The life of FOURs is primarily shaped by longing: the longing for beauty and the wish that the world and life would fit together into a harmonic whole. Dostoyevsky once said, “The world will be saved by beauty.” FOURs believe in this principle.
The longing of FOURs is directed to that lost love; it is at once a yearning to go home and to go far away. They look forward to the day when the great love will come (back), and they are convinced that this great love will redeem them.
At times the anger over a loss that has been suffered is so deep that it cannot be tolerated. Instead unredeemed FOURs direct it against themselves. They believe that for some reason they are themselves guilty for experiencing rejection and privation, and so they consider themselves “bad.” Many FOURs report that they are ruled by a hidden shame. FOURs trapped in themselves will repeatedly cultivate their “badness” and thereby keep producing situations in which they are rejected or abandoned. Scandalous behavior exercises a certain charm on them; what is dark and forbidden has a peculiar power of attraction.
Most FOURs are of the opinion that society’s norms don’t hold for them. On the strength of their extraordinary suffering they usually feel themselves to be strangers and outsiders by nature. As such they assume the right to lay down their own norms. Many FOURs have an elitist consciousness. They try to meet special standards and feel a deficiency when that continually proves unsuccessful
FOURs revere great authorities: important poets, musicians, gurus, counselors, who have something “deep” about them or are something “special.” Only this sort of “inner authority” counts. Formal authorities that aren’t backed up by their personality make no impression on a FOUR. Their nose for the “authentic” is infallible.
FOURs face the temptation to strive frantically for authenticity. Children, nature, and everything that radiates originality awakens in them the longing for the simplicity and naturalness that they lost at some point. The more unredeemed FOURs struggle to be authentic, the more they strike the people around them as mannered.
Envy can also be expressed as jealousy, as soon as relationships come into play. FOURs often live in fear that somebody else could be more attractive, original, and interesting as a partner. This is how self-conscious FOURs sometimes appear; inside them a child is struggling with feelings of inferiority: “I don’t deserve to be loved. I have to make an impression so that I’m not overlooked and abandoned again.” That is why many FOURs experience the domain of close personal relations as an arena for combat and competition.
The depression of unredeemed FOURs is different from normal grief, which all people experience. It is bound up with the feeling of the uniqueness and vastness of their own suffering and with the unwillingness to accept help. Behind the excuse that nobody would understand them lies the refusal to mourn.10 This is how they desperately cling to what has been lost.
Many FOURs take their feelings very seriously and are deeply offended when they are “hurt.” Criticism of their artistic expressions can wound them in their innermost selves and drive them into retreat.
The gift, or fruit of the spirit, of redeemed FOURs is balance. At twenty-five FOURs have already lived through all emotional spaces and experiences from agony to ecstasy. They know all the nuances of feeling and understand the human soul better than anyone else. If they muster the discipline to bring their emotional life into balance, they can become impressive personalities.
Great FOURs concentrate and discipline their emotions; they can distance themselves from them and purify them in this way. Balance refers to this deep, consistent, and nuanced emotional condition. A purified FOUR can deal sensitively with real life—and not just with imaginary dramas. Such people must stop bathing in their feelings and draining them to the dregs. They must stop playing with their moods and foisting them on everyone else.
Redeemed FOURs are better than most others at understanding and guiding people in psychic distress. They are not intimidated by the difficult, complicated, or dark feelings of others, since they themselves have lived through it all.
The invitation to redemption issued to FOURs is the call to originality. FOURs find their naturalness on the way to union with God. Their striving for authenticity, their love for children and nature are early hints of this goal in life. If they can admit that they live “in God” and God “in them,” their soul will come to the rest and balance they have long yearned for
Among the life tasks of FOURs is to develop a healthy realism and direct their longing toward reachable goals. FOURs have to work at seeing that their attention remains in the present and doesn’t continually digress into the past or future. FOURs must find their energy without constantly slipping from one extreme into the other, without being up one minute and down the next. It must not always be euphoria or depression. Their “objective observer” has the job of asking: “Isn’t a little joy and a little sadness enough—at least now and then?”
