Self-Preservation is over-typed

[BalalaikaBoy]

It's a relief that the Enneagram community as a whole is letting go of the gatekeeping tendency preventing people from typing as the "rare" types (Typewatch was the first iteration of this, followed by David Grey), but I still believe there is a strong tendency to over-type people as Sp (esp. Sp/So).

Case in point: think of your average high school student, your average peer when you were 14-18. How many people gave a shit about Self-Preservation? I know a teenager is less likely to have the sophisticated money habits, career aspirations or conservatism that tend to come from life experience, but either way, when did most people focus on Sp? I barely even knew anyone who had a job. Almost no one talked about money unless it was in relation to clothes, video games, makeup or concert tickets. Now contrast with how often you'd hear people gossip, fawn over the opposite sex, talk about sports (sports are social, not Sp. I have absolutely not clue where this correlation came from)

Like, I'm Sp second, and even my behavior at that age would have been considered unusual: working 30 hours a week, putting all my money in silver and reading business books from age 14 (well, when I didn't spend it on tea).

The time I see most people really beginning to focus on Sp are
- when they start a family or have to take care of existing family (ie, preservation of OTHER people, not themselves)
- serious injury or illness
- having tasted severe poverty or abuse

Until then, most people seem to display a rather infantile sense of Sp. Take his coronavirus scare for example: people freaking out and buying tons of toilet paper. wtf? that's not someone in touch with Sp. it's a 1 dimensional caricature of Sp, largely instigated by Social dom yuppies with histories of poor spending, health and other related habits.

[Animal]

I am very sure of my Sp/Sx typing but I relate to Sp in a specific way-- often associated with four. Sp 4 is not known to care about food and illness. It's more about making yourself immortal through the arts, and persevering over the shame - which is VERY ME.

There's a lot of earthly Sp stuff that isn't me at all. I'll use some things that are crudely associated with SP as examples:

1. Risk vs. caution dichotomies: not me. I didn't take big physical risks out of defiance or to get a "rush." Nor did I stop myself from doing anything physical "for the sake of" another goal. For instance I'd climb a mountain at 4am to get that picture for my project at sunrise. I'd cross that fast flowing stream with my 1971 Gibson SG on my back, which is now worth more than I'm willing to type here - along with bags of cameras and outfits - just to photograph two of my alter egos near that waterfall. Whatever obstacle is in front of me, I'd cross it without flinching. But this was for the sake of my art. Never "for the rush."

2. Food, preparing ahead, under and overeating: not me. Food is just something I do because I have to. During some periods I don't prepare ahead enough and then end up overspending on garbage the last minute, and during other periods I go on diets to lose weight, and stick to them. But during those periods, my cooking style is 'a bag of peas in the microwave and some beef on the grill.' I am also bored by any conversation about food and don't participate most of the time. When I diet, I do enough to take care of myself but I don't overdo it.

3. Being overcautious with information: sort of. I'm very protective of my unfinished work. When it comes to any info about actual events in my life or my past, I don't care - I'm an open book. However, I feel very uncomfortable giving information about others which was told to me in private. The things I choose to share about others are the ones that they have done in public. Unless I'm sharing events around another person with someone who doesn't know them (ie, talking about an ex with my new 'crew' who never met him and doesn't know the same people, 15 years after we broke up). Sometimes I talk about private events with family or my husband with people I trust - and then think, I shouldn't have done that. But really, if it's about me, I just don't care.

4. Over-saving vs. overspending: Not me. I spend and I save and spend and save. I don't see anything outlandish here. When I was 15 and worked a lot with singing, I saved up a lot. Now that I work just enough to buy food, I don't save. I'm not too obsessed about money though I do think it's crucial to invest, but I can also recognize that it's just not my time now. When I'm a little healthier I'll develop a plan with Daeva and follow it. That's just realistic.

5: Germs, illness: Less than you might think. I got more and more anxious about this as I got older, but even the first 15 or so years after my illness I was not thinking about germs. The exception is the period when I was singing in NYC - I had to go to GREAT lengths to keep my whispery voice going. So I trained myself in some germ evasion and went out of my way. Overall, I didn't obsess before I developed anxiety after 20 years of ongoing problems from illness. During those recent periods, I could not even drive because of my anxiety. This was both a reaction to ongoing trauma, and also, just a chemical thing since the illness seems to have affected my brain a certain way - and it went away for the most part once I took better medication. So, outside this period, I have not been anxious about health, driving, regular activity, etc.

6: Working out: sort of. Again, this is mostly during some periods. During the others I am not that stressed about it.

