Dear Friends Of Tumblr,

when it comes to consciousness raising you can spend time telling someone “crazy” is a slur or you can spend time explaining that what looks like “care” or “cure” or “mercy” to them is actually eugenics or abuse. one of these projects has to precede the other and i bet you can guess which one i would prioritize

Ceausescu’s children (Wendell Steavenson, The Guardian, Dec 10 2014)

“When he came to power in 1966, Ceaușescu had grand plans for Romania.

The country had industrialised late, after the second world war, and its birthrate was low.

Ceaușescu borrowed the 1930s Stalinist dogma that population growth would fuel economic growth and fused this idea with the conservatism of his rural childhood.

In the first year of his rule, his government issued Decree 770, which outlawed abortion for women under 40 with fewer than four children.

“The foetus is the property of the entire society,” Ceaușescu announced.

“Anyone who avoids having children is a deserter who abandons the laws of national continuity.”

The birth rate soon doubled, but then the rate of increase slowed as Romanian women resorted to homemade illegal abortions, often with catastrophic results.

In 1977 all childless persons, regardless of sex or martial status, were made to pay an additional monthly tax.

In the 1980s condoms and the pill, although prohibitively expensive, began to become available in Romania – so they were banned altogether.

Motherhood became a state duty. The system was ruthlessly enforced by the secret police, the securitate.

Doctors who performed abortions were imprisoned, women were examined every three months in their workplaces for signs of pregnancy.

If they were found to be pregnant and didn’t subsequently give birth, they could face prosecution. Fertility had become an instrument of state control.

This policy, coupled with Romania’s poverty, meant that more and more unwanted children were abandoned to state care.

No one knows how many. Estimates for the number of children in orphanages in 1989 start at 100,000 and go up from there.”

hi, Charity! I hope you’re doing well. I’m writing to you because a year or two ago I got into cognitive functions and typed myself as an INFP 4w5 after some reading. However, going through your WordPress pages (as well as learning that Nines have a tendency to mistype) has me rethinking some things, and I’d be curious about your observations if you have the time/inclination to share them… [deleted]

9 is a type rather like 6 and 3, in that it is universally misunderstood, and all three of them present differently in a person depending on their stacking, their fixes, and their MBTI type. Some 9s report never feeling angry, and some tell me they are infuriated almost all the time. So, some 9s are more aware of their anger, and others are not.

I guess the question for you would be – if you had to sacrifice being “me” in order to keep the peace in a relationship (put aside yourself), would/could you do it relatively easily? That suggests a 9 desire to stay calm and be at peace with yourself (avoiding inward and outer conflict) would outrank the desire to be “true to oneself.”

I get asked about 4-9 vs. 9-4 a lot, and for the latter, I usually point to Rose in Titanic as an example of a 4-9. She is STILL primarily all emotion (“I don’t know what this is, but I trust it… and I’m getting off this boat with you”), she has a tendency to view herself as superior to others (“the difference between Cal and my taste in art is I have some”), she is angry at not being allowed to be true to herself, and given the chance to do so, she embraces it happily. I have the feeling a lot of 4 cores would understand her completely, whereas a lot of 9 cores would “sort of” get her desire to be fully true to herself but also find her melodramatic. She often causes trouble with passive-aggressive behaviors (insulting Mr. Ismay at lunch and embarrassing Cal after he puts out her cigarette, for example) as a 4-9 that a 9-4 might avoid out of their lack of a desire to break a connection to the people around them.

For a 9-4, I’d look at Faramir from The Lord of the Rings. Gentle, peaceful, kind (as 9 cores tend to be), but still very wounded by his failures, prone to melancholic depression, internalizes criticisms deeply, out of his lower 4ish sense of being the “unwanted, unloved son” who must prove himself – but his 9w1 often chooses what is “right” (releasing Frodo) over what he feels. He’s a gut type, thus he goes off his instincts and his emotional responses are secondary. Less elitism, less desire to provoke trouble, less desire to assert himself, very 9ish in his need to maintain the peace. But he is by no means “weak.”

You sound more 9-4 to me than the reverse, just from what you wrote. As for whether you are an ENFP or not… a 9-core INFP is far more tolerant and permissive and open-minded (because 9s automatically see “all sides” / hearing an argument makes them nod and go “that’s fair too”) than other INFPs, due to the nature of 9 being fluid. So if you factor that in and still can’t decide, I’d ask yourself what you are more comfortable with using for hours at a time – Te or Si, and whether you can shut down your Fi to make a hard decision. ENFPs find that far easier than INFPs.

 - ENFP Mod

“Every habit produces multiple outcomes across time. Unfortunately, these outcomes are often misaligned. With our bad habits, the immediate outcome usually feels good, but the ultimate outcome feels bad. With good habits, it is the reverse: the immediate outcome is unenjoyable, but the ultimate outcome feels good. […] The road less traveled is the road of delayed gratification. If you’re willing to wait for the rewards, you’ll face less competition and often get a bigger payoff. As the saying goes, the last mile is always the least crowded.”

— James Clear, Atomic Habits

Ouch

Tuh tuh…open sesame

i love in fantasy when its like “king galamir the mighty golden eagle and his most trusted advisor who would never betray him, gruelworm bloodeye the treacherous”

I’ve gotten a lot of asks about the enneagram/MBTI breakdown of likelihood, so I’m going to try to expand a bit, in no particular order. Some repetition from the original post will be here because people don’t read so saying things a bunch of times increases the chances that they’ll see it once.

