Oh God No, I am a Four.
I am not much into this ennagram theory, but I always thought I was a five. Then I read this discription of the four and it fits me all too well.
"""How Fours Pay Attention
Fours rarely live in the present. Their focus of attention travels away: to the past, to the future, to the absent, to the hard-to-get. There is a background preoccupation with whatever seems to be missing: the absent friend at the dinner party, the missed connections in an intimate talk.
The preoccupation with absent things is flavored by a highly selective remembrance of the positive aspects of whatever is missing. "The evening would have been complete if only John had been there." John's better aspects are remembered when he is at a distance, and a tenuous connection of yearning is set up that acts to draw a Four's attention away from what is actually going on in the present. If John were present and accounted for, his less-than-interesting aspects would begin to surface, and the Four's attention would tend to drift away to one of the other pieces that seem to be missing from life.
Romantics say that they feel an intimate connection with absent friends, that, in fact, their feelings of affection can get stronger with enforced separation. They say that in any relationship, there must be time away in order to reawaken the true feeling of connection that occurs only with distance and separation.
When a Four is forced to focus on the actual events happening in present time, there is a feeling of being let down, of seeing the negatives of the situation, perhaps for the very first time. It can feel like a blow in the face, because there are so many disappointments, and they all come at once. It's as if the light goes out of a lover's face, and all that is left is a set of mismatched features.
Fours unwittingly engage their imagination in such a way that the missing positives become devastatingly desirable and, by using the same shift of attention, they imaginatively amplify the present negatives so that they look far less appealing than they actually are.
This shift of attention can be illustrated by way of the false self-image that people can create of their own face, depending on how they feel about themselves when they look into a mirror. The same face can look quite different, depending on the way in which we selectively pay attention to the strength and weaknesses of the features and how we imagine the strengths to be more or less than what is actually there. An ordinary face can become positively radiant if we imaginatively heighten the colors of the eyes and soften the textures of the skin; and that same face can appear to be grotesque if we focus on, and imaginatively amplify, its plainer aspects.
An unfortunate example of negative amplification can be drawn from the reports of Fours who are predisposed toward anorexia nervosa. It is striking to note that a high percentage of Fours report that they have what could be called an anorexic self-image, where, when they look into a mirror, teir bodies appear to be shapeless and fat when, in fact, they are quit thin. Some Fours report having developed a distaste for their own bodies, such that their own objectively attractive physiques have become mentally preoccupying and repulsive.
The same unconscious attentional shift that serves to imaginatively alter physical appearances can also act to amplify emotional reactions. This shift of attention serves to exaggerate a Four's authentic emotional responses in the same way that visual imagination can overlay and enhance a reflection in a mirror.
For example, the thought of a distant friend can quickly summon wonderful feelings, an emotional counterpart for the thought of being together again. If attention then shifts from the authentic response that develops from thinking about the friend into imagining the greatest possible warmth that humans are capable of, the authentic reaction has been lost in an imaginative and unrealistic overlay of false feelings. Likewise, a small oversight by that same friend could stimulate powerful feelings of rejection and hatred, which would quickly overlay the authentic, small reaction that the oversight actually warranted.
In order for real feelings to emerge, it is first necessary to stabilize attention at a neutral reference point and learn to pay attention to real physical sensations being experienced in the present moment."'"
CRAP, that is me.
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