Dear Peter:

Intrigued and finding that I have a little more time by the computer, I researched what kind of childhood can produce The Investigator, The Observer, aka Peter 😊

I read (from parts of The Wisdom of the Enneagram & elsewhere) that Type 5 individuals often (not always) grow up in environments that value knowledge and intellectual activities, having been encouraged to explore, read, and learn independently from a young age. They might have experienced situations where they felt a need to be self-sufficient or independent. This could be due to a lack of emotional support or the necessity to rely on themselves to solve problems.

Experiences that lead to feelings of inadequacy or insecurity can drive a Type 5’s desire to accumulate knowledge and competence. This could stem from being overlooked, misunderstood, or feeling unable to meet certain expectations. Type 5 children might have spent more time observing rather than actively participating in social interactions.

In some cases, becoming an observer and investigator might have been a coping mechanism to deal with chaotic or overwhelming environments. By retreating into their minds, Type 5 children could feel more in control and less vulnerable…

(While these factors can contribute to the development of a Type 5 personality, it’s important to remember that personality is shaped by a complex interplay of genetics, environment, and individual experiences. Each Type 5 individual’s childhood and development will have unique aspects that contribute to their personality).

Also, type 5s can have deep, meaningful relationships, but they often take time to develop. They value quality over quantity and tend to form close bonds with a few trusted individuals. They might struggle with expressing emotions openly, preferring to process feelings internally. This can sometimes make them appear less emotionally connected, but it doesn’t mean they don’t care deeply.

Building trust is crucial for Type 5s. They need to feel safe and understood in relationships. Once trust is established, they can be very loyal and supportive partners.

They value their independence and need for personal space, even in close relationships. This doesn’t mean they don’t value intimacy; they just need a balance between connection and solitude.

Next, I researched how to communicate online (as we do here) with Type 5: it says to Respect their Need for Space, to give them time to respond and avoid pressuring them for immediate replies, to be Clear and Concise, as they appreciate clear, logical communication, to Avoid overly emotional or vague messages and get to the point while providing relevant information.

Type 5s are intellectually curious and enjoy deep, meaningful conversations. Engage them in topics they are passionate about or interested in. Avoid Small Talk, as they might not be fond of superficial conversations. Focus on substantial topics that stimulate their intellect. Type 5s often take time to process information and formulate responses. Be patient and understanding if they need more time to reply thoughtfully. Acknowledge and respect their knowledge and insights. They appreciate being seen as competent and knowledgeable. Avoid Emotional Overwhelm: While it’s important to be honest and open, try not to overwhelm them with intense emotions. They might find it challenging to handle overly emotional exchanges.

And now, equipped with the above, I will try to respond to the first of your two posts here from yesterday honestly and mindfully:

Thank you for sharing your reflections, Peter. It readds like you’ve been on quite a journey over the past eight years, grappling with difficult questions about change, love, and the state of the world.

Your quest to find people who live authentically and contentedly is truly inspiring. It’s heartening to read about the individuals you’ve found who navigate the world with both contentment and compassion. Mr. Rogers is indeed a wonderful example of someone who managed to balance these qualities beautifully.

As a fellow investigator (!), I appreciate your insights on the energy required to move from observation to action. It’s fascinating how being seen and acknowledged can spark that much-needed energy to engage with life. Your awareness of this dynamic is a powerful tool for navigating your journey.

I resonate with your concerns about societal choices and the rapid integration of AI. These are complex and often troubling issues, and your thoughtful reflections highlight the importance of staying mindful of their implications for future generations.

The Zen quote and your thoughts on enlightenment beautifully illustrate the journey from simple understanding to profound realization. It’s a reminder that the most significant insights often bring us back to appreciating the simplicity and essence of life.

You wrote: “As a type 5 my communication style will always seem to be coming from the head, something I know can be off putting, but I like to think anyone taking the time to read or listen will see heart.”- yes, Peter, I do see your heart, and it’s a privilege.

