I am an unusual person…? (journal entry)
By: Jaxon Kace
Tags: Short Read, Humor, Journal, Ego, Psychology

Is the next question on the Enneagram test I’m currently taking at the recommendation of redacted friend’s name.

My first instinct was to check the box all the way to the right, under “Accurate”. I do believe I’m unusual, I can even say I’ve seen enough to say I’m for sure unusual. But then it’s like, have I? I’m taking this personality test designed to tell me the “type” of person I am, but am I any type of person?

I don’t think I am..

The concept of ego death seems to directly conflict with this test, and as someone who seems to be experiencing ego death on some level, my initial reaction was why would I want to do this? If ego death is so liberating — and it has been absolute liberation, let me be clear — why take a test to reinforce the existential restriction associated with a “personality type”?

I watched a couple-minute-long (an important distinction considering the accomplishment that sitting through a video longer than 50 seconds in 2020 is) Youtube video of a guy giving his take on ego death, which was something to the effect of this:

As you gain, process, and categorize information, your ego assimilates this new data and naturally changes. In other words, if the ego is roughly defined as an individual’s specific pattern of learned behavior — emphasis on learned as your actions are ultimately influenced by observing how people around you act from the time you were a child and conducting yourself accordingly — then it would, naturally, be transformed simply by your obtaining new information.

Let me give an example. Let’s say you had been jokingly calling someone at work a fag, but afterwards found out they were gay and offended by this. Let’s also say they confront you about it and you get into some good old Trouble. Whether you’re remorseful or unapologetic is unimportant here, the experience has changed you. Whether that change manifests in you making effort to genuinely change your insensitive nature, or you just know who you can and can’t joke around going forward, same shit.

My example is a little extreme, but the point is you “gain information” through your experiences and adjust yourself accordingly. You’re pretty much always doing this both consciously and subconconciously, effectively creating a situation where your ego is perpetually dying and being reborn in a new form. This is how people change.

Viewed from this angle, a test designed to identify, and in many cases explain, your ego or current personality type can actually be a useful self analysis tool if you can accept that the result of the test isn’t a concrete type classification to live by, so much as a reflection of the concepts you currently value, assessed imperfectly. The “instinct” I had to identify as an unusual person is nothing more than my ego, having “learned” over the years the value and prestige associated with all things exclusive, wanting to pat itself on the back for cherry picking memories that support my perceived abnormality. If inclined to do so, my ego can easily recall times of significantly less glory when I was anything but unusual, just as easily as I can rationalize choosing any box on the personality test Accurate/Inaccurate scale, including the sexy “Neutral” one in the middle with the fat booty. Ultimately I’m none of these traits, yet all of them when necessary.