Enneagram Types as Virginia Woolf Quotes

[Longish preamble this time around; feel free to skim if you're getting restless.]

The other day, I was looking back over some quotes I'd saved from my initial reading of Virginia Woolf's The Waves.  In a flash of inspiration which I can only attribute to my recent preoccupation with the Enneagram personality typing system, I thought how fun it would be to create a post matching some of those quotes to each of the nine types.

[And then I started thinking of a whole bunch of other Enneagram-sorting post ideas, most notably an examination of various Once Upon a Time characters, but THAT shall have to wait for another day. 😛]

That's what we'll be doing today: attempting to draw patterns between Aesthetically Pleasing, Vaguely Metaphysical Quotes and nine different Templates for Humanity.  [Thanks to Katie's post, the Enneagram Institute, and the "Enneagram Explained" Instagram account for the various ways all three inspired or informed this post.]

Now, some of you may be thinking, "Hold the phone for one diddly-darn second: Isn't this the girl who has publicly asserted that she's 'not a fan' of the Enneagram?  Why this sudden turnaround, this sudden endorsement, this sudden interest?  What, pray tell, gives?"

And you'd be correct.  I have avowed my personal displeasure with the Enneagram model, and my disinterest in finding out my type.  And, to be honest, I still don't wholly love the Enneagram, and I'm still not sure that I wholly "buy it" in all its claims/assumptions/etc.  But the reasons for that are various and multifaceted, and we shan't go into them here.  Suffice it to say that I do recognize the validity of it, I do concede its usefulness . . .

. . . and I did in fact become interested in it.  (Thanks, Obama.)

Now, is it a phase?  Probably.  Will the fervor of my interest in it wane?  Almost certainly.  But, for now, I'd like to play around with it a little.  And what is Meanwhile, after all, but a place where I share thoughts on my current interests, and where we hopefully find some happiness and edification along the way?

So to it.

** THESE MAY NOT BE ACCURATE AND THEY ARE NOT MEANT TO BE IN ANY WAY INSULTING.  VIRGINIA WOOLF HAD A THING FOR FATALISM SO SOME OF THESE MIGHT SEEM A BIT JADED.  I'LL CONTRAST THEM WITH CHEERFUL PICTURES SO WE ALL FEEL BETTER.  ALSO I'M NEW TO THIS SO YOU KNOW.  I AM NOT TRYING TO MAKE SOME TYPES SOUND BETTER (OR WORSE) THAN OTHERS.  PLEASE DON'T GET MAD AT ME.  THE VIEWS EXPRESSED IN THESE COMMENTARIES ARE SOLELY THOSE OF THE SPEAKERS AND DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THE OPINIONS OF MGM, ITS EMPLOYEES, OR ITS AFFILIATES . . . **

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Type One

“We have our fundamental goodness surely 

or to talk as I talk freely to some one 

I hardly know would be impossible -- 

we should cease.”

Type Two

“You are you. That is what consoles me 

for the lack of many things . . . 

the depravity of the world, 
and the flight of youth . . . 

and bitterness and rancour 
and envies innumerable.”

Type Three

“The truth is that I am not one of those 
who find their satisfaction in one person, 
or in infinity. The private room bores me, 
also the sky. My being only glitters 
when all its facets are exposed to many people. 
 Let them fail and I am full of holes, 
dwindling like burnt paper.”

Type Four

“This difference we make so much of, 

this identity we so feverishly cherish, 

was overcome.”

Type Five

“No, but I wish to go under; 
to visit the profound depths; 
once in a while to exercise my prerogative 
not always to act, but to explore; 
to hear vague, ancestral sounds 
of boughs creaking, of mammoths, 
to indulge impossible desires 
to embrace the whole world 
with the arms of understanding, 
impossible to those who act.”

Type Six

“Blessings be on all traditions, 

on all safeguards and circumscriptions! 

 I am most grateful to you men 

in black gowns, and you, dead, 

for your leading, for your guardianship; 

yet after all, the problem remains.”

Type Seven

“I desired always to stretch the night 

and fill it fuller and fuller with dreams.”

Type Eight

“I then first became aware 

of the presence of those enemies 

who change, but are always there; 

the forces we fight against.”

Type Nine

“But now I want life around me, 

and books and little ornaments, 

and the usual sounds of tradesmen calling 

on which to pillow my head after this exhaustion, 

and shut my eyes after this revelation.”

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What say you, Those Who Know?  

Did I get them reasonably right?  

What is your type?  

Do you want to read The Waves now?  

[Spoiler alert: you should.  It's literally just an unending stream of philosophical reflection and metaphysical speculation.  It's glorious.]

[Also, I feel it's only responsible to add: if you don't already know your type, you shouldn't base it off of which of these quotes you most identify with; there's a process, I'm not trained or certified; yada, yada, yada.]

[Also, if you wanted to know, I'm a 1 (wing 9).]