[Type 9] 9 at the Crown of the Enneagram: Interpret, Discuss.

[Entropic]

Ah. I find myself occasionally concerned about the mind/identity issue from a metaphysical/spiritual standpoint. What happens to me after I die? If I live beyond this life, I might find myself unequipped to handle it, not having the power of the body to rely upon. In that regard, the mind seems more stable (though nothing is really assured).

I used to believe that I was something beyond my body, even cogito, ergo sum, but life happened, I fell into despair, and I saw the mind itself as part of the problem. It sounds paradoxical, but involved in that is the wish to cease to exist, and through that the mind acquiesces to total destruction and the body takes over because it chooses to live on. However, the mind is not something you can really 'reject' (as what do you reject with if you step out of the mind?). Besides, even the perception of the mind as a problem comes from the mind.

Escaping the mind feels more like the final goodbye as you leave your old home for the last time. Gradually, all of history greys. Sitting out in the sun. Getting day drunk. Even drawing or playing music, so long as the chatter of the mind is displaced. A few thoughts here and there, but not loud enough to really be aware of them. Eventually the body prompts a need for a mind: "how do I solve this problem?" or "suddenly I am idle. I do not like this. What should I do now?" And you gradually remember parts of yourself that are needed. The rest is forgotten, or shall we say, "willfully ignored."

Escaping the mind, huh? Only a genuine 9 would say that lmao. Why would you want to escape the mind, free yourself from the mind? Then mind is you, it's what defines you. I do not believe there is something greater than the mind. If there is, that something would be god but I'm an agnostic atheist so. With that said, I want there to be something greater than this, not necessarily my mind, but something greater to this existence. My physical suffering if putting it this way, that I'm stuck with this weak body of mine, there must be a reason and a purpose. Why am I here? Who sent me here? As you can see, my questions overlaps a lot with Eddie Jessup's from Altered States. There must be meaning to life itself, a truth that has yet to be revealed to me, a truth I have yet to find and uncover, a truth I have yet to fully grasp and understand. Just like Jessup, ironically I also find that truth to be related to why people become religious.

It's thus not so much a choice on whether the body chooses to live on or not because the existence of the body is itself largely irrelevant compared to the existence of the mind. Mind matters. What else is there in life if not the mind? How can we live without a mind? You could sever my head, put my brain in a vat, I'd keep on living and if done correctly, you would keep making me believe that this sensory world is real. But is it? And why would this sensory world matter at all? It seems pointless to engage in sensory stimulation if not to ensure that the mind keeps on living. I am stuck in a body and I'm stuck eating every day because my mind depends on a daily intake of nutrients in order to survive. Eating as an activity is itself pointless even though I can derive physical pleasure from it, but physical pleasure is ultimately seen as of lesser worth than mental pleasure. Nothing beats the sensation when you realize you've figured something out. It's a mindgasm, and engaging in mentally interesting activities is akin to mindfuck.

I'm writing this to you solely because it keeps my mind stimulated and entertained, because I derive mind pleasure from it. I am not that unhealthy to say that I wish to discard my body entirely, I can see the point of physical pleasure, but yes, it's an inconvenience I wish I'd rather not have.

I cannot ignore the callings of the mind and I do not have any interest to block out my mind. How would you do this? It suggests that you as an ego is located somewhere else than in the mind, that you are not quite per se, the mind. When you are the mind, you cannot block it out, why would you want to block it out? It would be akin to trying to nullify your own existencem and as much as I find having a body that keeps me here I still desire to exist.

This is why I think 5s and 9s are often mixed up because 9s think that when they block out their mind chatter they are performing 5 meta-analysis or what is usually referred to this mind chatter of talking to yourself kind of deal in some 5 descriptions. Not because I want to point fingers towards any specific people but there are some notorious 9s in the 5 forum on Personality Cafe who keep using this argument to justify why they are 5s, fully ignoring that the 5 mind isn't so much thinking of yourself in third person as much as it is an ability to meta-analyze more than one perspective at once. Detachment is in fact rather empty and this makes perfect sense because 5s are a detachment type whereas 9s are an attachment type. Detachment is simply to me a way to remove myself from the environment, you're stuck with cold and callous logic at its most extreme, because you stop caring. I should upload some scenes from Darker Than Black that I think perfectly demonstrate 5 detachment because the entire concept of being a contractor is very 5-8 like.

 

[Dying Acedia]

I cannot ignore the callings of the mind and I do not have any interest to block out my mind. How would you do this? It suggests that you as an ego is located somewhere else than in the mind, that you are not quite per se, the mind. When you are the mind, you cannot block it out, why would you want to block it out? It would be akin to trying to nullify your own existencem and as much as I find having a body that keeps me here I still desire to exist.

Exactly. If I manage to become happier through erasing my thoughts, then that is what I will do. It is like cutting off your head and another one springing in its place. My awareness is still ultimately the same. I will not suddenly experience a black hole when I erase all my thoughts. I simply experience something tangential to what I previously understood as me. It's like stopping to realize that all of existence could have begun 5 seconds ago and the only reason you believe it started before that is because you were created 5 seconds ago with a history that makes it seem like it's been going on for some time.

At that point if you look out the window, lose yourself, and find yourself with a whole completely different body of thoughts, you will find yourself doing the same thing, as awareness reconstructs a whole new identity. But it could just as easily be that many I's are competing within the body, and if when an entirely new one takes over you still are experiencing being in control (not being suppressed somewhere down in psychological space), just with a different agenda, why does what anything that happens in the mind matter? Only once I reconstruct with the belief that this pattern has changed does this become an issue, as then there is fear in the question "what will I reconstruct as next?"

Eventually something will prompt me to go eat, or perhaps my emotions will compel me to play an instrument so as to forget the frustration that may come with completing ordered thoughts. When I come back, if my old thoughts are forgotten, they are no longer relevant to me, and I will do something entirely different until I remember them. When I do have a moment of awareness, of all things it seems my body is the most stable of all things that I am. Only once the belief that I am a head stuck in a vat sticks does it become real.

I guess it's true that at the base of it I'm still a mind, but the things I avoid and disown are at least parts of my mind, not parts of my body. Finding myself with a new body would not entirely bother me either, so long as it was a good one. I do not know that I want to continue to exist, but alas I believe there is no escape from existence, so questioning it only provides further irritation.

I'm writing this to you solely because it keeps my mind stimulated and entertained, because I derive mind pleasure from it.

I think for me it's something that keeps me occupied. I follow things that inspire me, but when I am not inspired the primary option is to do nothing, which actually creates more restlessness than doing something.

ETA:

I should upload some scenes from Darker Than Black that I think perfectly demonstrate 5 detachment because the entire concept of being a contractor is very 5-8 like.

Don't know how much work that would be, but that sounds interesting.