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I don’t understand “only such and such person is authentically 4â€...and I’m a 4...I don’t do this lol.
I have always seen people as mostly honest...if I sense deception, I distance myself. I never understood this whole...deal with “calling people out†or whatever. In my eyes it looks like invalidation, like the person is being sincere and honest and they are being stepped on anyway.
i guess if you might have strong pretentious qualities yourself you are more likely to project it onto the rest of the world.
I never saw 4 as an inherently desirable or glamorous type; and I’m skeptical of the idea that many others do.
You're making a lot of assumptions based on shit I didn't say so I don't really care if you're offended by it or not. I also find it ludicrous that you think the only reason I could suggest someone is mistyped outside a type me thread is personal antagonism.
Suffering, negativity, envy and feelings of inadequacy are essential to enneagram 4. I'm not saying 4s can never be positive or motivated or happy; I am however saying that your gestalt does not line up with the essential characteristics of a 4.
The nature of a fantasy self has evolved for me over time in terms of confidence that it will come to exist. When I was a kid and teenager, it was a vision of who I would be and what I would accomplish when I got older. And yet as detailed as it was in the imagination, and as necessary as that outcome felt for my survival on a planet I barely felt equipped to live on, I began turning away real life opportunities to move in that direction. In the moment, sometimes I didn’t feel “ready†or confident enough to take an opportunity, but other times, one suddenly felt like it was beneath me. I did not imagine that these choices seriously jeopardized the future - that anything could cancel the inevitable.
Keep brain development in perspective though. At those ages, I still didn’t understand, either, things like that I could seriously hurt other people or that being a good person was a choice rather than a side I was born on. That was where I was at. What a joke.
Now having been out in the world for a while, I know more about why I sabotage myself and about the time, effort and even some luck it takes to break out of that completely within the little time we have. I can imagine many more timelines than just the favorite one that’s (still...) nice to daydream about, and know in my bones how easy it would be to live out my entire life along my quieter patterns instead. I have already made several defining choices that in hindsight are nonsense compared to anything I actually care about - and that’s actually pretty typical. Many, many people die with unrealized dreams - I suspect this could even be most of us. There would be nothing specially tragic or abnormal about ending up as one of the many. It’s normal for the human nature we universally struggle with to be stronger than any individual’s unique potential.
I also question that this fantasy self is even so great. The vision centers on my own significance and own imagined relationships - it’s not about helping anyone. It’s not about advacoting for change in the world. It’s about “actually living†and just sharing what’s inside my head with others. Which is great and all - but is it enough to be good? In some ways, I see more nobility in the sort of more primal dreams I skim over, such as having a family. Also, the distance between me and the ideal is the biggest driver of my overblown fear of mortality - bare-faced vanity right there.
The one belief, though, that I’ve clung to consistently as this has evolved, though, is believing that the actualization of the fantasy self is or at least was possible. This is an assumption that I am aware enough to know that all the code required to build this specific thing was in written in my raw material at birth, whether or not I ever would take the initiative to run that code.
The fantasy self will probably exist as a secret parallel world my entire life. What’s developed on the other side of the parallel is the capacity and the words to articulate that while actualizing it is worth a shot, “who we really are†is our choices, and we know so much less than we think about what even drives those.
You didn't rustle me, in fact, now I have no idea what you're talking about. My point remains that I think you're mistyped. While behaviors aren't perfect proxies for underlying motivations, they do hint at them. The image you have put together for yourself does not seem to have been constructed in a 4ish way. This suggests to me that you're mistyped. I'm pointing it out because I think what you said about a fantasy self being a life goal—and an attainable life goal at that—really doesn't seem to be a 4ish fantasy at all, particularly with regard to what you've already accomplished. So while I respect what you say about your fantasy self, I think it's misleading as far as type 4 is concerned.
I have a 4 in my tritype and this has been bothering me. Is it better to try and live up to the fantasy self or let it go? Is the fantasy self your purpose or an illusion? What happens when you live up to the fantasy self? Do you just create another one? What has your experience been?
