#the greater attitude framing some of the writing seems life-denying though and that tends to bother me about enneagram writing / philosophy

[enneamage]

Have you read john luckovich's book/articles about the instinctual variants?

I just went through a couple of his online articles, I'll keep an eye on this guy. He seems a bit woo, but most of the enneagram writing is. I get itchy when things start to advance in a culty direction, though, and having just peeped the blog and a few of the linked websites my hairs are kinda raised. 

It's a concept that on its face is kind of impossible to disprove, the idea that we are driven to one-on-one connection, broader social belonging and self-preservation to some degree. I think that's why I pulled back from it a bit at first, the idea with leading / being weak with "one of the drives" seemed a bit too reductive at first, especially when people really go literal on the idea of a 'sexual' instinct.

He did interesting things with the sx instinct in his writing so far. The desire to be a tropical bird that can cultivate interest and spice in life does ring true for the people who I would have slotted under that umbrella, but I think he gave a little bit too much of its domain over to the Social instinct in the name of being literal over being right (comes off too self-focused.)

I think I've been getting half-into the idea of instinctual variants because some type descriptions can make it look / sound like some types just don't care about certain things at all, which on an individuality level just can't be true, so seeing descriptions get specific enough to include stuff back in is nice.