Hey guys, I'm a four now.
Narcissist? Dramatic? That couldn't be me, right? When I first read the definitions of each of the Enneagram numbers, I thought I was a six and I thought that for quite a while. And I DEFINITELY have some 6 in me (as well as some of each of the other numbers). The Enneagram is meant to be fluid and resonates (or doesn't resonate) in a different way for each individual. The 6 is "The Loyalist" and, if you know me, you know that if nothing else, I am loyal until the end. For the full description of a six, click here. Also note that when I initially took this quiz, I was at the start of my time in Uganda and I was beyond security-oriented, paranoid, loyal, responsible, feeling like I was without support and guidance, etc. Uganda was similar to staring into a mirror for an entire year. Just you and the mirror. And you have no choice but to be faced with who you are at the core of your heart. Sounds scary, doesn't it?
Let me corroborate that thought: yeah, it was super fucking scary.
I was first introduced to the Enneagram by the most wonderful couple I have ever known. They lived with me in the same guarded compound in Northern Uganda. They encouraged all of us whom resided in the compound to take the Enneagram test so that we could better understand each other and, therefore, live with each other better.
I was so skeptical at first. I hate personality tests because I hate being put into a category. At the same time I love personality tests because it forces me to question who I am and get to know myself better. In other words, I loved looking at each of the numbers and analyzing where I fit into each of the descriptions, but I hated coming to a conclusion. To add to that, the Enneagram is offensive at its core because it exposes who you are-the good and the bad.
That being said, my time in Uganda forced me to face the deepest parts of my identity-the good and the not so good. This is why, later in the year, I knew in my heart I was a four.
Fours are the most rare of all the numbers. They are more "misunderstood" and introspective and creative and sensitive than all of the other numbers (these are not just my own thoughts/facts, but also the thoughts/facts of people much more credible than I).
Fours typically struggle with abuse of pharmaceuticals as well as anything that can help them forget all of the pain in the world that they can't forget sober. And fours have the highest suicide rate.
Examples of the past include Vincent Van Gogh, Edgar Allen Poe, and my personal favorite, Sylvia Plath. Now let us examine how brilliant and fucked up these humans were.
Edgar Allen Poe disappeared for six days after months of searching for a replacement for his late wife. No one knows what happened to him until he was found in an Irish tavern named Gunners Hall on October 3rd, drunk with few clothes on as if he had traded them for a drink... or 10. By the early morning hours, he was delirious, pale and sweating profusely, and talking incessantly to imaginary things on the walls of the room. He seems to have remained in this state until three in the morning of October 7th, a Sunday, when he appeared to relax, said quietly 'Lord, help my poor soul', and died.
Van Gogh had committed himself to an asylum and was in and out of mental institutes. In late July 1890, Van Gogh shot himself in a field. He missed his heart and passed out. When he woke up that evening, he looked for the revolver to complete what he had set out to do. He died early the next morning from the initial shot. Man, can you imagine trying to die so you could escape pain and then drag the death out in extreme pain? Irony, at its finest. I think Van Gogh would have thought it poetic. Van Gogh's brother wrote, "He himself wanted to die. When I sat at his bedside and said that we would try to get him better and that we hoped that he would then be spared this kind of despair, he said, 'La tristesse durera toujours' (The sadness will last forever). I understood what he wanted to say with those words."
Sylvia Plath is one of my favorite authors. If you haven't read The Bell Jar, you need to. And if you relate to this post, you should read her diary entries. Dark shit. She was found dead in her kitchen on February 11, 1963. She had placed her head in the oven with the gas on and had stuffed cloths under the door so that the carbon monoxide would not reach her sleeping children in the next room. This is the poem she wrote two weeks before her death:
Sheep in Fog
The hills step off into whiteness.
People or stars
Regard me sadly, I disappoint them.
The train leaves a line of breath.
O slow
Horse the colour of rust,
Hooves, dolorous bells -
All morning the
Morning has been blackening,
A flower left out.
My bones hold a stillness, the far
Fields melt my heart.
They threaten
To let me through to a heaven
Starless and fatherless, a dark water.
By Sylvia Plath
These three individuals have changed the world in which we live in. Their influence and legacy live on today. Sylvia Plath was on of the first to publicly proclaim feminist ideals as well as the topic of mental health. They are genius, deep, sensitive artists with a dark inner life. My goal is to be genius, deep and sensitive while not allowing the darkness to take over.
So, here's to creating like Sylvia Plath, but having a different ending.