Unredeemed FOURs love ritual more than reality. They glorify their memories, which are more beautiful than the actual event was. That’s why it’s necessary for them to confront reality. Incarnation is called for, that is, accepting reality, even when it’s ugly and dirty. There the FOURs will truly find themselves. For this reason social commitment and working for peace and justice do FOURs good. In this they have to deal with the dirt of the world, which cannot be aesthetically transfigured.
The so-called civilized nations have declared this original attitude toward life a sin, which they call laziness or indolence. But in the case of this lack of drive we are dealing rather with a kind of internal vagueness. NINEs have a hard time understanding their own nature. First they have to find out what they actually want and become conscious of who they are. The consequence is that they are, so to speak, “everywhere and nowhere.” They are generalists, can do a little bit of everything, but are never masters. They master something of everything, but nothing totally. They lack focus and determination.
Sometimes NINEs simply lack courage, or they don’t consider themselves important enough to display their talents in front of other people. So they can fade themselves in and out of everything without being much noticed. If somebody else broaches a subject, they take it up, though not necessarily with great passion. If their partner changes the subject, they address that. NINEs like to swim with the current.
For this reason I considered myself a bad arithmetician, and my career in math was over. I remember horrible math classes in high school. I just barely got by. I refused to strain myself. Instead I used my energy so I wouldn’t have to learn anything and I could pay just enough attention. It was like that in other subjects too. From the outside it looked as if I had slept through school time, but today it seems to me that it must have taken enormous amounts of energy to avoid real work.
Most of them will not change the world, because they prefer the path of least resistance and are afraid of decisions that might pin them down. They like to put off important responsibilities and avoid everything that is too hard and takes too much energy. They often consider themselves simple and uncomplicated and present themselves accordingly. This makes dealing with NINEs easy. NINEs are honest; they have no hidden motives. They say what they feel, even if they have to sweat before discovering it in themselves. But then what they say is really what they mean.
The temptation of NINEs consists in belittling themselves—especially in their own eyes. At first glance NINEs seem humble. In reality this often conceals false modesty and fear of revealing themselves. Because they are often not very convinced about themselves, they like to stay in the background and cultivate the self-image of not being anything special.
The defense mechanism of NINEs is narcosis, or numbing. Because they often don’t feel adequate to the many strains and challenges of life, they take refuge more than other types do in some sort of addiction. They have a hard time getting going and so are easily tempted to think: “Maybe it’ll help me if I have a little drink or smoke a little joint.” NINEs seek stimulants and strong sensations from outside, because they find it difficult stimulating themselves.
NINEs sometimes give the impression of being absent-minded or slightly befuddled. If nothing is happening around them, they can even suddenly fall asleep in broad daylight. Sleep can be the ideal place to retreat to when life gets too trying. On the other hand they often struggle with insomnia at night.
In distressing situations NINEs often withdraw. They don’t want to burden other people, and they don’t take into account that someone may understand them and may be able to help them—or that anyone at all might be interested in their problems. But when they get to the point of deadlock, at which they can no longer move at all, they absolutely need outside help. Love and attention are true wonder drugs in getting worn-out NINEs back on their feet again. This love, however, can only be a start. The life task of NINEs consists in discovering and developing their feelings of self-worth and their own inner drive, in order to become independent of continual outside impulses.
Immature NINEs are comfortable and have weak instinctual drives. This can make others see red. They have problems with taking the initiative, developing projects and perspectives, tackling jobs and carrying them through. They do everything in order not to tie themselves down and not to be tied down by others. For this reason you have to work out clear “contracts” with them: “By April the 19th, twelve noon, this and that have to be taken care of.” Then they’ll take care of the job—though not a day sooner. As soon as they’re left a lot of free space for self-determination, usually nothing will move ahead.
that “we NINEs are at bottom great cynics about ourselves and about human nature. We believe that we’re worth nothing, and that ultimately nothing is worth anything. We tend toward resignation. Anyone who wants to help a NINE has to look to do something about this deep-seated cynicism.” The personality structure of NINEs is also called passive-aggressive. The attitude, “We don’t commit ourselves,” actually conceals a negative message. At bottom it contains an arrogant view of oneself and the whole world: “You’re not worth my driving myself crazy.” We should not forget that NINEs, like other gut persons, belong to Karen Horney’s “hostile types” and bear within themselves a deep distrust of life. With them, however, it is really well hidden. NINEs express passive aggressiveness above all in a certain stubbornness. When NINEs don’t want to do something, they don’t want to do it. Wild horses can’t get them to do something that’s too complicated or strenuous
NINEs do not load their heads down with unnecessary ballast. They long to cast off unnecessary burdens and to find something clear and simple. NINEs like a book or lecture if it’s lucid and concrete. Everything that’s complex and too abstract they find boring. They seek simplicity because they are looking for their own simple center and are afraid there might be nothing there.
