# The Gap at the Bottom of the Enneagram



## Animal (May 29, 2012)

Interesting article. Would love to hear your thoughts.
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THE GAP AT THE BOTTOM OF THE ENNEAGRAM

*THE GAP AT THE BOTTOM OF THE ENNEAGRAM*
© 1997 by Judith Searle
 Many writers on the Enneagram have pointed out contrasts, connections and complementarities between the symmetrical left and right halves of the diagram, and my understanding of the system owes much to their observations. Even more intriguing to me is the lack of symmetry between the top and bottom halves, with the Nine point at the top of the figure directly opposite the gap at the bottom between Four and Five, which is the largest physical space between any two adjacent points on the diagram.
 What are we to make of this imbalance? I ask myself. In what way does Nine represent the complement or opposite of the open space? 
 Most commentators on the Enneagram of personality agree that the Nine point represents a combination of the other eight fixations or styles. If we say that each of the points represents a strategy and the Nine point represents a combination of these strategies, then what threat are all these defenses designed to counter? 
 It seems to me that the gap at the bottom of the diagram must represent the void. It has been here with us all along, hiding in plain sight.
 Mystics, poets, novelists, psychologists and philosophers have characterized this emptiness at the heart of human existence in various ways: "the hole," "existential anxiety," "the silence," "the abyss," the "dark night of the soul," "absolute zero," "death." When Joseph Conrad at the end of his classic novella Heart of Darkness writes about "the horror," it is perhaps this vision of ultimate nothingness he has in mind.
 So terrifying is this sense of emptiness underlying our lives that each of us has to devise a way of denying it, inventing for ourselves an identity, a form of provisional Being to counter the ultimate Nothingness. In a sense, we are like children inventing various strategies to distract ourselves from the threat of the bogeyman. 
 Distilled to their essence, the possible defenses against the specter of nonexistence are limited; they number nine in all:
 o One says, "If I can make myself and everything around me perfect, maybe I will be safe." 