Peter: “My answer to the question of – what love has to do with it – is everything and nothing, similar I think to what I read in a book by Krishnamurti just this year where he says, ‘Love can do nothing, but without it nothing can be done.’ (there’s a paradox for you)”-

-Love is not a tangible force that can directly do things in the physical world. It is not an agent that actively changes circumstances or solves problems. Love transcends practical utility. It is not about what love can accomplish in a measurable, concrete sense. Instead, love exists as a state of being. While love itself does not directly “do” things, without love, actions lack purpose, depth, and connection. Actions performed without love are or may be hollow or self-serving. The Paradox: while love itself does not perform tasks, it is indispensable for actions that are meaningful and transformative. It suggests that love is the underlying essence that enables all significant human activities.

Peter: “Love IS from which all things arise and return. (In the temporal playground we just mess it up by trying to possess and or be possessed by it”-

– love is an eternal, ever-present essence. It is not confined by time or space. Love is the source of creation and the ultimate destination. The Temporal Playground refers to the world of time and space where we live our daily lives. It is a metaphor for the impermanent, ever-changing aspects of existence. In our everyday lives, we often complicate or distort the pure essence of love through our actions and desires. When we try to own or control love, we turn it into something transactional or conditional. This can lead to jealousy, attachment, and a sense of ownership, which are contrary to the true, unconditional nature of love.

Conversely, allowing ourselves to be consumed by love in an unhealthy way can lead to dependency and losing our sense of self. This can result in obsessive or possessive behaviors that distort love’s true essence. Instead of experiencing love as the pure, unconditional force that it is, we entangle it with our desires, fears, and needs. The true nature of love is beyond possession and control. It is a fundamental, timeless essence.

Peter: “Love comes into being when the mind is naturally quiet, not made quiet, when it sees the false as false and the true as true. When the mind is quiet, then whatever happens is the action of love, it is not the action of knowledge. Knowledge is mere experience, and experience is not love. Experience cannot know love. – Krishnamurti”-

– When the mind is in a natural state of quiet, it can discern the true from the false. Krishnamurti distinguishes between actions driven by love and those driven by knowledge. When the mind is quiet, actions flow from a place of love, which is pure and unconditional. He views knowledge as the accumulation of experiences and information, which, while valuable, is not the same as love. Love is an innate quality that transcends mere intellectual understanding. Love exists beyond the realm of accumulated experiences and intellectual grasping. It is a state of being that cannot be fully understood or contained by the mind.

Love emerges from a state of inner stillness and clarity, when the mind is free from its usual chatter and distortions, allowing for a pure, unconditioned expression of this fundamental essence.

Peter: “Today (is this a change?) I realize that Love is the attribute of the ‘Eternal Now’ and so has no opposite. I don’t think there is a point to believe in ‘What Is’ so still say I do not believe in Love, only now I like to think I say that without disillusionment. most days 🙂”-

– It’s fascinating how your perspective has evolved over the years. The idea that love has no opposite in this context resonates. I also appreciate the humor in your question about change: it’s a clever way to highlight the ongoing nature of your exploration.

You are finding a sense of peace and acceptance in the inherent ambiguities and paradoxes of life, embracing the complexities of existence with equanimity and insight. I would like to understand this part better.

Peter: “A riddle: The observer is the observed and the observed the observer, the though is the thinker and the thinker the thought.”-
– the distinction between the observer (the one who perceives) and the observed (the object of perception) is illusory, as they are one and the same. It points to a non-dualistic view of reality, where subject and object are interconnected and interdependent. It highlights how our perceptions and thoughts shape our reality, a humbling realization that invites us to see beyond dualistic separations. I would like to think more in line with this principle.