In partnerships NINEs often find that they are torn back and forth between strong wishes for fusion (symbiosis) and a deep-seated wish for autonomy. The upshot is that the step to final commitment in a relationship is difficult for them and it can take years before all reservations have been dropped. It’s likewise difficult to give up and let go of an existing relationship: “If I can’t live in this person and through this person—how am I to live at all?” NINEs find their way to real love when they have found their way to their own center, out of which they can meet a partner without fusing with him or her.
The gift, or fruit of the spirit, of NINE is, surprisingly, the deed, a form of decisive action. At first NINEs waver and hesitate, putting off everything. But if they reach a decision, then it happens in a moment of absolute clarity. Without further considerations, without revision or the least doubt, they know in a flash what’s involved, they will do it, and no one will be able to stop them.
The positive side of their striving for harmony is that NINEs are excellent mediators and peacemakers. They want a world in which people can live with very little conflict and in peace with one another. What they are seeking for themselves they also wish for everyone else. They don’t believe that there are unbridgeable oppositions.
The color of NINEs is gold, the color of gods, kings, and saints. Buddhist monks wear saffron-colored robes as a symbol of enlightenment. Just as gold has to be sought in the depths of the earth, NINEs have to seek for their gifts and bring them to light. The golden age and the golden city are archetypal images for peace, happiness, harmony, and fulfillment.
Psychologist Abraham Maslow says that many people fear their own greatness and hence evade the full life. He calls this attitude the Jonah-syndrome:
We are afraid of our greatest (and our least) potential. Usually we are afraid to become what we only get to see fleetingly in our most perfect moments. We enjoy, we get enthusiastic over the godlike potential that we discover in ourselves in these high points. Nevertheless, at the same time we tremble with weakness, awe, and fear before that very same potential… . We are simply not strong enough to bear still more. That is why people in… moments of ecstasy say: “It’s too much” or “I can’t take it” or “I could die.”… Our organism is just not up to an excess of greatness… For some people this shrinking back from one’s own growth potential, this lowering of one’s own expectations, this fear of completely surrendering oneself, this voluntary self-mutilation, this supposed stupidity, this false modesty is in reality nothing but fear of magnificence.16
The invitation to NINEs is (unconditional) love. NINEs need the experience of being wanted, of being important, of having something to give. They have to learn that others—God and their fellow men and women—believe in them, so that they can believe in themselves. Redeemed FIVEs can love unconditionally like no other type. The behavior of unredeemed NINEs often resembles this total love: Because condemning others or disputing with them means stress and conflicts, the acceptance of other people is sometimes the path of least resistance. Again we see how ambivalent every gift is: in this case there is a danger that NINEs will accept even completely unacceptable conduct by other people in order to spare themselves the bother of a confrontation.
Among the life tasks of NINEs is overcoming their secret cynicism. NINEs have to learn to believe that there is a golden kernel in them and that they have an energy source that makes them capable of acting purposefully and decisively. NINEs are gut types. They have to act boldly, enjoying the risk, in order to experience themselves. As long as they sit around and ponder, they will become ever more deeply resigned and finally get bogged down. Their energy needs a point of orientation. They need something on which to focus all their power. NINEs report that it makes them happy when they finally manage to distinguish essentials from nonessentials, to set clear priorities and to act consistently.
It helps NINEs when they consciously struggle to find their own standpoint instead of orienting themselves toward others. Ordered structures and an invariable daily routine prevent all one’s energy from being used up in planning; they stop continual new distractions from delaying the “main thing.” NINEs should not abandon themselves to passive fatalism, should not let themselves go, roll into a defensive ball, or even give themselves up. It is a difficult but rewarding task for NINEs to be consistent in guiding to completion projects they have begun. Instead of wishing and planning for many things, they should try to take the closest, most obvious job in hand, and make the first step.
