I'm a Type Seven – an Enthusiast. The Seven is a person who wants to constantly have new experiences, who wants to be constantly exploring and finding joy in new and simple things in life. The Enneagram Web site has this to say about the Type 7:
Basic Fear: Of being deprived and in pain
Basic Desire: To be satisfied and content—to have their needs fulfilled
Key Motivations: Want to maintain their freedom and happiness, to avoid missing out on worthwhile experiences, to keep themselves excited and occupied, to avoid and discharge pain.
It goes on to describe Enthusiasts at their healthy levels and at their unhealthy levels. I'll just post a bit and highlight what I feel like describes me best:
Level 1 (At Their Best): Assimilate experiences in depth, making them deeply grateful and appreciative for what they have. Become awed by the simple wonders of life: joyous and ecstatic. Intimations of spiritual reality, of the boundless goodness of life.
Level 2: Highly responsive, excitable, enthusiastic about sensation and experience. Most extroverted type: stimuli bring immediate responses—they find everything invigorating. Lively, vivacious, eager, spontaneous, resilient, cheerful.
Level 3: Easily become accomplished achievers, generalists who do many different things well: multi-talented. Practical, productive, usually prolific, cross-fertilizing areas of interest.
Level 4: As restlessness increases, want to have more options and choices available to them. Become adventurous and "worldly wise," but less focused, constantly seeking new things and experiences: the sophisticate, connoisseur, and consumer. Money, variety, keeping up with the latest trends important.
Level 5: Unable to discriminate what they really need, become hyperactive, unable to say "no" to themselves, throwing self into constant activity. Uninhibited, doing and saying whatever comes to mind: storytelling, flamboyant exaggerations, witty wise-cracking, performing. Fear being bored: in perpetual motion, but do too many things—many ideas but little follow through.
I admit I can see both my strengths and weaknesses in that description. I didn't post any of the "really unhealthy" levels (7, 8, 9), but I don't see much of myself in those anyway. In the Type 7 description by Richard Rohr, he says, "The Seven is the 'eternal child.' Peter Pan could be their patron saint, or Mercury, the messenger of the gods wearing his winged shoes, with which he disappears into a wonderful world of fantasy... Sevens are curious. It's as if what they already know or have is never enough. They need change, stimulation, new experiences... Sevens are not specialists, but 'generalists.' They always have several irons in the fire, because they always want to leave all their options open and unconsciously want to avoid committing themselves too deeply to a thing or a person... because if you totally devote yourself, your own limits might become visible – and that would be too painful. Thus many Sevens master the art of bluffing; they are all-around diletantes and evoke the impression of being many-faceted in their gifts, of knowing all about everything. A handful of facts, cleverly combined, sometimes suffice to create a comprehensive image. They often have a hard time tying themselves down to one career."
Wow. Has Richard Rohr been spying on me? I really can't add anything in my own words that's better than the description above. I love new experiences and find joy in them - but it can be taken to a fault, too, to where I'm bored if I don't have constant new stimulation and I'm afraid to commit to any one thing that might limit my experiences.