 o Two says, "If I can make others love me and depend on me, maybe I will be safe."
 o Three says, "If I can establish a public image of myself as a successful person, maybe I will be safe."
 o Four says, "If I can make friends with the darkness and become a connoisseur of my own pain, maybe I will be safe."
 o Five says, "If I can keep my mind focused on grasping the world's complexities, maybe I will be safe."
 o Six says, "If I can stay alert to all possible dangers and find trustworthy allies, maybe I will be safe."
 o Seven says, "If I can distract myself with pleasure and avoid thinking about the threat, maybe I will be safe."
 o Eight says, "If I can intimidate and dominate others, maybe I will be safe."
 o Nine says, "If I can keep an open mind about all possible strategies, maybe I will be safe."
 In each of these statements, the "maybe" represents the ***** in our best suit of armor. Shakespeare in his play Richard II gives an eloquent summary of this aspect of the human condition: 
 ...for within the hollow crown 
That rounds the mortal temples of a king 
Keeps Death his court, and there the antick sits 
Scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp; 
Allowing him a breath, a little scene, 
To monarchize, be feared, and killed with looks, 
Infusing him with self and vain conceit 
As if this flesh which walls about our life 
Were brass impregnable; and humoured thus 
Comes at the last, and with a little pin 
Bores through his castle-wall, and farewell king! 
 (III, ii, 155) ​ The strongest clue to the nature of the empty space at the bottom of the diagram lies in what is directly opposite it: the peaceable kingdom of Nine, in which much energy is devoted to denying the negative aspects of life. For Nine the combination of all eight strategies leads to a kind of immobilization that makes me think of the myriad thin strings, each in tension, that immobilize Gulliver in the land of the Lilliputians. This immobilization-in-tension serves as a living counterpoint to the immobilization-in-lack-of-tension that we see in death. Several analogies may be useful in discussing the nature (and necessity) of this essential opposition/complementarity between the Nine "all that is" and the ultimate nothingness. Certainly it is intriguing to note the parallel with the zero/sum or zero/one aspect of modern mathematics, which many writers have observed is the basis for the internal structure of the Enneagram diagram (in terms of the way the directions of the arrows relate to common patterns of human psychodynamics). Figure/ground and yang/yin also have interesting resonances with the Nine/gap relationship.
 Two further analogies I find especially useful are the connections and complementarities between sound/silence and light/darkness.
 In a sense, the darkness of the empty space between Four and Five provides the essential context for viewing the spectrum of light in the nine Enneagram points. Each of the points One through Eight has a skewed view of reality (as if seeing reality illuminated by light of a particular color, so that it is not possible for any of these points to view reality in its true aspect). Directly opposite the absolute darkness of the gap is the Nine's white light, which combines all the colors of the other eight points. The Nine, seeing with "equal eye," is so dazzled that the image of reality dissolves in light and cannot be focused on clearly. So Nine's vision of the truth is ultimately just as distorted as that of the other eight types. 
 To use the analogy of sound, we may say that points One through Eight play a melody in different musical keys, with Nine playing the same tune in all keys at once; at the bottom of the diagram, in opposition to this flood of dissonant sound, is silence. 
 Both light and music have a relationship to rates of vibration (motion), with the gap between Four and Five representing absolute stillness, which may be what T.S. Eliot was referring to when he wrote about "the still point of the turning world." His image of the center of a turning wheel also resonates with the circularity of the Enneagram diagram.
 Just as light is inconceivable without darkness and sound is inconceivable without silence, so life--in its nine basic aspects as charted by the Enneagram--is inconceivable without death. The gap at the bottom of the Enneagram diagram is, in a sense, the key to its deepest resonance. It is paradoxically the source of both the ultimate horror and the ultimate meaning in our lives.
 It is possible to see the Enneagram figure as a stylized human body (in a loose relationship to Leonardo's famous drawing), with the head at Nine and legs at Four and Five. If we follow the implications of this idea, the gap is, in a very real sense, the anus at the bottom of the world through which we all must ultimately be expelled. But it can also be seen as the birth canal through which we all enter. Stanislav Grof, among others, has pointed out the psychological similarity between the classic near-death experience and the experience of birth--both of which often involve memories or images of moving through a tunnel toward a source of light.
 The Enneagram, viewed in this context, is a kind of geometric rendering of the only living creature that knows the inevitability of its own death.
 In view of this opposition between life and death at the heart of the diagram, it is possible to see in a different context the common problems that various commentators on the Enneagram have observed at points Four, Five and Nine.
 I would suggest that Four and Five, the two types that flank the gap, in a sense do not have wings to each other so much as each has one wing to the ultimate darkness. Both these types are notable for their problems with identity. Four solves the problem by defining its identity in its capacity for feeling, while Five defines its identity in its capacity for thought. But both are vulnerable, in their pathological levels, to a perceived "loss of self," a special relationship with the abyss.
 In the case of Four, there is a strong affinity with the dark places, as we see, for example, in Keats's "Ode to a Nightingale": 
 . . . for many a time 
 I have been half in love with easeful Death, 
Call'd him soft names in many a musèd rhyme, 
 To take into the air my quiet breath; 
Now more than ever seems it rich to die, 
 To cease upon the midnight with no pain . . . .​ I would suggest that Four actively seeks connection with the darkness as a way of "pumping up" feelings, then uses those heightened feelings as evidence of authenticity (and identity): "I am my feelings; look how strong and deep they are!" Five is as preoccupied with the void as Four, but Five's attitude is one of aversion, visible in the works of writers in the "horror" genre from Edgar Allan Poe to Stephen King. The last stanza of Robert Frost's "Desert Places" can serve as a succinct example of the Five perspective: 
 They cannot scare me with their empty spaces 
 Between stars--on stars where no human race is. 
 I have it in me so much nearer home 
 To scare myself with my own desert places.​
 In contrast to Four, Five is fleeing from the panic engendered by the emptiness, trying to shape thoughts into a coherent system that might constitute an identity: "I am my thoughts; look how logical and reassuring they are!"
 In a sense, Nine is as vulnerable to a loss of self as Four and Five, but Nine's problem arises from the reverse situation: "flooding" rather than "emptiness." One might say that Nine lives across the street from the abyss, while Four and Five live next door to it. Or, to put the comparison in a Buddhist context, we might say that the Four has a craving for the void, the Five an aversion to it, the Nine ignorance (or confusion) about it. 
 All of which is not to suggest that Four, Five, and Nine have any more or less insight into ultimate truth than the rest of us--only that their particular problems may be clarified by seeing them in the "light" of the darkness at the bottom of the diagram. 
 Interesting as it is to observe particular points in relation to the gap at the bottom of the Enneagram, I find it even more intriguing to speculate about the implications of the gap as it relates to a broad range of human systems.
 I believe it is possible to see the range of possibilities within each category of system as fitting the template of the nine points (nine basic strategies to deal with the void). It seems evident that all religions have been devised by human beings as a response to the fact of mortality, and it would be an interesting exercise to lay out the world's belief systems on the Enneagram diagram. I believe the same is true of other systems such as philosophy, psychology, and government. 
 As I see it, the Enneagram diagram is not only a template for all human systems, it is also unique in the way it addresses the fundamental question of why we are driven to devise systems in the first place. In this sense, once we recognize the position of the void as a key element of the diagram, the Enneagram can serve as a kind of Unified Field Theory of human systems.
 As Bertrand Russell (a probable Five who understood philosophical systems as well as anyone who ever lived) put it, "Only upon the firm foundation of unyielding despair can the soul's habitation henceforth be safely built."