One thing that is absolutely essential to understand is that enneagram cores are a zero-sum game. Which is to say: even allowing for some error bars, something like two-thirds of INTPs are type 5. That means at most a third can be any other type, so obviously no other type will be remotely as common. So I might refer to another INTP enneatype as “competing with 5″ - it can’t be super common in INTPs because it’s drowned out by the 5s. You can’t have more than 100%.

Finally: this is going to be a long post but I think it’s better to not break it up as there will be references to all types across the board and I don’t want to interlink three or nine different posts. That said I’m going to make a “diagnosis” post for people who believe they are in the “check your typing” category.

Enneagram 1 is most heavily correlated with TJs because it fits with a certain rigidity and individualization of the moral code found in lower Fi users. It is particularly common in the IxTJs, and slightly more common in SJs than NJs. It’s found in the FJs as well but less so, possibly because 1s are often very critical, and certainly because it competes with 2 in the FJs. It’s very rare in perceivers across the board because 1 requires a certain adherence to external standards found in Te or Fe to avoid corruption; it’s also associated with perfectionism which is much more commonly a judger thing.

Enneagram 2 is heavily correlated with FJs because it’s about wanting to be loved, which fits very closely with the Fe desires for approval and belonging to a group and universally understood symbols of affection. It’s also found in the high Fi users - it’s less common, but still possible for all of them. It is really not found in thinkers; when thinkers want approval from others it is almost always in the form of competency, not love through service to others. Enneagram 2 is just…heavily in line with what it means to be a feeler in MBTI and in direct conflict, for the most part, with what it means to be a thinker.

Enneagram 3, and indeed the shame triad in general, is associated heavily with how other people see you. Enneagram 3 is particularly interested in standing out from the crowd so it’s much more common in extroverts, especially TJs, with significant FJ and ExTP representation (less so in the Fi-auxes). It’s a little more common in the NJs than the SJs; my guess is both that the SJs are competing with 1 and 6, and there’s something very high Ni/ low Se about projecting a specific distinguished persona. It’s found in the introverted judgers as well, though it’s far less common. Because it’s more common in NJs than SJs and TJs than FJs, it does fall off the radar for ISFJ.

Enneagram 4 is not the same as Fi but it does correlate strongly with high Fi; high Fi is interested more in authenticity and 4 is more interested in uniqueness, but the self-expressiveness and thirst for originality and individuality end up coinciding pretty frequently. Enneagram 4 is also found in the FJs; all the FJ types have decent shame triad representation, given that Fe is interested in the response they elicit in others and frequently want approval in some form or another. It’s competing with 2 and in some cases 3, so it’s often rarer, but it does show up. 4 is very rare in thinkers but it isn’t unheard of in the ExTPs. As for why specifically ExTPs, I suspect it’s first that their feeling is decent, and unlike with lower Fi which tends to turn inward (hence enneagram 1 in IxTJs) it tends to go outward looking for approval from others. Add that to the thirst for novelty in Se or Ne, and you get a small but extant number of ExTP 4s.

Enneagram 5 is in a way analogous to 2 but for thinkers; if your response to fear is to try and back off and try to comprehend it and learn logical and factual tools, rather than seeking out other people or distracting from it, you are almost certainly a thinker, and you are much more likely to be an introvert. And so: it’s incredibly common in Ti-doms, pretty common in IxTJs, and not unheard of in the ExTJs or ENTP. It’s actually very rare in ESTPs too because it involves a withdrawal from the environment that is counter to Se-dom motivations.

Enneagram 6 is not unheard for anyone! As I’ve said elsewhere, I think trying to gather a real-world safety net of people and guidance is maybe the most fundamentally human response to fear. It’s super common. It is most common in the SJs and is the most common type overall for ISFJs.

Enneagram 7 is really highly correlated with dom Se or Ne. 7s are spontaneous and like to experience a lot of things, so this is unsurprising. As a result, 7 is less common in introverts or high Si or Ni users. It’s even more highly correlated with Se than Ne, so ISxPs are sometimes 7s, but the rest of the introverts are pretty much never 7. It’s rare in ESTJs and due to competing with 6 and 2, pretty much unheard of in ESFJs.

Enneagram 8 is much more likely in extroverts and in thinkers - most 8s are ExTxs. It’s very much about taking control of your own life within an environment, so it’s more associated with extroverted functions but particularly Se and Te. It’s also very much in conflict with dom Fi; the combination of Fi individuality and 8 independence play off the worst aspects of each other and so while it could happen, it’s really unlikely to be remotely functional as a combination.

Enneagram 9, rather like 6, is pretty universal. The one exception is Te-doms; dom Te tends to be far too forceful to mesh with the passiveness of enneagram 9. It’s an especially common enneatype for IxxPs and is pretty common among IxFJs as well.

You're dedication will take you more places than giving up ever will. Times will be tough, yes, and it will feel as if you just want to quit it all together. So you'll rest for a day or two which feels like an eternity but you'll get back into the swing of things. You'll simply remember nothing ever stays the same. Ebbs & Flows. Rather on fighting the old you simply learn to dance with the devil instead.