I keep feeling like I'm talking about the Doctors

[icepixie]

Because I feel like using some time unproductively, tell me what enneagram type you are!

I'm a Type 5 (more here, here, and here), and more specifically a 5w4: in other words, observant, knowledgeable, bookish, imaginative, obsessive, stubborn, high-strung, and reclusive. NO ONE IS SURPRISED. (In fact, according to the other test on that site, I am all of that with a "self-preservation instinct," which basically means a completely unscientific internet test thinks I am the introvertiest of introverts. Again, no one is surprised.) On lists of Five-ish fictional characters, Mulder shows up a lot, which I find fairly hilarious and maybe a touch horrifying. I also get Joyce, Rilke, Buddha, Jean-Paul "Hell is other people" Sartre, Nietzsche, and several other people I'm sure took this test back in the early twentieth century or, you know the fifth century BC.

I do think these personality typing systems are sort of pointless, because really, what is sorting myself into an arbitrary box with some adjectives that are vague enough to describe a lot of people really going to do for me, but they're fun time-wasters. (I guess they're also supposed to tell you what you should improve about yourself, but hell, I already know my people skills need work, and my life would be easier if I could take a break from obsessively planning and imagining worst-case scenarios. Not gaining much self-revelation here.) Some of the longer descriptions are a bit uncanny in their accuracy, but I wonder how much of that is due to confirmation bias.

Anyway, your type and your feelings about it (you know, if you want to), go!

Comments

[gamesiplay.livejournal.com]

Oh, interesting! I've never taken the version with "wings," actually.

I'm a 5w6 (http://www.eclecticenergies.com/enneagram/type6.php), although only off 5x4 by a few tenths of a point. (And then, with equal scores: 9w1, perfectionist peacemaker; 1x9, same but with more emphasis on the perfectionism; and 6w5, which is 5x6 with more emphasis on the craziness fear?)

I... am pretty sure that I got the 6 because I'm ~existentially ambivalent~ and All About the Anxiety, not so much because of the paranoid or "generally looking for something or someone to believe in" parts. (because, ahaha, SO MUCH NO.)

My favorite statement was "I accumulate lots of knowledge to counteract my lack of self-confidence." I was like, ...Wait. Some people DON'T DO THIS? :D

In conclusion, the test is very sure that I am not a 6w7 (http://mindheart.org/junction/oldcj/ep/types/6/67.html).

[icepixie]

I seem to vacillate between 5w4 and 5w6, though I tend more to the 4 side. I get some diversions into 4w5 territory. I've seen 1w9 and 9w1 pop up at the bottom of potential types, but they only half-fit. I could possibly be a really introverted 7, though. (I am really, really not a 2 or a 3, though.)

The people behind these tests seem really biased against 6. It seems to have so few positive qualities compared to the other types.

My favorite statement was "I accumulate lots of knowledge to counteract my lack of self-confidence." I was like, ...Wait. Some people DON'T DO THIS?

Hahaha. Yeeeeeeah, me too.

[gamesiplay.livejournal.com]

The people behind these tests seem really biased against 6.

Right? Some of them actually warn that an "unhealthy"/maladaptive 6 or [#]x6 can turn deluded, psychotic, and then violent. Ahahaha.

I also get 9s and 1s, both of which are fairly applicable to me. And I am definitely not a 2 or an 8!

I love this kind of stuff, simplistic though it may be.

[icepixie]

Yea, at least the 5s only get suicide and schizoid personality disorder!

I feel like I could be an 8 sometimes, but that's apparently what "healthy" 5s go to, so that's not surprising. 2, though...yeah, no.

I love this kind of stuff, simplistic though it may be.

Me too. It's pointless, but somehow compelling.

[rowdycamels.livejournal.com]

I'm a 6w5, with 5w6 as a close runner-up (followed by 5w4 and 1w9 further behind). And self-preservative, of course. In other words, I'm DOOOOOOOOMED. The only thing stronger than my overwhelming hermitude is my crippling anxiety! "In the end, the house of cards can fall suddenly, leaving 5/6 in a trembling fugue of total withdrawal." (http://mindheart.org/junction/oldcj/ep/types/5/56.html) WTF!? I DO NOT LIKE THIS FORTUNE COOKIE. You know who else is a six? HITLER. (http://www.enneagram.net/type6.html)

And yet none of this makes me think the test is any less accurate.

[icepixie]

In other words, I'm DOOOOOOOOMED. The only thing stronger than my overwhelming hermitude is my crippling anxiety!

