Druid

## Life Task

To work with a sense of proportion and balance anchored in the now. Pain of any kind can serve as a steadying point of focus.

*"I am happy and open to new things."* - Druid Principle

## **Description**

Like all enneaclasses, the name "Druid" is not referring to any classes from media that utilize the same name. Rather, it was the name selected to better convey specific information about other gamers and to gamify the powerful notions found in the **Enneagram.**Every person has access to all the classes but primarily settles on one initially which frames the personality. Accessing other classes' potentials and maximizing the capacity of the primary class takes a large degree of work and effort, and this work could be viewed as lessons an entity must overcome to become unified.

People of the Druid class are essentially concerned that their options remain open, their lives unconstrained, and their ability to find happiness.

Druids are determined not to allow their lives to succumb to boredom or inertia, or to the lethargy of a dull, pedestrian existence. Druids want more than that. They always want more.

Druids are future oriented, restless people who are generally convinced that something better is just around the corner. They are quick thinkers who have a great deal of energy and who make lots of plans.

They tend to be multi-talented, creative, open minded and resilient people who do their best to appreciate their lives. Youthful, insouciant and facile, Druids are enthusiasts who enjoy the pleasures of the senses and who don’t believe in any form of self-denial.

Druids are essentially fear types who are in flight from pain, always striving to remain one step ahead of their inner demons. They typically also have a high opinion of themselves and their talents. Druids tend to focus on their strengths and virtues and to downplay their flaws and vices.

There is a sort of existential claustrophobia at the heart of Druid class. They sense that the walls are always just about to close in. They therefore develop strategies for escape. These strategies are primarily mental, and Druids, like Mages and Knights, are fixated in the mental center.

Druids are full of plans for the future, exciting ideas, original thoughts and unusual attitudes. They like to fantasize and conceptualize, but as soon as they attempt to work through the fine details of their ideas or plans, they tend to feel constrained. To escape this feeling of constraint, Druids push forward into action. They look outside themselves for their means of escape.

For this reason, Druids are the most energetic and active of the classes. They tend towards extroversion, generally know lots of people, and are especially fond of collecting those they find unusual, entertaining or stimulating. Druids also tend to be impulsive.

They are willing to pick up and move at a moment’s notice, to change jobs on a whim and to experiment with alternative lifestyles. Immersion in what the world has to offer frequently serves to refine the palate, and Druids don’t like to settle for second rate distractions.

As Druids are essentially afraid of being overpowered by negative states of mind, they seek their distraction in the external world and generally excel at multi-tasking and adventure seeking. They can frequently be counted on to bring energy and excitement to situations which have begun to grow stale.

Druids have the gift of sensing the potential in a situation, of seeing the ideal in the actual. One of the reasons that Druids do this is that it serves to juice up their experience. Idealization, paradoxically, makes experience feel more real to Druids.

## **Class Identification Questions**

Every entity falls primarily within one of the enneaclasses, originally. While it can be difficult to elucidate which correlates with any individual, these nine questions (for each class) were designed to analyze certain aspects of the personality so that one can come to an understanding of their class.

1. When a situation becomes intense, do you get a nearly uncontrollable urge to laugh or to point out the absurdity of it all, often with a good one-liner?
2. When you hear about or see problems in the world or in people's lives, do you almost automatically start thinking of solutions?
3. Are you "turned off" when people tell you how gifted you are or what great potential you have because you know that underneath is the expectation for you to be doing something more meaningful or productive with your life?
4. Are you stimulated by intellectual sparring, by new and different experiences, or by the possibility of being on the cutting edge of a new venture but "turned off" at the thought of your life being stable, secure, and routine?
5. Do you prize flexibility and avoid making long-term commitments or plans "set in concrete"?
6. Do people almost universally enjoy your company but at the same time give you the feeling they don't see the deeper, more intelligent, more loyal side of your personality?
7. Do you see yourself as a good communicator with a broad enough range of interests that you can keep a conversation going with just about anyone?
8. Are you the kind of person who, if given the opportunity, can see the potential use of many things others might throw out as junk?
9. Do you enjoy mental challenges and find yourself seeking out these kinds of challenges to keep life enjoyable or to keep from being bored?

## **Preoccupations**

Preoccupation relates to the matter of being preoccupied or engrossed with something, so what you might find here are areas of examination with which this class might find themselves involved.

