Ichazo's Description: An 8 reacts

[The Sweetest Apple]

Right, I wrote up this huge thing totalling about 10,000 words. I don't feel like rewriting it, so it's a huge problem when it gives me a 403 Error every time I try to copy-paste more than a few paragraphs. On any device. So, I will upload it piecemeal.

I spent months wondering if I should even put it here...I will, but that's all I'll do. This thread will be my one entry.

It's pretty stream-of-consciousness and may be hard to read. Sorry for that. This is a labor of love.

I find that most forum 8s are totally lost in their own bullshit and don't want to look unflinchingly at the truth of their type. They celebrate and tout the parts they like, but avoid some of the deeper stuff. Neither they, nor the people on their forums, have ever gotten past the bullshit. And in the end, people have a very skewed view of what an 8 is "supposed" to be. You can rest assured that I will get past the bullshit in this entry and say the things that they fear to so much as contemplate.

Worth noting I don't understand Ichazo's underlying theories yet, so there may well be concepts I miss or lack proper insight into. Nonetheless, here is what I have for now; I will be totally honest. No more lies.



Point 8 is known as “Ego-vengeance”.

I can't dispute the veracity of this. As it is commonly said, 8s experience feelings of vengeance. Or as we like to call it, justice. The psyche is specifically tuned to going through life "feeling wronged". Note the past referent. It's all in the past. I don't mean like that nonsense on some forums that all 8s were wounded in early childhood and go through life with some kind of subconscious simmering grievance against Something. I mean a chronic sense of victimisation, that people are mean and someone always just did something to me on the smaller scale. Some guy stole my money. Fuck him! That cashier cheated me out of a dollar. I should have reported her to the manager! That asshole left a giant rock in my path for me to trip over. I should sue him! That turd cut me off in traffic. I will make him pay!

A smaller sense of being constantly sinned against like this.

I should mention that most 8s don't seem to like to admit this...but I don't care about the lies that other 8s spawn about "personal responsibility" and how they can't POSSIBLY be victims or blame others. That is a lie! A damned fucking lie! The fact is that the type is founded on the sense of being victimized...but also wanting payback for it, and doing everything in their power to guarantee that payback.

I hope people can see the correlation between having been wronged and the need to punish...and hence, vengeance. Yes, as a matter of ego, I need to take revenge. (This is why most 8s want to deny they're victims at all...haha! You can see who has done their inner work when you think of it this way!) It's certainly not the only thing my ego is pegged on, but it definitely plays into my core sense of life. It's how I try to maintain equilibrium and regain a measure of self respect. Give the pain back to them.

The fixation is also known as “Over-Justicemaker”.

I know this is poor sportsmanship and shows a lack of self-awareness and insight...but I don't think I'm overdoing it in most cases. If any action is taken, I tend to feel like I underdid it, tbh. Sure some of this could be part of the neurosis, for sure. But in truth, I typically don't take any action at all and rather smolder with resentment. Justice is an ideal, but not acted upon nearly as often as I would like.

Right, so. I remember one time as a kid, my friend hit me, perhaps inadvertently. So I hit her back, impulsively, as hard as I could. This effectively ended the friendship. So I guess that's what they mean. The fact that a 40 year old has to go back to age 10 to find evidence of over-justice...sigh.

In terms of what I actually feel in many circumstances, though, there is in fact a desire to utterly obliterate anyone who has wronged me, even when it's totally out of proportion to the actual wrong done. Burn it down! Crush them! Destroy! Destroy! Destroy!

Like an example off the top of my head, this 1w9 told me I was a Bad Person because I used the phrase "mentally retarded" as in, describing someone with an intellectual disability. She insisted I was "spreading hate", totally overlooking the actual context and just being an all-around senseless, accusatory, miserable little shit. I think most people would be annoyed with a preachy snotwad like that, but I just WISHED we were speaking in person so I could punch the shit out of her. I still feel like this recounting it. Like I literally want to beat the ever-loving fuck out of this moron.

I mean you can't do this and be considered sane, so I don't do it. But then the resentment builds up and I start thinking of ways to get back.

So I won't lie, it's in there. I just struggle to see it being a tangible reality on most days lol.


This ego derives from the Historical Ego, which is a response to the Conservation Instinct. The psychic poison of the Conservation Instinct at the root of Ego-Vengeance is Avarice.

OK I don't know enough about Ichazo's school of thought to comment on all of this really. There is a lot of terminology here that I don't know what the concepts mean within the system. I would love to know more about his thinking here, actually.

But I can make a comment on Avarice. I notice that much of my aggression and paranoia is centered around a sense of lack, with the sense that someone else is trying to get the little I have. Example I have 5 dollars today. I have to make it last. A beggar asking for money is seen as grasping and predatory; a rival animal making claims on what little I have...I get defensive like BACK OFF MAN! I'm not even sp-first.

I definitely go through life feeling like I've only got a little and everyone else is trying to get it from me and I have to fight over it all the time. "Give an inch and they walk all over you"...it's incredibly fearful and honestly, exhausting, and like a 5, I tend to hide away. But I definitely see the relation to Avarice here. Idk if this is what Ichazo was referring to, though.