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## enneathusiast (Dec 15, 2012)

I think the inner lines have to do with how Gurdjieff used the symbol. The types use the symbol in a more symmetrical manner and the inner lines should be revised into three triangles.

In general, I think people will try to make sense of whatever patterns they see on the symbol. There is no inherent meaning there only what meaning people see.


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## betweenlaughterandtears (Aug 29, 2013)

That was a great read and it really shows the differences between 4's and 5's perception of reality.


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## Pinkieshyrose (Jan 30, 2013)

When reading this the gap at the bottom and how others deal with it seemed so much like a song called Bad Apple. Where it seem's like the person is depressed and deciding if they should stay as there type they used to be (Probably 9.) or go into the gap both being horrible for the person. Possibly because of the fact they are either choosing emptiness or lack of identity but both problems being apparent in the middle stage they are now in. 

I really don't think that 9 represents sound or silence...though... something about 9 makes me feel like its really neutral to everything due to sometimes using apathy.


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## athenian200 (Oct 13, 2008)

I definitely seem to be strongly aware of death. I wrote an essay for school once... our teacher had us walk a labyrinth, and asked us to write an essay about how it related to our journey through life. I impressed everyone by offering the interpretation that the beginning of the labyrinth was birth, and reaching the end was death. I also said that the circular wrapping represents the comforting idea we entertain that time is a weekly or annual cycle, rather than simply a solemn march from birth towards death. 

The post about how the symbol and the different positions on it represent the origins of the various religions and philosophies... is very interesting. It makes me think of this song:






_Can you hear the breath of the observer
Can you hear the quanta calling back?
The arguments of motivation
Implore my distant muse to act
Sentiment spent on emotions
Derived from our eternal spark
All beyond our comprehension
Watching protons in the dark

All the love and all the hatred
Split from our desire to be
All the love and all the hatred
Leading to hostilities
All the saints and all the prophets
All the secrets that you keep
Exist with one intriguing question
Tell me dearest - who are we?

Can you hear the gears of evolution
Grinding for divinity
Can you hear the voices of creation
And the science sprawling from the seas
Sentiment spent on emotions
Derived from our eternal spark
All beyond our comprehension
Watching protons in the dark

All the love and all the hatred
Lovers searching for the seed
That piece of existential knowing
That gives tomorrow wings to dream
All the broken hearted angels
Living in the ether seams
All the love and all the hatred
Tell me dearest - who are we?
_


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## Animal (May 29, 2012)

"The way out is through." -Trent Reznor, probably 5w4


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## hal0hal0 (Sep 1, 2012)

I've seen this article before (didn't I show this to you a while ago? I forget). I do think that, in terms of enneagram fixations, it makes sense. 4 and 5 are relatively "empty" types because their tendency is a focus on the negative (not "depressing" per se, but rather the sense of lacking, scarcity or "not enough"). To an extent, I think these types are "hungry"... even hungrier than 7's gluttony, actually. Envy is defined by the lack thereof, typically in reference to another person, societal standards, or even the 4's own fantasy (which is actually the case for me... I find my own fantasies and my aspirations are what I'm most envious of).