How (un)healthy is it to have a fantasy 'self'? Self between quotation marks since for me personally, when I am not feeling well I don't think about myself but I 'play' the role of someone else (most of the time).
I feel as if this an advantage and a disadvantage at the same time... Free entertainment for the whole day, not having to deal with real life, 'experiencing' what you can't experience in real life, to put things into perspective.
But it sometimes makes me feel as if I am only getting more detached from real life. A year ago -I think- or something like that. I had this sudden realization that... 'they' aren't real. It's all in my head, they don't exist and I'll never meet them. No one knows about this and I can't talk about it. When I die, it will all be gone, 'they' will be gone. It all came together at once... A mix of loss, sadness, loneliness, detachment, another identity crisis,... as if the whole world just vanished. As if I was no one. This whole theatre I held op for so long was actually meaningless. I've built my identity upon something that doesn't exist.
Of course, it's not that I ever really believed that they were real. I just never thought about it in that way. But it made me realize how much time I spend in my head and how attached I am to these 'characters'. And how no one knows about this, it takes up a lot of space in my head but it never comes out. In my head it's all interesting and fun, but it makes me less interesting and fun in real life... Since I can't talk about this. You can't talk about the adventures you have in your head- I would be lying if I did. And it makes me feel like an empty shell. If it's meaningless then I am too, since it's a part of me. Then again; who am I? Sometimes I just feel fake. For sure when people call me 'deep'. Maybe that's what I'd like them to believe, have I been lying to them this whole time? Oh the downfall when they find out that I am actually not that special...
The thought of letting my 'fantasy self' go scares me. But I do realize it affects me in negative ways. A lot of thinking... less of doing. And that's the problem. You can't tell people how you fantasize about becoming this amazing mountain climber, how you're a good mountainbiker, about your imaginative dog,... Telling people that you're 'artistic/creative' and sporty* yet you never really do anything. It's all in my imagination, and in my imagination I am/it's great. And I can entertain myself with these ideas for hours, but they're again not useful for the real world. When this whole play breaks down and I come to reality again I'll have a mental breakdown for an hour or something but after that I'll just continue.
(* Oh, how I once almost fell off the wagon when I told my teacher at an oral exam that I enjoyed practicing sports. She asked me what kind of sports I practiced... Well crap. I actually fucking don't. I just sold my horse and fantasized about kickboxing but in reality I didn't do shit. Completely forgot that you actually have to do things, outside of your head... Luckily, I could blame it on the fact that I forgot how the sport was called in French. )
It made me think of this quote: "A Four we know shared with us that he spent most of his spare time listening to classical music while fantasizing about being a great concert pianist—à la Vladimir Horowitz. Unfortunately, his commitment to practicing fell far short of his fantasized self-image, and he was often embarrassed when people asked him to play for them. His actual abilities, while not poor, became sources of shame."
How relatable this is. The main reason why I enjoy finding new music I seem to 'connect' with is because it inspires me. I can come up with new scenarios again to daydream about. Every interaction, everything I see and think 'that is interesting' is something to use until it's burnt out and then I need something new to feed my thoughts with. (Though I replay the same scenes over and over again if I like them)
I pick up characteristics from people I find interesting and I use them in my 'stories'. It sometimes makes me forget that these idealizations are not how these people are in real life and it's disappointing when they don't fit in the image I had of them. How everything is better in my own head. All those conversations with them they don't know anything about. It makes me forget that they actually don't know who I am.
But the detachment is hard to explain because it's more of a general state to me- something I am not always aware of. An example would be; I once sat in the car together with my dad. Nothing unusual.. I looked over to my dad and 'the realization' suddenly just hit me in the face. "That's my dad.ThAtS mY fReAkiN dAd??" Yeah... That's your dad indeed, what about it? It felt as if imagination and reality collapsed, creating this sensation I can't even put into words. As if I had been dissociating the whole time and I suddenly came back to reality- or more like crashed into it. Another dimension. Though I was there, I'd been for the whole time. And I have no idea, what triggered this thought and the feelings that came with it.
