Nine can be envisioned as a pendulum with loss of self on one end and loss of other external things on the other end. What many nines strive for is to be right in the middle of this pendulum where they have somehow attained the perfect balance between their inner world and the outer world. The goal is to form a perfect unity between the internal and the external so that no loss of any sort ever has to be experienced. Of course in actuality, this leads to a constant tension from within to keep this