Ego-vengeance experiences a sense of abuse in the childhood relationship with a Mother figure.

I don't really agree with this, at least in the sense of feeling like I was abused by my mother. I wasn't.

My experience with 8s is that, if anything, they are ultra attached to the mother, perhaps because this is one of the few people who accepts them and loves them for who they are (or should) and to whom they can actually unburden themselves.

I think that Riso and Hudson actually have it more accurate (I know a lot of people here hate them but I'm gonna call it) when they describe an ambivalent relationship to the mother. I personally want to love my mother, but also she really let me down and demonstrated she didn't really care about me. Mother is weak. We love her, but she bows down to daddy, defers to him on everything. No autonomy. We love her because she brings unconditional love. But she also, infuriatingly, isn't a role model. There is no model for both power and love, so 8 realizes it has to sacrifice one or the other. And, well, it won't be power.

I suppose, however, this attachment to the mother makes any pain she dishes out hurt all the more. This may in fact be the principle that Ichazo was trying to touch on--and perhaps why Riso and Hudson say that there is an "ambivalent" relationship toward her.

There is definitely a specific relationship to the mother though. Kind or cruel, the father figure is just there and, whatever his behavior, it is expected. His existence, even if I love him a great deal, is not really so relevant to me as my mother is.

[The Sweetest Apple]

Right so just ignore this space...turns out there's a line in something I wrote that this website hates, and I continue below.

please scroll

[The Sweetest Apple]

The main ego-characteristic of this fixation is Vengeance.

Wait, didn't we just...?

(Yes, it is. It restores my sense of equilibrium and self-esteem. Makes 8s think they don't have a victim complex, AHAHAHAHA!)



The Passion which feeds this ego is Lust (Excess).

Ok I won't lie. I don't relate to any interpretations that "Lust" means "Excess". No, it doesn't..."excess" is the waste generated by decadent spoiled people in the Western world and elites and middle classes in other countries. Gluttony, overdrinking, throwing shit away, shopping sprees, too much packaging, that kinda thing. Yeah great, you live in a wealthy society where most people behave like this. But that isn't what it means to be an 8!

So to better define my terms, I went and looked up Naranjo, since he comes directly from this tradition. He writes this:

Lust

Just as anger may be regarded the most hidden of passions, lust is probably the most visible, seeming an exception to a general rule that wherever there is passion, there is also taboo or injunction in the psyche against it. I say “seemingly” because even though the lusty type is passionately in favor of his lust and of lust in general as a way of life, the very passionateness with which he embraces this outlook betrays a defensiveness—as if he needed to prove to himself and the rest of the world that what everybody calls bad is not such. Some of the specific traits that convey lust, such as “intensity,” “gusto,” “contactfulness,” “love of eating,” and so on, are intimately bound to the constitutional stratum of personality. A sensory- motor disposition (the somatotonic background of lust) may be regarded as the natural soil in which lust proper is supported. Other traits, such as hedonism, the propensity to boredom when not sufficiently stimulated, the craving for excitement, impatience, and impulsiveness, are in domain of lust proper.

We must consider that lust is more than hedonism. There is in lust not only pleasure, but pleasure in asserting the satisfaction of impulses, pleasure in the forbidden and, particularly, pleasure in fighting for pleasure. In addition to pleasure proper there is here an admixture of some pain that has been transformed into pleasure: either the pain of others who are “preyed upon” for one’s satisfaction or the pain entailed by the effort to conquer the obstacles in the way to satisfaction. It is this that makes lust a passion for intensity and not for pleasure alone. The extra intensity, the extra excitement, the “spice,” comes not from instinctual satisfaction, but from a struggle and an implicit triumph.

OK, I strongly agree with this description, but I don't see how it is "excess", as in "doing too much of something". It's clearly describing a drive towards intensity, including a kind of negative hedonism in which suffering can also be also a kind of pleasure (he likens it to spicy-hot food...yes, that's right), but how the hell is it about "too much is almost enough"?? No???

Lust is far more about opposing the world, arguing against what people say is bad. Seeking stimulation of any sort. Throwing oneself into hardship, suffering, tough adventures. Triumphing and prevailing. SO much more than just stuffing your face or buying 20 pairs of the same pants, lol.

Pain is pleasure so long as I reach my target and get what I want in the end. So long as I prevail. The compulsion (and hence, the vice) is in the triumph, not in any kind of gluttony or physical gratification.

Maybe this is the case for some other 8s (I mean I like indulging myself but I don't relate it to "Lust" in this way and don't consider over-indulgence to be the vice of this type)...anyway, it's not the case for me, and I don't believe "excess" on the usual sense necessarily MUST be associated with the type. Hell, I don't even like the Christian religious bias in choosing the 7 deadly sins as a template and then trying to rationalize that into being "the 9 deadly sins". I wouldn't really even call this fixation "Lust"...but I guess I'm preaching to the choir here lol.