And by thinking about this I've also come to the conclusion that I am more introverted than I'd like to acknowledge. What also makes me doubt if I am actually a four. But to explain; in my head I'll have conversations with people about my 'darkest' thoughts, my feelings. I'll vent four hours and hours, explain every gory detail and I just let myself go. I think in some way, I very much confused this with actually talking to real people. Since this also feels as 'real' to me. And a four is expressive about their emotions, thoughts and also kind of comfortable with their own darker side, right? Well I am... To an imagined person in my head. Does that count?
I do express my thoughts and feelings in some way. But I never realized how little I actually share with friends. Though, for some reason I always pictured myself as a pretty 'open' person, they only have to ask. But when one of my friends asked me a this question a few weeks ago "ThisName, who actually are you? Does being open ever come naturally to you?"
And I was like... I am not, an open person?? :')
Does this shit even make sense? I hate this. While I was walking with the dog I had 'great' ideas, I knew what to write but... When it comes down to it these thoughts suddenly seem to have disappeared.
I guess that I must add some advantages... Kinda went on with my rant here, jesus. The biggest advantage is; being able to look at problems from a distance. It's not 'what would I do' but what would x persona in my head do? Play out some scenarios, live up in it... *forgot the other advantages, might come back later*
But it makes me wonder... Is this only a characteristic of type four? For a long time I always thought that this was normal. What do other people do all day long..? What do they think about? I suspect that everyone has some fantasies once in a while, but that it's not a 'rule' that everyone makes up stories like this, that it occupies their mind from the second they wake up and until they fall asleep.
An additional question would be; how did you experience this as a kid? (Not only @ people who are type four)
I am also in general curious how other people picture their fantasy self/persona. Where do you get your inspiration from? What does it mean to you? How does it impact your life,...?
no idea whether I have responded to this before or no
point of 4 is that you feel, at your very core, you are so "flawed" in a way that is utterly different from everyone else, which gives rise to envy, jealousy, all of those super painful feelings
the "fantasy self" I guess might be something the 4 "would like to be" though at the same time they are all too attached to their flawed and authentic self image
best way out of this whole cycle is to gently let yourself appreciate the good things about you, and let go of that envy at the core, as much as you can
until, ideally, there's not much of it there anymore
My fantasy self is basically an exaggerated me. I like to do art sometimes, but what would happen if I was a full fledged artist? I want my overall look to be the same, but what if I was airbrushed a bit? I'm a typology nerd, but what if I was a typology master? I just feel like if all the things that made me me were amped up, that I would have a true identity. This might be more 9 cause they idealize reality, but I have a lot of conversations in my head with people. It might be imagining how things could have gone differently, or what would happen if I met TypoC people.
I create a fantasy self, yet reaching that fantasy self feels odd. Not that I've really ever reached it-I've more lost it than anything. When I was younger, I was that artist. But it's like, if I reached my ideal self, the journey would be over. That even though my flaws make me feel inferior, they are what make me me so it'd feel like a part of me was missing. Logically it feels so weird, the push and pull of things, but that's just who I am.
I have a 4 in my tritype and this has been bothering me. Is it better to try and live up to the fantasy self or let it go? Is the fantasy self your purpose or an illusion? What happens when you live up to the fantasy self? Do you just create another one? What has your experience been?
I have 4 in my tritype too. I don't think it's possible for me to ever live up to my fantasy self, more like fantasy selves. It changes depending on my mood. For example, a lot of the time, my fantasy self is a handsome and confident man, which I don't think I can even attempt to be. It would be sad if this was my purpose, but sometimes I find myself chasing unattainable ideals and values which just leads to further disappointment in my life.
If I ever achieve something from my fantasies (which rarely ever happens), then I do go ahead and create more fantasies. I also don't celebrate my accomplishments for very long. Whatever I do never feels like it is good enough. I can probably have everything I consider to be perfect, then find something wrong with it and then want to change again. I'm very much a "grass is always greener on the other side" person.