I just think it's funny, that's all. I'd have said I had a million more pressing problems than excessive behavior, lust, and other 8-monikers. I know the ways I can do this stuff, but other parts of me just feel worse.
So yeah. That's that story.
Self-conscious in what sense? Is that some 4-ish thing? Strangely enough, I understand what it means identifying by your emotions, I just can't do it.
Hmm taking things personally, I can do that quite easily but I thought that wasn't exclusive to 4. Apparently, unhealthier 8's do it too, sensitive to being "slighted".
Avoiding boring things = Ne-dom?
Was that Maitri's first book of the two?
What kind of exercises are you referring to? Just answering the questions and pondering over the answers or do you mean something else?
I don't know if I should envy you that you don't have the 8's problems as bad, the stuff you listed here, I do have problems with it all. Though it's fine by default, it only makes me feel shit if it causes other issues in life. Apart from the 8-related issues, only 7-related issues can have that result.