I should note that this is also attributed to Ichazo:

Passion: Excess
The person seeking justice and truth very often overdoes his vengeance in his great moral indignation at injustice. Just as he can punish too severely one who he thinks has wronged him, he can be even more punishing to himself when he feels he has failed in justice. Often he will do physical damage to himself.

If this were the definition of "excess" (more akin to "overjustice") I'd be halfway inclined to agree. But no, in common conceptions of type 8's "excess", it's never about the damage done. It's always about eating too much, drinking too much, being too loud, being overweight, etc. Very strong "upper middle class white American consumerist" cultural bias.

If they want to discuss "excess" then descriptions absolutely should, first and foremost, frame this as excessive punitiveness. But I'll also point out that this isn't the same as "Lust" as described above. Rather, it would seem there are multiple passions at play here...which is it enneagram gurus? Lust? Excess? They aren't the same.


The primary defense mechanism is Rationalization.

I'm not sure if Ichazo had any psychiatric training? His assignation of specific defense mechanisms to specific types honestly suggests not.

I am extremely leery of all of these attributions of specific defenses to specific types. If someone wanted to go through and describe each of the main mechanisms and how each type does it, I would accept that. But this kind of thing is saying that each type is limited to certain mechanisms? And I don't think it's that simple.

I've seen Rationalization more commonly assigned to 1 and 7, and I'd still be inclined to agree. Rationalization is mentalizing and justifying unacceptable or unconscious id/instinctual impulses. As an 8, I hardly see the need to do such a thing--I'm typically aware of my motivations and don't feel that they necessarily need any justifications or logic. However, I’ve seen this with head types and 1s...and hell I know a 9 who is always deconstructing her life like this. I'd be very leery of ever assigning any mechanism a specific type, though. No one goes through JCF and assigns the functions different defenses; it's equally as unnecessary with enneagram. Rather, it seems we use defense mechanisms on another level of our psyche, and to different ends, than we use enneagram.

Yes, I can think of times I have Rationalized. But reading through the list of defense mechanisms, I can think of times when I've done most of those.

Typically they say 8's defense is Denial, and that seemed wrong to me too. Denial is typically what I struggle against in others. It's happened to me, too, but it again illustrates that perhaps it isn't wise to correlate defense mechanisms and enneagram types.


Worsening of this fixation can lead to the Passive-Aggressive Personality Disorder.

This here is something that's gonna make everyone online go like WTFFFFF, but I'm really glad this is what Ichazo said.

There's an entire contingent of uneducated people on the Internet who seem to think that 8s "can't be passive aggressive". And they think that "passive aggression" is "making snarky remarks". So if you make some sarcastic remark, you've proven you are not an 8. "Passive aggression" in this sense is, in fact, a colloquial reinterpretation of a more serious disorder, and definitely NOT the sense that Ichazo and the psychiatric world ever intended it.

And yes, to the surprise of those ignoramuses, 8s can in fact be passive aggressive. Both in the sense of making snarky remarks and in the sense of covert aggression. It doesn't take a genius to know this...just someone who understands 8.

I would say that overall, 8 doesn't have much use for not addressing issues or bringing them out in the open. We hate when people hide things behind smiles but try to sabotage us, when the whole thing could have been amicably worked out in 5 minutes. When I catch someone doing that, they have much more to fear from me than they did by being straightforward lol!

But none of this precludes passive-aggression on my part when I feel that other methods and strategies won't work.

The disorder is defined as sullen, resentful, quietly hostile stances, resistance to the demands of others especially those in authority, procrastination and inefficiency, stubbornness, covert obstructionism, etc. There is nothing that precludes an 8 from doing these things, folks. Even the deeper things about the presentation Passive Aggressive Disorder, eg, being ambivalent and indecisive, the difficulty between dependence on others and self-assertion...can actually happen to an 8, drawing as we do from type 9. This is especially the case when an 8 has been made to feel disempowered.

That being said, an intensification of the actual Type 8 character structure...meaning, not just being disempowered or in a bad place, but actual traumas that inflame the defenses of the type...actually leads to something more like ASPD. I find it odd that this is not at least alluded to.

It has happened to me. And it was pretty much a hair trigger rage response for almost everything. Everything shut down internally; I was a machine amongst men, dehumanised and unyielding. Only when I got home did the armor come off, and I would lay exhausted in my bed. These were terrible times.

So I am grateful to Ichazo for pointing out the Passive Aggressive side of the type, but I don't think it's strictly accurate, in that "a worsening of the fixation" actually leads to something much more directly aggressive.


A secondary defense mechanism is Resistance.

Well I mentioned already what I think about assigning specific defense mechanisms to specific types.

I will say that yes, 8 can be very resistant. I agree with Richard Rohr, there's a need to be against. However the mechanism itself is describing pushback on the part of a client during psychotherapy, and it has been rightly noted that such "resistance" can actually be construed as a kafka trap. If the psychiatrist says, "You're repressing something", you can agree and prove their point; but if you disagree, you're showing "Resistance" and proving the psychiatrist's point that you are, in fact, repressing something. So again, I'm leery of this.

