More I think about it, the more concrete traits about people fulfilling their needs often seem to boil down to things more like the instincts than anything. Maintaining wellness and peace of mind or security - that's preservation instinct, whereas it's often shown to be overly tied to E9). I'm sure you get the pattern - I don't assign concrete traits to the types, and view them as general elements in a scale of 9 referring to what intelligence center describes their philosophy (and it'll influence *how* they process and respond to the instinctual need). This does mean somewhat distancing myself from the traditional way enneagram is done, but I'm fine with that. I think inherently intelligence centers are somewhat "higher level" than instincts, and actually it is the instincts that we more directly experience as a hunger, a need.
Makes sense anndelise; I think my observation there extends quite a bit, in that I find a lot of the reasons enneagram descriptions are a little one-sided is that I think most of the time they are corresponding more to an instinct than one of the intelligence centers. I feel the enneagram types themselves are much more philosophical, and that the instincts are what should render them more practical and concrete if anything (even so they shouldn't be exact objects). I really think the heart/feeling types should be fixated in the feeling center, and the mind types in the head center, and so forth - instead, they make the heart types specifically about things that to me just sound again like social. Check this out on enneagram institute for instance (not that they are authoritative but it's one example): "Within that social instinct, however, are many other implicit imperatives, and primary among them is the understanding of "place" within a hierarchical social structure. This is as true for dogs and gorillas as it is for human beings. Thus, the desire for attention, recognition, honor, success, fame, leadership, appreciation" I think fearing being shamed for one's inferiority in public and thus striving to look good to society actually motivates a lot of what is portrayed as heart triad stuff. Philosophically, I believe the feeling triad rather comes up when one asks questions like "how do I live an existence that is worth something, meaningful" (in other words, does my heart intelligence center find such meaning and purpose in the existence) whose precursors begin at E1, which instinctually seeks a perfect existence and to embody this perfection themselves, and successfully becomes less instinctual as you move from 1 to 3.
In the chatbox you said: "I guess personally I always felt like E6 descriptions sound too social instinct-like". I totally agree. This has been my biggest issue with being typed e6 because when it gets to the alliances, authority, etc stuff, it stops applying to me. (PS, if you delete this from your wall, i wont be offended, i didnt know what best way to say the above to you.)