For 5, I generally see avarice as more of a resource or preparation type fixation (i.e., the world is complex, so detachment becomes the strategy of choice). I've got it stuck in my head that the 5's general attitude is miserly—there is a detachment and withholding not just of physical resources, but emotion and letting people in, as well. It's as if the 5 has got the impression that emotions are currency that are in limited supply, so better to stow them away than spend them recklessly (although I'm probably mixing that with the Sp instinct).



Animal said:


> Just as light is inconceivable without darkness and sound is inconceivable without silence, so life--in its nine basic aspects as charted by the Enneagram--*is inconceivable without death*. The gap at the bottom of the Enneagram diagram is, in a sense, the key to its deepest resonance. It is paradoxically the source of both the ultimate horror and the ultimate meaning in our lives.
> It is possible to see the Enneagram figure as a stylized human body (in a loose relationship to Leonardo's famous drawing), with the head at Nine and legs at Four and Five. If we follow the implications of this idea, the gap is, in a very real sense, *the anus at the bottom* of the world through which we all must ultimately be expelled. But it can also be seen as the birth canal through which we all enter. Stanislav Grof, among others, has pointed out the psychological similarity between the classic near-death experience and the experience of birth--both of which often involve memories or images of moving through a tunnel toward a source of light.
> The Enneagram, viewed in this context, is a kind of geometric rendering of the only living creature that knows the inevitability of its own death.


:laughing: There is a line from Apocalypse Now (inspired by both Heart of Darkness and TS Eliot's "The Hollow Men") that goes:
*
"Welcome to the ass-end of the world!"* (referring to the hellish landscape of the Vietnam War/Cambodia). I generally see 4 and 5 as the ass-end of the enneagram. Naranjo also contrasted 4s with 5s by saying that 4s were "wet" whereas 5s were "dry" but their preoccupation is typically on negative space (i.e., what is missing or scarce).



> In view of this opposition between life and death at the heart of the diagram, it is possible to see in a different context the common problems that various commentators on the Enneagram have observed at points Four, Five and Nine.
> I would suggest that Four and Five, the two types that flank the gap, in a sense do not have wings to each other so much as each has one wing to the ultimate darkness. Both these types are notable for their problems with identity. Four solves the problem by defining its identity in its capacity for feeling, while Five defines its identity in its capacity for thought. But both are vulnerable, in their pathological levels, to a perceived "loss of self," a special relationship with the abyss.


Stories are metaphors for life. They create a whole universe that can be intoxicating in its allure and they can be extinguished as quickly as they arose. The good ones are over much too quick, and the bad ones seem to go on forever. The process of stories is a cyclical one, just as a phoenix—where one story ends, another begins. JRR Tolkien exemplified this beautifully with the phrase "there and back again." I have a love-hate with Tolkien, because I think in terms of archetypes and tapping into universal experiences (i.e., the hero's journey), he was a genius, but I cannot stomach his writing style (which is really just personal preference, since the actual mythos of Middle Earth fascinates me to no end; I could spend hours researching that stuff). 

Sidenote: I greatly prefer the Hobbit to LotR btw, because I find Thorin a much more flawed, interesting, and intense character than the comparatively cool, almost perfect Aragorn. In a sense, I'd consider Aragorn a more transcended, "enlightened," reincarnation of Thorin—both are Kings in exile, yet Thorin retains a level of heat and vengeance that Aragorn has broken the cycle with.