I'll just say that, in a colloquial sense, yes, 8s can be very resistant. But I would similarly suggest that, as fellow gut types who face issues relating to aggression, repression, and inner and outer resistance, so can 9 and 1.


Further worsening leads to psychosomatic illness.

This is probably true of every type. I believe that the mind and body are one in the same, so if you struggle in one area, it will affect the others.

Not sure what else to say about this section, but I find Ichazo's attempts to integrate the types into modern psychiatry to be unconvincing, and could potentially do more harm than good in the wrong hands. However, his attempts are no worse than Naranjo drawing correlations, Riso and Hudson claiming the types correlate with Jung's functions and the DSM, or Beatrice Chestnut's derivative attempts at assigning mechanisms and archetypal tales to each type.

[The Sweetest Apple]

Becoming fixated in the Domain of Laws and Morals, there is a swing to the dichotomies of that domain.

OK so I was talking about this on another forum. I was trying to say that I believe 8 is a "moral" type. Everyone poo-pooed me off the forum basically (rather than ask if I perhaps knew more about it than they).

Let me put it like this. The gut center deals with issues related to autonomy, oppression, resistance, boundaries, and violation. Did I trample rights? Do I have any right to control someone? Does someone have any right to control me? Should my impulses control me or should I control them? How? How far is too far? What is right and wrong?

In short, the gut center focuses on Morality. Type 1 is the quintessential Moral figure, being led by superego. But all three types deal with these issues in some way. 8 and 1 in particular are supposed to have some kind of tie to each other at the top of the enneagram.

And so I'm just going to say, yes this is true. Social science has proven that terrible power figures such as dictators actually have a bent toward morality and calming chaos. I believe these studies describe 8 in an archetypal sense--the power figure with an underlying goal of order and morality. This is 8, not 1. It is all perfectly true.

The fact is 8s seek power and there is a purpose to this power--it isn't just because of narcissism. It's a hidden idealism that the 8 (and the 8 alone) can make the world a better place by being in charge. If this isn't a draw toward idealism and morality, what is?

And yes, same for laws. Eights care about justice. Yes street justice is part of the picture, but often times online commentors with hidden agendas like to leave it there. Eights are the baddest, roughest, toughest, blah blah blah. Yeah except why? No it's NOT because "8s are inherently selfish and only want to punish those who have wronged them". I mean yes it is, but it is much MUCH MUCH bigger than that. It can extend to all of humanity. At core, the type knows something is terribly wrong with the world and just wants things to be FAIR. It really hurts that they aren't! (Admit it 8s!)

Even if you want to take vengeance and street justice and all the rest of it at face value, look at how it works for 8s.

So many people are scared of "vengeance" and think it's wrong. They think vengeance means like, pouring your coffee down the sink because you told me off today. That's because those people have small silly little minds. THEY would do something like that. THEY know it's wrong, because THEY do it wrong.

But 8s...8 believes in equality and proportional justice. Same energy you dish out gets returned to you. There are fair consequences for your bad actions. Do the crime, do the time. This is EXACTLY the way legal systems work. And it is worth noting that many 8s throughout history have been eager to revise the legal code. Hamurabi, Napoleon, Genghis Khan, Han Wu-di, and many others have all had marked interest in improving or inventing the legal code. It almost goes with taking power at all. Power asserts itself by establishing boundaries--in this case, those boundaries are laws.

This is something that never ever ever gets said about type 8, and yet Ichazo saw it from the first. Fuck this ignorant world and the troglodytes that practice enneagram within it. This is a matter so important to my heart and I can't so much as mention it without being told I'm mistyped. Shame on you all. Absolute SHAME.



This can manifest in a positive sense as a focus on Morality on one side, or Tolerance at the other side.

Here I should definitely add that I don't LOVE the word morality, morals, Puritanism, or whatever. They really do evoke this teachy preachy judgy nonsense like all the goody goody kids in Sunday school who act holier-than-thou while everyone makes fun of them. Think Ned Flanders.

I spent the better part of my life spitting on that stuff in pure contempt. I still think it's mightily uncool. What deep psychological reasons are behind this, I have never figured out. So understand I'm not jumping into this thing like a mistyped One. I'm absofuckinglutely NOT virtue signaling. I am, however, ready to get past the bullshit and actually explain my type.

I described a power figure's push toward morality and order above. And I think I about covered it. My own mother insists I'm "such a good person with high standards and high morals" (and this makes me want to smack her and puke at the same time). She also says I'm "nice", because I hear everyone out and am not rude to people who are weird. I find that kind of talk really yucky. But I'm putting it here because it fits with "Morals and Tolerance". This is what it fucking LOOKS LIKE for even very average 8s.

Eights don't need to be highly evolved and healthy to have these "superego themes" in their lives. (Twenty points off to educated people who have insisted that I'm "aN oBviOuS 6" because I "HAvE So mAnY sUpeREgo ThEmES". Tell me you don't understand enneagram without telling me you don't understand enneagram looool.)



