#also ty :) it's kind of weird and also extremely normal feeling knowing i'm a whole graduate now

[supercantaloupe]

congrats on graduating!!!! any further plans to celebrate?

nope lol i just did lunch with my parents. hung out a little bit with my roommate's friends at the end of the evening but i really avoided the actual party she'd had over this evening cause i was already worn out

i mean i'm seeing another orchestra concert and la boheme next friday but those aren't really grad related those are just generally for fun. just getting back to Real World Adult Things now (groceries. car stuff. library. trying to get a job. etc)

[funkymbtifiction]

I've been thinking about what you said about your wing's influence yesterday and it got me thinking about something. 4s are thought to always be authentic and pretending and going against their feelings is anti 4... but what about a 4w3, would they "pretend" without knowing? My sister is a 4 core with a 3 wing and she will do the same things 3s do but for a different reason. She will see something, whether personality trait or something about other people's style that she likes, music, and then adapt it into herself but with the intent to be superior with it and almost force herself to be into it. She's done it her whole life. She's also has a tendency to lie a lot, about herself, to make herself seem interesting, like she's got a whole different persona that is "superior" and she is playing a part, she's always been a bit exhausting with it. She's definitely not a 3 and she's not a 2 or any other type, she's a 4 but she will still do this. She'll be kind of anti authentic to herself despite the idea that 4s don't do that? I don't know if she's aware of this or not. I'm not sure about 4w5s but I think a 4w3 can be "anti 4" sometimes in this way, because of the 3 influence. What do you think?

Do I think 4s can be inauthentic? Yes. 4 is about identifying oneself as not normal and not fixable than being super authentic to their own feelings -- the latter happens as a result of combining it with Fi, but a Fe wouldn't be as concerned with authenticity as they would be in making sure others know they are different, broken, and dissatisfied with life. 4s create frustrations in life to react against, which is where they draw a lot of their emotional intensity from -- the constant frustration of not fitting in, of not being normal, or not being as easily satisfied as other people, etc. They can turn this against themselves into self-hatred, and create frustration around not being _____. A 3 wing would make them want to be seen, want to be successful, able to sell themselves in whatever they are doing, and more dramatic in how they present themselves -- a bit of a "look at me!" quality.

A lot of 3w4s who are into personas misidentify or get mistyped as 4s -- David Bowie, for example. Everyone assumes him 4w3 because of his Ziggy Stardust extreme weird persona, but he admitted in an interview that he doesn't know who he is, that he created this persona to embody as a way to be significant, which is a 3 approach to life more than 4 approach to life. Over-emphasis with what culture considers to be intensely attractive is usually 3, and not 4.

This also made me think about other types. What would all the types look like when they go mad with perusing their core enneagram desires, and what fictional characters would represent that? I think a 4 would be like this, searching for authenticity so hard they end up pretending and living a life of lies.

I think there's some truth to that -- I would say Ben Solo in Star Wars is exhibiting this kind of a 4w3 in particular. He is full of anger and frustration, convinced that his childhood has ruined his life (unable to move on past his hurts, as 4s are prone to doing), and determined to be 'different' from his parents to the extent that he is trying to force himself into being something he is not -- an agent of the Dark Side. He wants so desperately to be Kylo Ren that he's trying to ignore his own guilt and self-recrimination to play a part -- only to wind up drowning in guilt and shame. It's not until he casts aside this attempt to live up to a legacy that isn't his own (renounces his 3 wing) that he comes full circle into complete health again and is able to reconnect with his deeper truth. That he is not Kylo Ren. He is Ben Solo.

For a 1 I think Black Swan maybe. She goes mad trying to be perfect and doing everything perfectly. For a 2 Kathy Bates in Misery. She wants the author to love her so much she ends up tying him to a bed and breaking his legs until he loves her. What would be other types be? Do you have better examples?

Yeah. A 3 might be Jay Gatsby, so hell-bent on pursuing a persona to attract a woman that he destroys himself. 4 would be Kylo Ren. A good example of a 5 drowning in 5-ness is Ebeneezer Scrooge before his redemptive arc. A self-damning 6 is Smith in The Man in the High Castle, so bloody loyal to the Cause and afraid to break away from it that he destroys his marriage and his own life in the end. A self-destructive 7 might be Carrie Bradshaw from Sex in the City, who ruins everything she touches through her self-centered hedonism. Uhtred in The Last Kingdom is an 8 on a self-destructive path because he goes against everyone and everything, all the time. And the worst example of a "doormat" 9 is Marie in The Serpent -- she merges so much into a psychopath that she ignores and numbs out people's screams of pain while her boyfriend murders them.

I also think maybe this is a good way to see which type you are and are not. Because these types of characters are unhealthy but to an extreme and when they go mad with their enneagram desire you should be able to see yourself in that, your own thoughts, dark thoughts you've had. So if you think you're a 2 but don't really embarrassingly relate to Kathy Bates' character in that movie you're probably not a 2.

Yes! Having a deep CRINGE seeing a character of your number behaving the way you do at your unhealthiest is a good way to be sure you have the right one -- because you know exactly WHY they are doing it and that can be humiliating to admit.