This is not just in terms of individual lives, but our various reincarnations within each life as well—lives within lives. There is an amusing meme for video game culture:










In a sense, a video game, a story, an era of one's life, etc. are all various incarnations of ourselves. I used to drown myself in video games, and I'd get hung up on the stigma that I was wasting my life... I would read articles saying that video games or fiction were empty fantasies that "ruined one's life." Those stung. The idea that fiction was essentially pornography (and to some extent, it _*can *_slip into that). 

James Joyce called pornography "any work of art that drives the viewer to want to _*possess *_the object depicted."

This happened to me more times than I could count. I'd over-invest in a fantasy, to the point that all I'd do is dream. I'd whet my appetite on impossible dreams where the standards were continually rising like a hot air balloon—where the longer I'd dream, the more unreachable the destination, so I'd simply dream some more. It became a vicious circle. Zero action. The problem arose that I'd invest in a particular fantasy and find beauty/sanctuary there, but it always felt like sand slipping out of my grasp. As soon as I'd say "this is where I want to be" the excitement or beauty of those spaces lost its edge. There's this quote from the X-files that goes:



> Life is like a box of chocolates. A cheap, thoughtless, perfunctory gift that nobody ever asks for. Unreturnable because all you get back is another box of chocolates. So you're stuck with this undefinable whipped mint crap that you mindlessly wolf down when there's nothing else left to eat. Sure, once in a while there's a peanut butter cup or an English toffee. But they're gone too fast and the taste is... fleeting. So, you end up with nothing but broken bits filled with hardened jelly and teeth-shattering nuts. And if you're desperate enough to eat those, all you got left is an empty box filled with useless brown paper wrappers.


That was a worldview I had for the longest time (and still have, to some extent). There was always something else I could have been doing. It was literally just me chasing one mirage after another—as soon as I'd reach my destination—the Promised Land—it would evaporate into thin air. I dreamed of the perfect, _*everlasting *_fantasy, which actually destroyed it, since the reality is nothing is perfect (although I'd guess flawless would be a better word). 

I've been challenging myself to alter this outlook, however, which involves realizing that where one story ends, another begins:



> “One of the things I know about creating is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book or for another book; give it, give it all, give it *now*. Something more will arise for later, something better.”


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## Animal (May 29, 2012)

hal0hal0 said:


> I've seen this article before (didn't I show this to you a while ago? I forget).


I don't remember.. :mellow: But if so sorry for thread-theft!!! :ninja:



> I do think that, in terms of enneagram fixations, it makes sense. 4 and 5 are relatively "empty" types because their tendency is a focus on the negative (not "depressing" per se, but rather the sense of lacking, scarcity or "not enough"). To an extent, I think these types are "hungry"... even hungrier than 7's gluttony, actually. Envy is defined by the lack thereof, typically in reference to another person, societal standards, or even the 4's own fantasy (which is actually the case for me... I find my own fantasies and my aspirations are what I'm most envious of).


I'm envious of my own past, the lives of the characters in my novel, the future which was taken away from me. I'm envious of the could-have-beens and once-was's in my own life. Deeply and thoroughly. This is why I've been writing novels since I was very young. Real life just isn't enough. The closest I can come to satisfaction is living through my characters, but then I get so frustrated because I have to come back to Earth… and I can't touch the fictional man I'm in love with… I don't look the way my character looks… I can't do what she does… there isn't magic in the world… I'm not living out in the wild, but stuck in some house in a suburb. It's a vicious cycle that draws me to write and create again and again, to see my fantasy mirrored, but then I feel like my writing is isolating me from finding any of what I want in my real life, and I dream that one day, when I get published, I will have the kind of life I want…. but will I really? Since I am just not good enough at writing? So I torture myself and work to get better at the craft, but all I really want to do is disappear into the novel and leave the world behind.

Envying other real people is rare for me, and when it does happen, it's usually tied in with wanting to possess them. "I want him so badly I want to _be_ him. Then we would be truly close, as one." [dies of mortification but posts anyway?]