It can manifest in a negative sense as Puritanism at one extreme or Hedonism at the other extreme.

Here's another fun fact generated by idiots: Every 8 I've met...every REAL 8...gets mistaken for a 1 and 7 sometimes. One, because of their intense convictions and focus on righting wrongs, and a certain ascetic, abstemious, moderate quality. Seven, because of their apparent joy and humor and indulgence.

Yes including me (when people actually listen and aren't convinced I'm a SIX for no fucking reason whatsoever). I get suggested I'm a 7 or 1.

I am here to tell everyone today that YOU HAVE BEEN WRONG. I AM VINDICATED.

Let me finally get to the business of explaining the dichotomies. People of normal background, of course will assume this is all Type 1. It is not. It is 8ness.

Morality-Puritanism. So again, I referenced the idea that 8s are really put off by concepts of morality, but yet they exude it also. It's true. In my life, people see me as this person of very high morals (yes it makes me want to kick them, but you asked for the meaning here). I'm very discerning (a quality typically given to 1s) and a lot of the more decisive moments in my life have been based on personal conviction. When I am 100% convicted and my anger is at max, that's when I try to change the world. I think that 8s, like 1s, have a major crusading streak to them. Perhaps 9s as well.

This is all 8. I'm fucking sick of the disingenuous morons on PerC, EU, and other forums who would try to insist that only super-evolved, ultra-healthy 8s develop "superego-like" qualities. NO?!? Every 8 has this side. Even at the most mentally fucked, utterly sociopathic times in my life THIS WAS PART OF MY CHARACTER. I have called myself "the Wrath of God" before because my anger can feel so cosmic at times...this is similar to Atilla the Hun, an 8 who called himself "the Scourge of God", outraged at Rome's cruelty and corruption. And Genghis Khan, who is once said to have uttered, "I am the punishment of God...If you had not committed great sins, God would not have sent a punishment like me upon you" to a nation riddled with greed and corruption. Neither was pulling this out of his ass or just making excuses for his own barbarity...it's a place of genuine righteous rage. This is a real driving force for an 8, and is, in fact, related to our sense of violation and vengeance. It's righteous rage, and the entire gut center shares a permutation of it. So if you ever meet those know-it-alls who spout this stuff about OnLy SuPeReGo TyPEs...well, now you know how well they understand enneagram.

Power is drawn toward creating order and morality. Like I already explained. Justice and fairness must reign. Idiots, barbarians, and the violent must be kept in line. The common people need space to thrive. And violators will be put in their proper place. Anything I see that doesn't fit my vision is ruthlessly destroyed (over-justice perhaps).

The downside is this punitive, here's-what-you-should-do nature. It can get pretty extreme, with constant tearing down of others. Violators are met with cruel and unusual punishment (rather than fair punishment). I personally can be abstemious and driven, unmotivated by physical pleasure or anything else, but totally on some self-appointed mission, for vengeance or otherwise. I can also reduce needs and live off the minimum. People aren't sure how I survive, because the conditions of my life are so grim, and yet to me it all seems incredibly normal. It can be really spartan; it isn't like the descriptions of 8s living large and indulging at every opportunity. I rather more identify with cultures like Afghanistan--durable as hell, lack of materialism, eschewing the modern world, proudly living a rugged, obscure little life in the hills.

Tolerance-hedonism. At best, I guess I'm a really accepting person. I meet people exactly where they are and am content to just let everything be. The sun sets. The spiders and cows and bats all do their thing. The world goes round and everything has its place. I won't get flustered if I have to meet a prostitute or the king (and I HAVE met prostitutes and kings.) It doesn't throw me off if someone is very rude or does something vulgar or unacceptable. All humans are welcome at the Table (you know, the TABLE) no matter what, solely by Virtue of the fact that they're humans and part of creation, etc.

I guess the downside of this is like, I know I can't change anything, so I'll turn my back on the larger world just so long as I'm getting taken care of. I've done things that have gotten me called racist literally for acting on my convictions of Tolerance and Acceptance of the world exactly as it is. I know I can't change anything. Best thing to do is work with the situation at hand. But it means I'm morally flexible and thus have really shitty character in the eyes of the world.

The hedonism part is...Well shit, my pleasure always comes first. I'll waste my money on fancy restaurants. I'll show up late for all kinds of appointments because I was finishing something I really wanted to do. I can't change the world, so I'm just gonna indulge in whatever I can. I can get lost in sensuality...I don't consider myself to necessarily "overdo" anything...so much as I just forget my larger purpose in life. I have no sense of mission, no battle to fight, no quest for justice. There's just nothing but boredom and emptiness, and pleasure, lust, hedonism, and sensuality patch me through this stupid existence.

I'd say it isn't "filling the hole" so much as it's a matter of not getting crushed by my own inertia. I know I'm still alive and that I have a purpose somewhere when I feel pleasure.