These are, by and large, really depressing and focused on the potential mental disorders each type can descend into. Perhaps it's a scheme to make more money: "Buy our books or you will NEVER BE HAPPY!!!"

I get a similar "trembling fugue": "The end result is a kind of terrified fugue, completely cut off from reality." Nice. Although at least I don't have Hitler!

And yet none of this makes me think the test is any less accurate.

With you there. Meep.

[rowdycamels.livejournal.com]

Well, on the other hand they also focus on the magical state of perfectly realized being that you can get to once you ascend to a higher plane... maybe we just fixate on the negative part because it's, um, more realistic? Heh.

Congratulations, you've found the most depressing personality test ever!

[icepixie]

Yeah, the "healthy" states are so much crap. The negative stuff is way more realistic for 99% of the population.

Congratulations, you've found the most depressing personality test ever!

And yet people still want you to pay them money to take it and improve yourself! Amazing!

[rowdycamels.livejournal.com]

And yet people still want you to pay them money to take it and improve yourself! Amazing!

Funny, I didn't see "gullible" under any of the personality types...

[icepixie]

Heh. Did you take the "chakra" test on that site? Funnily enough, only two of mine are healthy/open/whatever the term is, and all the rest are underactive. HMMMM... (Of course, that test doesn't really work very well for asexual agnostic introverts. I'm screwed on at least three of the chakras already.)

[rowdycamels.livejournal.com]

What? There's an extrovert chakra?? We're doomed, DOOOOOOOMED!

[icepixie]

It looked like at least two of the seven or eight chakras were ones only extroverts could win at, yes. Feh.

[rowdycamels.livejournal.com]

ps - have you seen the psychoses of the extrovert descriptions?? "In the worst case, 3/4 is capable of atrocities, just like 3/2, except that because of the greater self-examination of the four-wing, such crimes are more likely to be isolated cases. ... In the deepest psychosis, mass-murder-suicides are possible." (http://mindheart.org/junction/oldcj/ep/types/3/34.html)

"If 3/2s lose touch still further, eightish anger at the world is the only emotion that is strong enough to penetrate the cotton wall of nineish deadness. In a peculiar, zombielike state, the most horrible atrocities might be committed. Sometimes extremely unbalanced 3/2s are nice-seeming, quiet people who just happen to be mass-murderers or serial rapists." (http://mindheart.org/junction/oldcj/ep/types/3/32.html)

As life becomes less and less tolerable, suicide becomes increasingly likely, and if it happens it may be done in some unusually gruesome way. Extremely dark, horrifying inner imaginings are welcomed and encouraged. The whole world, both inner and outer, is seen as grotesquely diseased and utterly without redeeming qualities. 4/5 Hell is a place of unimaginable ugliness, populated by those deformed, psychotic monsters, the human race. (http://mindheart.org/junction/oldcj/ep/types/4/45.html")"

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

[icepixie]

OMG. I hadn't gone to the other numbers on that site. I think it might be that site that's depressing, though, rather than the entire system.

Sometimes extremely unbalanced 3/2s are nice-seeming, quiet people who just happen to be mass-murderers or serial rapists.

D: D: D: D: D:

I have gotten a 4/5 result in the past, so I think I've seen that last one before. Um...basically you turn into H.P. Lovecraft?

[rowdycamels.livejournal.com]

Um...basically you turn into H.P. Lovecraft?

THAT'S A TERRIBLE SUPERPOWER.

[lilsurelybeans.livejournal.com]

Hmmm...I'm a type 4 (4w3) The Individualist: Identity seekers, who feel unique and different. 1w2 was a close second. I guess the description is fairly true, but it sort of paints me as a arrogant hermit with delusions of grandeur. Type 4 personalities often feel that being different is "a curse, as it so often seems to separate them from the simpler forms of happiness that others so readily seem to enjoy." I must say that I agree with that. My type's biggest vice is supposed to be envy...definitely something I shamefully struggle with.
Other type 4s: House M.D., J.D. Salinger, Martha Graham, and Ingmar Bergman.

As with all tests like this (or horoscopes) anyone can really identify with any of the personality types because they are vague and personality is so multifaceted.

Interesting test, indeed. Thanks for posting about it.

[icepixie]

it sort of paints me as a arrogant hermit with delusions of grandeur

Mine gets smarty-pants hermit with crippling anxiety, so I know the feeling. The tests don't exactly paint the nicest picture of any of these types.

As with all tests like this (or horoscopes) anyone can really identify with any of the personality types because they are vague and personality is so multifaceted.

Yeah. I think it's better than a horoscope, and there are certainly some that fit better than others, but they're all of a wide enough scope to encompass a lot of people.