* The need to maintain high levels of excitement. Many activities, many interesting things to do. Wanting to stay emotionally high.
* Maintenance of multiple options as a way to buffer commitment to a single course of action.
* Charm as a first line of defense. Fear types who move toward people. Avoid direct conflict by going through the cracks. Talk your way out of trouble.
* Maintaining high levels of stimulation, many activities, many things to do, wanting to stay "high."
* Replacing deep contact with pleasant talking, planning, intellectualizing.
* Defusing threat; maintaining a smokescreen of activity.
* Superiority/inferiority dichotomy.
* An attentional style of interrelating and systematizing information, such that commitments necessarily include loopholes and other backup options.

## **Special Abilities**

Each enneaclass has several unique traits which may be cultivated in such a ways as to give advantages when dealing with situations that are characteristic of that class. Those of the Druid can be roughly summarized to:

* being optimistic and not letting life's troubles get me down
* being spontaneous and free-spirited
* being outspoken and outrageous. It's part of the fun.
* being generous and trying to make the world a better place
* having the guts to take risks and to try exciting adventures
* having such varied interests and abilities

## **Weaknesses**

Each enneaclass also has several areas of weakness where they generally do not thrive unless work has been done towards alleviating these shortcomings. While the following examples are general statements, it is expected that most Druids dealt with or are dealing with issues of this nature:

* not having enough time to do all the things I want
* not completing things I start
* not being able to profit from the benefits that come from specializing; not making a commitment to a career
* having a tendency to be ungrounded; getting lost in plans or fantasies
* feeling confined when I'm in a one-to-one relationship

## **Class** **Synergy**

Some enneaclasses naturally work better together than others, which leads to many moments of understanding and misunderstanding. Many potential adverse situations can be overcome by understanding those around oneself and learning how to best optimize those others, which quite frequently results in some synergistic outcomes.

* Offers a sweet solution to authority problems. Wants to equalize authority, which can come out either as a fair peer arrangement or as a situation engineered to ensure that no one is allowed to give orders. If no one gives orders, then people get to do as they please.
* Can become insistent about impractical ideas and inefficient approaches. Prefers ideas and theory to implementation. Will open a task to new approaches rather than face routine.
* Goes through the cracks rather than confronts. An anti-authoritarian stance that gets around the rules by broadening the definition of terms.
* Excellent performer in open-ended projects that do not move into routine. Networks, plans, synthesizes ideas and approaches. Aligns the project with other areas of interest.
* Has an inner sense of capability and high self-worth. Measures self against others to keep this sense of self alive.
* Delightful to work with. Can be forgiving and creative during hard times. The office person who wins the popularity poll.

## **Charm Guide**

Relationships among gamers of various enneaclasses are often tenuous due to a lack of understanding. This may not be of consequence in regards to relationships that are superficial or purely of a business nature, but these relationships only compose a small subset. It can be beneficial to learn what makes each class comfortable and respected in order to forge more meaningful and deeper connections. For the Druid class, some of the techniques towards achieving this end are as follows:

* Give me companionship, affection, and freedom.
* Engage with me in stimulating conversation and laughter.
* Appreciate my grand visions and listen to my stories.
* Don't try to change my style. Accept me the way I am.
* Be responsible for yourself. I dislike clingy or needy people.
* Don't tell me what to do.

## **Class Specialization**

Human evolution requires three basic survival behaviors, referred to in the Enneagram as the instinctual specializations: the self-preservation specialization, the social or group specialization, and the one-to-one or intimate specialization. Because these are survival behaviors, each Enneaclass includes all three subtypes. Although you manifest all three to some degree, you usually express one of these three subtypes more than the other two. Both environmental circumstances and your Enneaclasses's structure influence their expression, especially the core emotion associated with your adaptive strategy and what you put your energy into.

**Self-Preservation Instinctual Specialization**. Your attention and energy go to issues related to personal survival, such as safety, security, comfort, protection, and adequate basic resources of food, shelter, and warmth.

***Social Instinctual Specialization.***Your attention and energy go to issues related to your community and group membership, such as role, status, social acceptance, belonging, participation, and fellowship.

***One-to-One Instinctual Specialization.*** Your attention and energy go to issues related to connection in vital relationships, such as bonding with special others, sexual intimacy, attractiveness, closeness, union, and merging.

 Avenger | Social | A paradox exists for the social Druid who needs friends and group projects to express both social idealism and love of life. Harnessing oneself to the greater good of the group or community creates a sense of sacrifice, as participation with others requires limitations to personal expansiveness and planning for future outcomes.