I don't think this is necessarily "Lust" or "excess". I believe that's actually a misattribution of what these terms were intended to convey. I'm not saying they don't feed into it...it all feeds into itself in different ways...just that I think Ichazo has the more precise understanding here.

Anyway, that's what it means to me, and why I get told I'm 7 or 1.



These dichotomies are represented by two characters: the Self-righteous character at one end, the Libertine at the other.

I think I've just discussed this, but I am either driven and convicted by my own rejection of everything that's wrong with the world and people see me as responsible and moral...or else I have no such mission...I give up and just do whatever I want, whenever I want. The word "Libertine" is apt, because, in addition to what I have said above, the word also implies "liberty", ie, freedom, and that is often unspoken about. I have a very great need to be free of all restriction, including my own rules. I cannot make myself do anything when I don't want to. My time and space are all my own and you can't encroach on it because it is there that I find my freedom. It's seldom stated about 8s in any literature, but yet it is huge in my own life.

Not sure I can belabor this point any longer, but what I already wrote should give you an idea of what's going on here.



A sense of Remorse invades the consciousness in this domain.

You know, I've read about these for each type.

I think that "remorse" is less straightforward than it is for some other types. Example, 6 has "worry" as its invasive feeling...that's pretty obvious for someone who has Anxiety and Cowardice, isn't it? Seven has "inferiority", and I can even see how that seeps in based on the energies I get from my wing.

Yet remorse, I struggle to see that. For someone who is self-righteous and still embraces their badness...remorse is a little contrary, isn't it?

Honestly, I don't often go around feeling guilty. But when I do, I tend to dwell on it and even contemplate suicide. I still berate myself and genuinely think I need to be beaten up by someone for things I did as a 9-year-old. I'll commit suicide one day because of the deep self-hatred I have. Learning about my type has not helped matters, actually...won't lie about that.

But even more than that is my sense of being weak and pathetic. That invades my consciousness far more--I feel like everyone sees this and that I can never live up to my ego ideals. But oh no, only 6s feel weak!

No!

Sixes feel vulnerable to attack!

That is NOT the same!

On some days I just feel like the saddest lil sub-human to have ever walked the face of the earth. Like all I'm doing is barely keeping my head up, everyone can sense this, it's over for me.

That is FAR more in line with my experience than "remorse" (as in "guilt") would suggest, and I wonder if there was any translation challenge here where the author had to choose one.

I would honestly suggest, if Remorse is related to guilt feelings at all, it would be closer to "shame" (as per the 2 connection...the sense of being socially undesirable to others rather than feeling guilty for some wrong action)...something specifically denied by 8s ("I don't care what they think!") but that controls them anyway. The shame ties into my own sense of being pathetic, as well as why I push so hard against shame...because it IS pathetic lol! And honestly, this stuff right here would be a lot closer to what actually goes on with me than just any old sense of "guilt for wrong doing", which again, I don't struggle with too often.

But I do feel a deep sense of pitiful cringiness, like some snivling lil child that no one wants.

I'm not suggesting this is typical for 8s...but in recent years I've come to feel nothing but cringe and embarrassment for myself...merely for existing on this earth.

But I'll repeat, in both my interpretations, "remorse" is often repressed and not as obvious as, say, "worry" is for 6. I would personally change the wording to "shame" or "weakness" or something of the like.



The stress of being fixated and imbalanced in this domain can lead to Cruelty as a compensatory mechanism.

I'm not sure how Cruelty is a "mechanism". But I know I can be cruel. Part of it is ruthlessness...like cut through whatever stands in your way. Part of it is sadism...like genuine pleasure in making other people suffer. I believe the world is brutal, and other people are insensate. So it's not as though I always have a major impulse or incentive to treat others gently, that's all I'm saying.

I mentioned that I feel small, weak, and pathetic...I wonder if Cruelty has its origin here rather than in "guilt" per se...you feel too small and insufficient to do the job, so you over-exert. You have to SHOW them that you mean business, even if you don't really feel it. That's not where the sadism and ruthlessness come from...but I guess this adds another layer.

I can only say this is how many of my uglier behaviors in life have come about...simply forcing the matter. Trying to overdo the assholery, on purpose, so that I would be taken seriously and not stomped all over. It sounds like a cp6 needing to "prove themselves" to most people online no doubt...but it's not! 8s do it too!

At least, that would be how I experience it...other 8s, idk.



The poison of this domain is Mythomania.

I don't know what he means by "poison of a domain", but mythomania is pathological lying. I'm glad someone mentioned this in regard to 8s. I get so sick of everyone talking about how straightforward 8s ALWAYS are...yup, we're just reliable woofing golden retrievers who can't lie to save our lives cause we're so eager to do the Right Thing in all of our childlike Innocence.

Yeah no.

Eights are fucking liars. We can be twisted, underhanded, manipulative, deceitful. I can personally weave tales and talk talks, and people take me perfectly seriously when I do. I make shit up for the drama of it. I lie to get my way. I exaggerate and stretch things and use bombastic language...often without even meaning to. Even when I'm trying to be good, the second I feel expansive, it all starts pouring out. Eights are good at detecting others' bullshit...but good God, do we know how to generate our own. I don't know what to do about it.