> Stories are metaphors for life. They create a whole universe that can be intoxicating in its allure and they can be extinguished as quickly as they arose. The good ones are over much too quick, and the bad ones seem to go on forever.* The process of stories is a cyclical one, just as a phoenix—where one story ends, another begins.
> *


YES!!!! I love this!!!! I have called my creative process my "phoenix complex" for a while. It also applies to relationships, experiences, anything in life that matters.



> JRR Tolkien exemplified this beautifully with the phrase "there and back again." I have a love-hate with Tolkien, because I think in terms of archetypes and tapping into universal experiences (i.e., the hero's journey), he was a genius, but I cannot stomach his writing style (which is really just personal preference, since the actual mythos of Middle Earth fascinates me to no end; I could spend hours researching that stuff).


I have the same feelings about Tolkein. His characters are also one-dimensional and too symbolic, Yet I love the universality of it all. 



> This happened to me more times than I could count. I'd over-invest in a fantasy, to the point that all I'd do is dream. I'd whet my appetite on impossible dreams where the standards were continually rising like a hot air balloon—where the longer I'd dream, the more unreachable the destination, so I'd simply dream some more. It became a vicious circle. Zero action. The problem arose that I'd invest in a particular fantasy and find beauty/sanctuary there, but it always felt like sand slipping out of my grasp. As soon as I'd say "this is where I want to be" the excitement or beauty of those spaces lost its edge.


Beautifully stated. For me the action is in the creation. I strive endlessly to see my dreams mirrored. The closest I can come to my dreams coming true is one day seeing my characters in a movie. The only thing that keeps me going is enacting these dreams. But if I commit to enacting memories of my past or unreachable dreams in a long-term creative project, they fold me deeper and deeper into themselves. A true, deep dream like the ones you describe, cannot be expelled quickly. The deepest dreams that I cannot pry from my psyche need years, or a lifetime of dedication. Creative arts made of the dreams I cannot reach, thus become my life's work.



> That was a worldview I had for the longest time (and still have, to some extent). There was always something else I could have been doing. It was literally just me chasing one mirage after another—as soon as I'd reach my destination—the Promised Land—it would evaporate into thin air.* I dreamed of the perfect, everlasting fantasy, which actually destroyed it, since the reality is nothing is perfect* (although I'd guess flawless would be a better word).


This is so true. This is the problem with turning fantasies and dreams into creative work. Once it's real, it's never as profound as it was in your head. So you continue to strive for that perfect rendition, and work on it forever, which allows you to linger in the fantasy. The fantasy just folds deeper and deeper into itself as you chide yourself for not expressing it adequately and then you begin to hate it. Then you lose your perfect fantasy anyway. Etc...


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## athenian200 (Oct 13, 2008)

Animal said:


> I'm envious of my own past, the lives of the characters in my novel, the future which was taken away from me. I'm envious of the could-have-beens and once-was's in my own life. Deeply and thoroughly. This is why I've been writing novels since I was very young. Real life just isn't enough. The closest I can come to satisfaction is living through my characters, but then I get so frustrated because I have to come back to Earth… and I can't touch the fictional man I'm in love with… I don't look the way my character looks… I can't do what she does… there isn't magic in the world… I'm not living out in the wild, but stuck in some house in a suburb. It's a vicious cycle that draws me to write and create again and again, to see my fantasy mirrored, but then I feel like my writing is isolating me from finding any of what I want in my real life, and I dream that one day, when I get published, I will have the kind of life I want…. but will I really? Since I am just not good enough at writing? So I torture myself and work to get better at the craft, but all I really want to do is disappear into the novel and leave the world behind.


Sorry to derail the thread, but...

This paragraph gives me a new interpretation of this song...






It makes so much sense now, I understand what they were getting at a bit clearer than before.



> Beautifully stated. For me the action is in the creation. I strive endlessly to see my dreams mirrored. The closest I can come to my dreams coming true is one day seeing my characters in a movie. The only thing that keeps me going is enacting these dreams. But if I commit to enacting memories of my past or unreachable dreams in a long-term creative project, they fold me deeper and deeper into themselves. A true, deep dream like the ones you describe, cannot be expelled quickly. The deepest dreams that I cannot pry from my psyche need years, or a lifetime of dedication. Creative arts made of the dreams I cannot reach, thus become my life's work.