Thank you for sharing your evolving thoughts, Peter. They add a rich layer to the conversation about love and existence, and I greatly appreciate it. I would like to respond to your second post of yesterday later.

anita

Dear Peter: good reading back from you! I will read and reply Friday.

anita

Dear Peter:

You submitted tour recent post 3 min after Mt mist recent post to you. I may wait until you read and respond to it, if you will, of course, before nt next reply 🤔

Anita

“It occurred to me the other day. That what when difficulties occur, the problem is not necessarily the issue itself… For example, when two people have a disagreement about something. It is how they choose to treat each other that is important. Not the disagreement itself. The willingness for people to work together as a team is the only way to truly win. Being right, “winning the argument”, getting what you want is not important. It is treating each other with kindness and respect that is important.”

The quote above is from Helcat in a post submitted 6 hours ago. The emphasis on Kindness and Respect, on Teamwork Over Winning is a valuable reminder that mutual understanding and empathy are key to resolving conflicts. Thank you for this insightful reminder. It’s a great lesson for all of us to keep in mind.

Love and best wishes, always!

anita

Thank you, Shinnen, and a special thank you to you, Helcat, for choosing to honor me this way, re-posting my words. I nether expected nor anticipated it, so it was a surprise, and a pleasant, heart-warming surprise. Thank you, Helcat.

And Congratulations for the new addition to your family!!!

anita

More to Peter: in your most recent post (now an hour and 40 minutes ago), you expressed that sometimes you rely on strong emotions like fear, anger, and hate to take action, noting that these strong emotions provide a boost of energy, and you acknowledged the difficulty of maintaining compassion when these strong emotions take over.

During my personal Awakening of recent, the feelings of belonging with other people, of being liked by some, that togetherness- it’s a very strong emotional experience which makes a huge difference in regard to fear and anger. Without the belonging, these other emotions have nothing to tame them. Without belonging, without togetherness, these other emotions take over like wildfire.

I think that the word Love has been overused, and it may have lost meaning. Belonging, being a part of is, or could be more accurate.

anita

Dear Peter:

On your first of three threads, titled “Do We Change”, you shared and asked the following on June 5-6, 2016: “no matter how much things change everything stays the same…I thought about it. I’ve changed jobs, friends, locations, thinking, beliefs… I’ve done a lot of changing, but have I changed. My answer like the phycologist was no… Anyway, I’m interested in hearing about other people’s experience of change. Do we Change?”

You started your second thread titled “Disappointed”, on Nov 9, 2016, with: “I no longer believe in love or change.”

On Nov 14, 2016, you asked no one in particular: “So what is change? Everything changes but stays the same”. You ended your original post there with: “I’m a hamster on a wheel going nowhere because there is no ‘where’ to go. Love is just a joke.” On the same day, referring to the 2016 US elections results, you asked: “To “make America Great Again” is that a change or a regression?”

Eight years later, following the recent elections results, you wrote on Nov 29, 2024, in your third thread “Blank Canvas”: “I find recent events troubling and having me questioning my reality”, referring I believe to the recent elections results (Trump 2nd win, 1st being the 2016). You posted your meditation poem on that day, which read in part: “All Life arises from and returns to Love. It is, we are, I am… Love.”

* After I typed the above, I noticed, Peter, that you just submitted a new post 22 minutes ago in Jana’s thread (I will soon be putting everything I quoted above together soon, best I can). In this post, you expressed that sometimes you rely on strong emotions like fear, anger, and hate to take action. When these emotions take over, compassion disappears, and the focus shifts to “getting even” or being right. You note that strong emotions like anger and fear provide a boost of energy. However, you question if relying on the energy from these emotions is the right approach. You realize that you can harness the energy from strong emotions without becoming those emotions. You can act from a place of compassion while holding someone accountable or protecting yourself. In this post, you highlight the struggle to balance the need to take action with the desire to remain compassionate. You acknowledge the difficulty of maintaining compassion when strong emotions take over.

Your insight that you can use the energy from strong emotions without becoming those emotions is profound. It suggests a higher level of self-awareness and control, allowing you to act from a place of compassion rather than reactive anger or fear. Your honesty about relying on strong emotions like anger and fear to take action is refreshing.