Two real life examples I can think of off the top of my head that illustrate this side of 8 are Donald Trump and all his big talking, and Eileen Wuoronos, who just kept spitting out the lies at whim, whatever suited the moment while she was talking. I see myself in both of these tendencies.

You know, often it comes from a place of hurt and cynicism now that I think about it. So I guess that's what he means by "poison". Like I go out there every day brimming with Truth...and to have so many people just blatantly deny something that's very true...to have so many people doubting something I swear on my life is accurate...it makes me mad. "Eights think their truth is the only truth and end up blatantly denying others' truth" my ass. EVERYONE operates this way. EVERYONE insists upon their own reality. Most of them can't see the obvious and refuse to listen to those who can. And rather than lose my cool I think, Since no one respects the truth, then they're not entitled to it. They love falsehoods, so they get falsehoods. And about 80% of my lies come from this place. I weave elaborate tales about certain things and tell blatant lies (talk to me about my enneagram type on another forum sometime lol)...because they can't tell truth from lies, and if they won't respect my greatest gift, at least I'm going to have fun leading them on. They deserve falsehood. Nothing more.

It's my way of disrespecting them on the deepest level...deny them access to truth. Cretins.

Yes it's all true. I have no idea why everyone wants us to be these rock-solid honest good doggos with zero capacity to tell lies. I'm a magnificent weaver of bullshit and lies, smoke and mirrors, exaggerations, and downright falsehoods. So is every 8.***

***There IS a straightforward presentation by default. We value truth over lies. But as I hope to have illustrated here, that is only half the picture.

[The Sweetest Apple]

The Trap which simultaneously restricts but potentially liberates this ego is its focus on Justice.

Let me start by saying that Justice is HUGE for me. There are many places that try to insist that "justice" is more properly the domain 6s and 1s. While I have zero doubt that these types are concerned with rules, fairness, and justice, let's not try to pretend that capital-J Justice isn’t central to an 8's existence. It is. A type that centers around feeling wronged in life is going to use Justice as its remedy. This should be common sense to anyone who understands enneagram. All I can say is, I guess most people don't.

I'd say it's restrictive in that, for an 8s own self esteem, we must obtain justice. We must not be defeated, and if we are it only extends the War rather than ends it. Our self esteem is directly contingent upon victory and vengeance. And Justice is such a major motivating factor all else gets dropped to achieve it.

So I suppose it's restrictive in that sense. There are actual ego structures around it and in many cases it determines--or has the potential to determine--the course of my life.

Not being an evolved person, I can't really speculate on how Justice may "liberate" me.



The Way of self-realization of this ego is the Way of Redemption, which redeems the past.

I'm not sure what this means, actually. Everything I can think of actually rings false...it might help, again, if I had access to Ichazo's original stuff. As it is...again, I won't speculate.


The Holy Idea which acts as a catalyzer for the transformation of this ego is Holy Truth, or Divine Truth.

Holy Idea: Holy Truth
Once the seeker for justice realizes that his essence follows truly the cosmic laws which are eminently true and just, he will be satisfied and at peace.

Ichazo wrote this...I think that folks like Richard Rohr have misappropriated this passage to indicate that the 8 needs to give up all notions of justice and "leave it to big sky daddy". I would argue that it isn't true.

I firmly believe concepts like karma and divine justice and Judgement Day are 8ish concepts. Action has consequence. "For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction". Everything you put out there returns to you.

This is something people want to forget about. "But I'm a good person, I didn't *mean* to hurt her"...People want to live free of consequences, believing that "I didn't mean to" is good enough...and every fiber of me rebels. You still did damage, and this is probably because of your own lack of self-awareness and your tendency toward apathy. Shame on you!

Eightness is part of humanity because it's part of the patterns of the universe, and I think this is one of the patterns. I'm an ardent believer in karma, but I'm also an ardent believer that as humans, we're also the agents of karma. We bring about the higher principles of justice because we're part of the fabric of the universe. And I think that ultimately, therefore, the universe DOES bend toward justice.

In my opinion it's not sitting back and "letting god" bring justice. That emasculates the type, stripping it of everything that makes it and its awareness powerful. I think it's more about knowing when some point of justice is outside your control and instead waiting for the right moment to reap what others have sown for you. It may not even be in this lifetime. But simply the understanding that this time will come, when it's ready to come, and moving it at the wrong time can make you end up with your own bad karma.

I hope that I never lose my sense of rage and violation and become some spiritualist practicing Ho'o'ponopono and believing I'm set free and telling others that they have to "let it go". I think that's spiritual bypassing, and I don't think that's how the world works. It would feel WRONG in the deepest parts of my soul if that were actually true. I think 8 demands that we examine our choices and the consequences of our actions and the wrongs we do to others--intentionally OR NOT. And reminds us that this is always entangled into the fabric of the universe itself, and there are no free passes. Society today and a lot of spiritualists seem to want this to be wrong...and I think they're wrong. I think it's a way to evade responsibility.

