TODAY’S CONSIDERATIONS
So far, while discussing the relative effects of the nine basic personality styles or types, the focus has been on the Personality Type One Perfectionist and the Type Two Rescuer / Helper / Love Seeker.
To continue, the focus today will be on the consequences of being highly influenced by the agenda of the Personality Type Three Performer, Achiever, Audience Seeker, and Image Maker. From the book LIBERATION (Attaining Freedom from Personality via Realization):
The Relative Effects of Personality: Fears, Desires and Interrupted Happiness (continued)
The following was offered in response to a question about coming to really know or understand another person:
“. . .You’ll never ‘know’ or ‘understand’ any person [because] you’ll never know ‘which person’ (which persona or which personality type) you’re dealing with on any given day. Have you ever met someone and thought you ‘really knew’ him / her … only to scream later, ‘I don’t even know who you are!’ Millions in ‘relationships’ eventually feel like fools, like they were ‘fooled’ by someone who put up a false front, a false image, only to discover that their mate, friend, lover, spouse, etc. is a fraud.
Of course that will happen, because all personas are fraudulent.”
Thus, to be free of fear, desire, foolishness, and unhappiness, personality must be transcended. But before such transcendence can happen, personality and its fraudulent nature must be understood. Of all the personality types, none put up that false front or false image more than the type being discussed now. The basic fear and the basic desire of Personality Type Three—“The Performer / Achiever” / Audience Seeker / Image Maker—will now be discussed.
Russ Hudson pointed out the following about Personality Type Threes:
BASIC FEAR AND BASIC DESIRE
The Type Three’s BASIC FEAR is the fear of being worthless
The Type Three’s BASIC DESIRE is to feel valuable, admired, and applauded
THE IMPACT OF THAT PERSONALITY TYPE ON THE RELATIVE EXISTENCE
Because they fear that “the way they really are” makes them worthless, Threes above all else engage in (1) “image-building” and in (2) seeking an audience to display that image and thereby receive praise or positive feedback. When Type Three Performers / Achievers act or sing or perform or accomplish, they are seeking the applause or praise which their personality desires.
[While the Type Two wants a captive audience - and "holds the floor" by continuous talking - the goal of the Two is to manipulate as many as possible to love her or him; in the case of the Type Three, most could not care less about love / Love but want an audience in order to attain admiration and applause for himself / herself. Among the nine basic personality types, the Type Three's level of narcissism is only exceeded by psychically unhealthy Type Eights Controllers / Fighters (see Donald Trump as an example of that type) who suffer from what can be called "malignant narcissism" or "unchecked narcissism," leading eventually to sociopathic and / or psychopathic behavior. Often, the Three and Eight personalities can show up in tandem, especially if, as children, they were abused or indulged or both.]
To continue: In an act of self-delusion, they take the applause or praise as a sign that they are truly valued and worth something. A Three will, therefore, do all within her / his ability to create and maintain what they take to be a “positive” image.
"Style over substance" is the hallmark of these persons trapped in their love of their relative world existence, identified as they are with their physical bodies and their "good looks" and thus having little chance of ever understanding the Absolute.
These personas lose contact with the both Reality and reality, far more than most other types. They suffer from distortion, from faulty perception, and from their inability to differentiate between what is true and what is false . . . between what is real and what is unreal.
They become "The Kings and Queens of Spin," so if they touch the truth for a few seconds and glimpse a shortcoming, they were display a Type One Perfectionist's tendency to see themselves as perfect and then cast aside any clarity they might have seen briefly in regards to their need to address their personality liabilities. They will literally live out their lie throughout their entire relative existence if they do not realize, believing all along that their false image really defines who they are but never having the slightest clue about authenticity or truth.
They become susceptible, if exposed to religious or spiritual teachings, to adopting with a vengeance the false personas which are generated by religious or spiritual beliefs and concepts and dogma. Ironically, even as they proclaim to love, they are the most capable of hating when they think they are not receiving enough honor or respect or praise. Any criticism or suggestion for improvement will amount to a call to war.
Their need for praise is limitless, but since they cannot get limitless praise, they develop deep resentments and anger. To maintain their image of being wonderful and charming, however, they suppress that anger and rage builds within. The result is a continual series of explosive, volcanic episodes through their lives.
Eventually, if they adopt a “Religious Giant” or “Spiritual Giant” persona form early on or even later in life, their belief that they are perfect will be reinforced; therefore, they fail to see any need to look within; thus, they will typically never see the defects that characterize their personality type. They are so capable of hating that they can become quite capable of destroying anything that they think is interfering with their two, primary preoccupations: image-building and image-maintenance.
Few are as invested as Threes are in creating false selves, in adopting false identities as definitions of “self,” and with ruthlessly destroying anyone or anything that interferes with their desire to be the epitome of what their culture considers “attractive,” “good,” and “valuable.” Few move beyond body identification and focusing on their bodies and the bodies of others.
(Note: If you study the enneagram, you see that Threes are part of the "Type 3-6-9 triangle," so those other two types can display the same type behavior as a Three. Some estimates are that 80% or more of the population of Aryan nations such as Germany, Austria, Great Britain and the U.S. are either Threes or persons inside the 3-6-9 triangle who behave as Threes behave.)
WHY PERSONALITY TYPE THREE INTERRUPTS HAPPINESS
That desire to be the epitome of what their culture considers “attractive,” “good,” and “valuable” results in a never-ending drive to be more, to be better, to be better than, and to be perceived as “the best.” Such egotistical pursuits place them in a competitive mode and drive Threes to feel they are being challenged or threatened in most situations.
They demand the spotlight and resent people and situations that force them to share the spotlight. In their effort to look perfect and to say the perfect thing in each case and to appear to be the best, the result is an inordinate fear of failure and a consequent need to exploit and control or manipulate in their effort to maintain their image and their sense of superiority.
They become charming actors, performers who are always “on stage” or who are in need of finding an audience if an audience is missing. In their effort to stay in the spotlight, they become jealous, vindictive, deceptive, narcissistic, vain, and self-righteous.
They become obsessed with being the center of attention and receiving crowd approval in order to believe that they really are “OK.” They project their personality defects onto others and then do all that is possible to destroy other persons who evidence the Three's own personality traits and phony personas.
On some level, they really hate their false self, even as they work so diligently to create it and to maintain it.
(That is the typical discontinuity that exists for all persons identified with the body-mind-personality triad, and that is the reason to see these influences that personality has on the relative existence and then discard identification with personas.)
Threes will appear to be the most charming among the nine types, and though they are the opposite at their core, their use of denial results in their believing their own lies.
Far from being truly charming, they can say the vilest, most hurtful things, can spin their failures into success stories in an instant, and can figuratively and / or literally kill when angered over not receiving the degree of honor that they think they deserve or when someone questions them or exposes their faults.
“Isn’t all this relative existence stuff?” it has been asked. Of course. It’s always the “relative existence stuff” that must first be seen in order to realize what must be discarded. Only then can the “absolute stuff” be understood.
FREEDOM FROM PERSONALITY TYPE THREE EFFECTS VIA REALIZATION
Along with realization comes authenticity as images are seen to be images and nothing more. With realization, honesty replaces the lie that the relative existence of most Type Threes eventually becomes. The distorted thinking and twisted perspectives that prevented the manifestation of happiness disappear.
That said, with the degree of attachment that Threes have to image, few will ever see all of the lies that must be seen before the truth can explode into consciousness. Again, the justification for the teachings to invite protégés to recognize the influences of personality on relativistic behavior and to then be free of it should be clear.
To be continued.
Please enter into the silence of contemplation.
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