7. Sleep/measuring energy levels: I have relentless insomnia, but I still often have more energy than 5 healthy people combined. The exception is sick periods. Also, important to note that I don't have this kind of energy for socializing, especially in person. After an extravert event, like a party or get together, I fuck off into a tiny corner by myself for weeks to restore my energy. Now Daeva joins me in that corner, but we mostly ignore each other for the sake of our own sanity. I don't get drained from going to work but I do get drained from having to have conversations at work, sadly. Other than that I have pretty relentless energy for things when I'm healthy--- provided there's enough time also to delve into my private world, arts, etc-- without that it's not a good scene.

_________________________

Here's some Sp stuff I do relate to, but on a more metaphorical level.

1. "Get off my lawn" mentality. You do you, I do me. I don't care who you think you are (my boss, my bff, my partner, my parents), but if you think you can decide who I can talk to, what I should wear, how I should conduct myself, etc - you're a joke to me. You can go dream about me submitting to all the things you think I should be doing while I am so shut off from you that I might as well be on another planet. On the plus side, if you're a friend and you keep your mental tweezers of my earthly affairs, you can do almost anything and I'll still love you.

2. "Perspiration" is more important than inspiration. Talented and creative though I may be, what makes me stand out among the crowd is my sheer willpower when I put my mind to something. That "something" inevitably involves a huge personal creative project. Few people who indulge their creative talents on the level I do, are also disciplined and willful enough to follow through with the level of HUGE in-depth projects that I take on. No matter what happens I'll beat the odds fucking senseless. This is why I identify as a warrior rather than an artisan archetype.

3. Issues around physical appearance. Don't get me started. I assume guys might love what's inside me but not my looks, I'm dysphoric on many levels (gender and much more), I need my body to be a canvas through which to express myself, but my physical appearance is a hindrance, I've gotten a nose job because it would allow me to move forward in the music industry........... etc. The thing is, I'm not too hung up on specific features. I don't wear makeup at all, high heels at all, or even clothes that majorly enhance my features. Instead my clothes tell my inner story. But the question is, am I expressing me the way I need to? And this obsession has caused so many problems for me.

4. Battling against death. It doesn't come out as 'fear' as much as sheer determination. I intend to be immortal - through the arts, but also physically if possible. I accept that this is unlikely but let's see what comes up.

5. I refuse to survive if I'm not living. This is a major theme. Vitality, embodying the life force itself - very central to me. When I lost everything, I worked hard to hone in my sense of purpose - and that is my driver. Without that, there's no point chugging along, undead. This is the central theme.

6. Sensitivity to the physical environment. Just, yes. I am not someone who notices what others are doing specifically or what is expected of me, almost at all; but I do notice if the noise is too high pitched, if the wind is too cold, etc. I even remember this so if a place has the type of noises that I don't like, I don't go back. (Much like a cat.)

7. Preserving my state of mind. This is why I didn't watch tv as a kid, don't hang out with certain people, avoid most social events etc. It's important to me to focus on maintaining a state of mind and heart that is productive toward my most important endeavors, my sense of purpose. Though I'm open moment to moment, in the long term I basically separate my attention from anything that would interfere with my fight to make my dreams manifest.

8. Inability to be vulnerable where it counts the most. Yes this is a real thing for me. VERY real. devo who I dated in 2001 during a less healthy period, called me a robot - along with some other exes. I'm sensitive, but people were often surprised to hear that until recently. To be fair, my every emotion shows in my eyes, and everyone can see that and always did - but they would assume I didn't need them, didn't care about them etc, because I would not verbalize this stuff. The more obsessed I was over a guy, the less likely I was to reveal anything at all.

9. Over-autonomy. It was a huge battle for me to accept that I have to depend on others, even after being sick for 22 years. I suffer from delusions of absolute autonomy, and the feeling that I only need ONE person -- but what I need is for him to desire me and understand me -- rather than to be mutually dependent. Of course, a six proved me wrong and lured me to rely on him more than I ever thought I would. For me this is a healthy development.

10: Hunter mentality. Runs through my veins.

[Princess of Hearts]

But is there ANYONE who cares about it when they are a child?
I would say the percentage is about 99.9% of giving zero fucks unless there is some concrete reason to care.
I think from there on some people can start caring more about typical, concrete SP things as they age, but some just bypass those concerns and keep focusing on their own interests that are not-quite-So and not-quite-Sx.

[[redacted]]

Case in point: think of your average high school student, your average peer when you were 14-18. How many people gave a shit about Self-Preservation?

I mean... I didn't talk much to my peers when I was in school but feel like there's actually a decent amount of teens who do care about that stuff more than one might expect.

Honestly though, I identify as Sp but I was never focused on career or a lot of practical stuff, but think Sp still comes up in different ways than how it's described in the OP. Now I can see Sp being overtyped (especially if we're talking about Grey =P) but I do like the idea that Sp isn't just about survival but also about feeling alive. Well I think instincts in general are about a sense of aliveness honestly, though it's often attributed mainly to Sx, hence you get people overtyping as Sx because most people like to feel alive, and then there's the other extreme where it's super-rare and etc...