And now you've clarified another song's meaning for me...






You are exceptionally good at clarifying the deeper meanings underlying the music I listen to, without intending to do so.

Anyway, back on topic... I wonder what it would be like if someone actually identified with the void itself? You said all of the points have a defense mechanism that makes them believe they might be safe.

I imagine that if someone identified with the void, they would have _no_ defense mechanisms. They would be aware of the fact that they were going to die, and they would have no illusions, even internally, to comfort them. They would make every move with the awareness that nothing would ever have lasting purpose, and that their time was limited. They might analyze like a 5, but they wouldn't believe the knowledge would protect them. They might become morbidly focused on death like a 4, but without feeling deeply about it or believing those feelings would protect them. The awareness would just BE there like the sun, and they would accept it gracefully like a terminally ill old man planning his funeral... but from their earliest days.

I wonder if you may have found a hidden enneagram point... 0. A point that says, "I will not be safe, I will come to an end. I just have to accept that." 

The reason most people can't identify with this point consciously... is because of how the basic fear and desire would line up.

World View: Death is inevitable, but I wish to live.
Basic Desire: immortality
Basic Fear: death

There would be no possible way of reconciling these fears and desires, so you would be stuck in a negative loop with no way to move to a positive one. Which is why people focus on the other 9 defense mechanisms instead.

The 4 wing is connected to the idea of envying gods or deities that live forever, that desire to live and be. The 5 wing is connected to the search for a way to transcend the limitations of the body and become immortal. That's why they are the wings of this point, if that theory is right. It even explains the ultimate origin of the greed and envy... there is a GREED in wanting to live forever, and ENVY of mythological characters who can do just that, or perhaps even of your own children outliving you.


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## Bardo (Dec 4, 2012)

The dual birth canal - anus description of this gap is something that resonates, but not the part about 5s having aversion to it where 4s are drawn to it. Both face away from it in pursuit of integration and both have disintegration types that move towards it.


As a 5 I feel that part of my job is to walk around with a shovel, hauling stupid stupid things into it over my shoulder as if into a furnace and removing that nonsense from reality. Void fodder all over the goddamn place, don't these idiots see? Put that down, it's no good! If you cling to things that are broken you get dragged in the void, hands tied by emotion.

In a furnace you can make shiny metal things, engines and toys and things that make noise. This is placing new things from the void into reality, the birth canal aspect of 5. 
5 is surrounded by creative types, 7 and 8 in it's disintegration and integration and winged by 4. 5 itself isn't creative and yet it is the most inventive, producing marvels, making the impossible possible and the unknown known. 

This is turning the heat of what you have thrown into the furnace, what you have ANALysed (lolz), and making fuel of it. This is 8ward motion. (edit - reminds me of biological eating, healthy eating vs greed fits in here somewhere)
If something isn't alive it doesn't die, but marvels do become outmoded and obsolete. When the sparks and magic run out they should go in tomorrows furnace. In this whole process competence, non attachment, critique and observation are all integral.



When ignoring the responsibility of this inventive process 5 falls to 7, and 7 faces toward the void. 

The 7 finds health in non attachment, which allows the build up of material things and trivial distractions to fall into the void. Facing the void is a good thing. 

When the 5 turns his back on the world and faces the void his endless fascination is drawn into it, never ending knowing,learning of irrelevant details, over analysing, pondering all the mysteries a 5 can find. (greed)

What relevance does all of this have? Why do you need to know that? You've stopped hacking away and let things attach themselves to you. You aren't observant, you just like staring into a black hole. Now you have no critique, you just cast everything to the void. You've spent to much time hanging around that thing all by yourself. If you weren't so useless you'd see there are things worth fighting for! Get going!


