#6: John Luckovich, Type 4 – The Inner Middle Finger, the Crushing Gloss of Artifice, and the Sourcing of Identity in Depth Itself (SX/SP 4w5 458)

John Luckovich is one of the most brilliant and authentic Enneagram teachers of my generation. His teaching is clear, challenging, thought-provoking, and comes from sincere desire to illuminate the psyche and immersion in his own inner work. His book, The Instinctual Drives and the Enneagram, presents the first ever coherent theory of instincts that incorporates evolutionary biology and developmental psychology, and it successfully argues for the instincts' centrality in spiritual transformation. I think very highly of John, and I'm excited for you to learn from him in this conversation.

John's Typing: (SX/SP 4w5 458)
John's Website: https://www.johnluckovich.com/
Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/oRYgOdMpbNg

Timestamps:

00:00 Intro
2:54 What’s it like to be introduced? Silly, cartoonish
4:01 Enneagram origin story
6:11 Contrasting how 3 & 4 experience identity - John's professional journey in Enneagram world
11:21 The Enneagram’s sacred, eternal insight & way it renders reality
15:11 Growing up in Atlanta “everything was like a giant mall..." dead, glossy, lifeless artifice
18:11 The Enneagram humiliates the personality; “Where else do you go to locate identity?”
20:56 Inner work for John; becoming more “open”; expanding the 4’s narrow emotional range
25:50 Contrasting 2, 3 & 4. 4 is part of identity that is “singularly my own.” The inner life of 4s.
33:21 4s showing you that “I’m different”; 4’s natural allergy to other’s trying to get them to “be on the same page”; the inner middle finger
38:31: What is "Depth?" a sense of mystery, reaching, a “saturation of one’s experience,” “a beauty that moves your soul”
44:10 Why doing taxes feels "not deep,” and what it means to relax the “grasping” for depth
47:10 John’s book -- promoting it vs writing it; 4’s “resistance to functioning,” the writing & research motivated by self- and topic-discovery
58:50 The 4’s appreciation of others’ depth; misunderstandings of “authenticity”; sensing when other people are “resonating with themselves”
1:07:10 “Does that make sense?” - what’s that about? - social blind, not sensing if we’re on the same page
1:09:25 “What’s this been like for you?” some bro love

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Music by Coma-Media from Pixabay
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