I'm sick of having my gifts and very beingness denied and neutered and censored by society and selfish humans who want a consequence-free pass to live at everyone else's expense. Eight reminds us of harsh truths we'd rather not remember.

***

I can attest that my love of the Truth is what led me down this path. I wanted to know who I was, what I was made of, the truth of human nature, etc. I don't have all the answers...I will probably never have all the answers...but that was in fact the calling.

Weirdly I seem to remember this saying that Truth is "the Trap that restricts but also liberates the ego". I would have said that is more apt than Justice even. Because I have a fixation on the truth, but more than that, this has been what is liberating my ego. My radical willingness to accept the Truth no matter how painful has actually been what's liberated me. Even though I wouldn't say I was liberated, I'm more liberated than I was years ago.

Anyway. Just want to mention how irritated I am with the many descriptions that mention Truth as this silly thing that 8s think they have that no one else does. You know the ones, they insist that 8s are these ham-fisted idiots who think they know everything and can't stand to be wrong. That 8s are black and white thinkers incapable of understanding someone else's point of view, etc etc. And this really isn't my experience of myself, and, I would suspect, no one else's experience of me either. I think people would see me as an open-minded and thoughtful person, who considers multiple perspectives. My inner experience is that of someone who follows the truth no matter what. I am thrilled when my assumptions and presuppositions get overturned. I love being proven wrong. I ADORE paradigm shifts, because all these things mean I've gotten closer to the truth.

What I hate and resist are when people are trying to force their viewpoint on me. Even if I know deep down that they're right, I will still resist, maybe even harder than when they're actually wrong lol, because I don't want to give them the glory of dominating me. The people who are wrong I just roll my eyes and ignore.



This can lead to the Virtue (energy) of Innocence.

Everybody seems to have their take on what that actually means. Again I really hate the Lust-Innocence thing, especially with the sexual connotations, and the sub-connotation that sex is evil and dirty. But ok. I don’t really know what it means without someone telling me cause I'm just not evolved enough to have reached such a rarified state tbh.

And my anti-virtue detector is lighting up again. I can't really dig deep with this because it really puts me off. Thinking of myself as "innocent" (sweet, girlish, virginal) really makes me unhappy. There have been times in my life when I felt like no innocence existed in the entire world, and I genuinely was prepared to kill any man, woman, or child who got in my way.

So I hate to be as thick-headed and obtuse as the stereotype of my type, but I really don't like Innocence, don't value it in any way, I don't feel seen or complimented, and I guess I just feel like I've got other things to offer humanity. Knowlege and Wisdom. Creativity. Anything but Innocence. Sorry, but I'm not playing this one.



According to Ichazo, Divine Truth is “The awareness that the cosmos objectively exists now; that this existence is its own definition, and continues whether an individual understands it or not; and that the individual experiences the truth of Reality most completely when he views each moment fresh, without preconceptions about what should be happening.”

There are authors who have tried to say that this is what "innocence" is. And to me, those words aren't saying the same thing. Being unbiased isn't "innocence". It's being unbiased! Open to the flow. Realistic.

However, if you want a discussion of the 8's Virtue of Innocence, I think this would be a better place to start. I would call it "Unbiasedness" rather than Innocence, but if this were the Virtue for 8, I'd have a lot more to say about it.

And also there's a lot more to Truth than that, enough that Almaas wrote an entire treatise on it (my copy of the book is 15000 miles away so idk). I don't need to put it here, though, unless there's interest from the readers (and idk if anyone reads this forum anymore or is even interested in my words if they do lol).

[The Sweetest Apple]

Anyway, despite my disagreements with some of the things Ichazo says here, I feel like this short description nonetheless is so much more faithful to my inner workings than ANY online description I have ever read. It actually gets into super deep things about me and what drives me. So much better than "eights are confident and assertive, their whole life is about avoiding vulnerability and repressing fear, they champion the disadvantaged and need to be top dog; they love to be excessive and spend too much money, etc." Like I don't relate to any of that. And all that stuff applies to other types just as well. Man if you actually wanna know what's up, you gotta explore stuff like Ichazo and Naranjo.


I'm personally sick of forums that only reinforce the ego patterns in our lives. Specifically, in my case, other 8s, with the lies they tell and their unwillingness to admit key things about their inner workings. They don't respect my struggle to tell the truth and only the truth about the type and my own experience; likewise I don't respect their unwillingness to stop bullshitting themselves and everyone on the forums. But most forums imo are bullshit...and then we have me falling right back into patterns like mythomania and "remorse"...spewing out lies because people don't respect the truth anyway, and therefore aren't entitled to it...or feeling so ashamed of myself for acting against my ego structures that I start abusing myself for it, and hating the other 8s for being able to just be "acceptable" versions of 8ness (something I've never quite been good at doing, even before working on myself).

Forums just aren't very healthy places, imo. For these and other reasons. But I'll put my answers here at least, because I have to tell someone somewhere.