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## 0+n*1 (Sep 20, 2013)

I don't ignore the void I feel I am. But the flooding part makes sense in the way that I was so aware of all the things that I could be that I realized I was none of those things because I couldn't be all of them and just saying I'm one of them makes me feel like I'm not seeing it all. I was aware of all my facets and all the facets that maybe I wasn't as much but that are possible in a hypothetical scenario, but when I tried to determine which one was stronger I felt I was closing myself to something. Maybe that's the open-mindedness of 9 that they talk about. It's hard to explain really. Maybe that't the confusion they talk about. I'm not void in a direct manner. It's indirect, by process of elimination. By eliminating my investment in any identity to favor a more universal one.

Note: I'll edit this and contribute more whenever I have some free time. I want to make sense and I want this to be relevant.


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## TaylorS (Jan 24, 2010)

As a 9, death is something I feel compelled to push out of consciousness, it is something I don't even like to think about. I think one of the reasons I am drawn to Transhumanism is because it frees me from having to worry about death, I can just assume that technology will give me immortality. The thought of no longer existing fills me with such terror I simply have to push it away to maintain my sanity.


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## Mutant Hive Queen (Oct 29, 2013)

Bardo said:


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Hm. So I have a weird thought, actually, about this post on Fives and how they relate to the void versus how Fours relate to the void. 

If Fives are the ones casting down useless things into the void, are Fours then ones that snatch that which falls too close to the void back up? Where Fives abandon old ideas and sentiments for fear that they will be dragged down, Fours save those sentiments from destruction because, if they _do_ fall into the void, then 4s will have nothing and may as well be in the void already? 

But (and this is where envy comes in)! Fours know that each thing they save is being pulled, inexorably, below. The void is coming for everything, eventually, and the shrine to the dead will be the first thing it swallows. If only the light would come down, just a bit lower, to bring some more definition to the hazy form of the shrine and its knickknacks! If only others _saw_ what a majestic and beautiful thing 4s have built, then it would be held up, without a doubt! But no, these old and broken toys are abandoned, with only the 4 to remember them. 

So, faced with the death of all it loves, what's a 4 to do? Sing, of course! Sermonize! Make that shrine that they have built _impossible_ to ignore! Maybe if it disturbs and shouts out at the light for long enough, it will give the 4 and their shrine something of its radiant reality. But the Void crawls up regardless, and even as light comes down it is swallowed back, or else the shrine, and the 4 with it, are yet still dragged closer to it until they can barely see once more. In desperation, song will turn into demands (of the 2), as the 4 and shrine pull more and more light down into the depths with them, and yet they still provide only a fleeting vision, until--

The 4 comes to a realization. The shrine and the 4 have been in free fall for some time, and as such have been focused only upon their own portion of the lower regions. But what of others? All are being dragged into the Void, after all. And the 4 fastest of all. Given the speed of the shrine's descent, the amount of light down there the Void consumes, is it any wonder that many have given up trying to save it? No, there is only one thing that is able to happen. The 4 must find within their shrine (and themselves), things that higher regions see as things of use--elevating what's around it rather than furthering descent. It is painful, to be certain, but the other they save will grow to be strong enough to save them. In serving a cause, like the 1, the 4 finally finds that which will accept it. 

@Animal , I want some thoughts on my glorious masterpiece! :tongue: :happy:


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## enneathusiast (Dec 15, 2012)

In the article_ HIDDEN IN PLAIN SIGHT:OBSERVATIONS ON THE ORIGINS OF THE ENNEAGRAM by Virginia Wiltse and Helen Palmer_, the Enneagram is placed on top of the lunar cycle. There are 27 phases that line up with the 9 types (3 phases for each type is 9 x 3 = 27). The dark moon (28th phase) fills the void at the bottom between types 4 and 5.


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## Bardo (Dec 4, 2012)

enneathusiast said:


> In the article_ HIDDEN IN PLAIN SIGHT:OBSERVATIONS ON THE ORIGINS OF THE ENNEAGRAM by Virginia Wiltse and Helen Palmer_, the Enneagram is placed on top of the lunar cycle. There are 27 phases that line up with the 9 types (3 phases for each type is 9 x 3 = 27). The dark moon (28th phase) fills the void at the bottom between types 4 and 5.
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> View attachment 136017



Whoah, that is cool.

I totally have a crescent moon tattoo, 5w4 FTW yall.


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