Your repeated questioning of change and the dismissal of love as a joke point to a profound disillusionment. This cynicism may stem from repeated disappointments or unmet expectations in various aspects of life. The feeling that everything remains the same despite external changes suggests a deeper struggle with finding meaningful or lasting personal growth. The analogy of the hamster wheel evokes an existential crisis, where you feel stuck in a cycle without purpose or direction, leading to a feeling of helplessness and hopelessness. It reads like you’ve been grappling with these questions for a long time, and it’s clear that this has been a significant source of contemplation for you.

It’s understandable to feel disillusioned when it seems like no matter how much changes externally, the core experience feels the same. The metaphor of being a “hamster on a wheel” really captures that sense of going through the motions without finding meaningful progress.

Even though you express a lack of belief in change, your curiosity about others’ experiences suggests that you are still seeking understanding and perhaps hope. Thank you for opening up about these thoughts. It’s a tough journey, but your willingness to explore these ideas is a testament to your depth of character.

As to putting it all together, I will do it in the humblest way: I will share about my experience, the parts of it that I believe parallel yours. Of course, it’s for you to decide if it resonates with you, in parts, at the least. I will share from the heart:

Decades of my life were like that video I saw, which resonated: a black-and-white video, grey mostly, a man (I always felt more like a man than a woman) walking, walking different cities and country areas in the US, walking and walking, and the music playing was trace-like. You can see he is in different cities, but all the places he is walking through are grey, no distinction. It is clear that in his heart, the man walking feels- as he walks through changing sceneries and changing times (he is seen as a boy, and then an adult)- that he feels the SAME, no changes. And he keeps walking on the sidelines, not being part of anything that might be happening in the center of things. And throughout the video, although he keeps walking and walking, he is not getting anywhere.

This has been my Story for decades. No matter what country I was in, how young or older I was, walking on deserted roads or walking to the bottom of the Eifel Tower, my internal experience was the same: grey, no colors, walking and going nowhere.

More than half a century of the above experience (there were breaks from greyness, temporary emotional bright color breaks that never took hold (the depressed brain has to have euphoric breaks, a chemistry thing), finally, eventually, unbelievably (I had NO idea), I experienced something different.

Color entered my life. Not psychedelic colors (those temp., chemical breaks the brain takes because it has to), but real color. OH, THE RELIEF.

I had no idea.

And I don’t know how to explain it here, particularly because I am not going cerebral, So, I hope you have patience with me, as I myself don’t know what I will be typing next.

(I am pushing away cerebral thoughts that are pushing their way into this post, staying with the heart): yes, here it is: it’s the Belonging Factor (I see, a bit cerebral here). Okay, so, it’s the ISOLATION within and without that made my life consistently grey/ the same. The feeling of being terribly ALONE.

This is it, that’s all there is to the core experience of stagnation, alone-ness, loneliness, acute loneliness, being on the sidelines, not a part of.

No matter who the president of the US, no matter (most) external circumstances, if a human being feels ALONE consistently, long-term, the human being is sick, and there is no other way back to health than truly connecting, simply, deeply connecting with another human being.

Oh, the feeling that another human being truly likes me, truly, really.. likes me- that’s a burst of enduring color into the greyness.

In the last 10 years, gradually, increasingly, most recently, I felt being a part of humanity, and I don’t mean cerebrally, as in ideas, but really, deeply, emotionally. but simply, being a part of, belonging.

If I was reading the above words years ago, I wouldn’t have understood. It’s an emotional, visceral experience that you don’t know by reading about it. You know it by experiencing it and by nothing that is less than the experience itself.

In your meditation poem last month, you wrote: “All Life arises from and returns to Love. It is, we are, I am… Love.”- love is not helpful when it’s an idea. It’s Everything when it is simply experienced, as in you looking at a face of another person and you see that the person genuinely likes you.

You see, Peter, how I expressed myself in this post? If you express yourself to me (to others?) more and more from your heart, as you already been doing more of recently, will it help you?

anita