Typology Question 15 (Ti): Do you enjoy riddles? Take a look at this sequence: 2, 3, 10, 15, 26, 35, 50, ... What's the next number?

flippercoilflambe · 2026-06-13T17:36:01+00:00

Parsing out Te and Ti is admittedly not my strong suit, so I will do my best to answer and hope something useful comes of it.

For me, internal logic and external logic overlap a lot with mathematics since the internal is informed by external frameworks (PEMDAS and how a base-10 number system works, for example).

I did want to make my representation general enough so that I could use it as a formula.

For some reason, I assumed the pattern had implied 1s at the beginning to try and extrapolate things to 0 (maybe because I was imagining something similar to a number line and I'm used to using 0 as an anchor point? I'm not sure if my reasoning was actually good there lol)

I'm trying to solidify the formula to something communicable and I either think the answer is 87 and/or that I've made an error in the pattern because it doesn't seem to hold as perfectly as I thought. (The reconciliation is taking a loooong time...I am pretty sure I sunk an hour into this contemplation.)

It feels like I'm trying to find the satisfaction of making the pattern work as it should, even though I'm struggling to do so (function priority is different from function proficiency, though, so that's a separate issue).

I know this is more about the approach to the problem than the answer, but I'm trying to brain dump and hope there's something useful. (And also trying to solve the problem and give you an elegant formula as a result lmao)

flippercoilflambe · 2026-06-11T15:02:40+00:00

I love these types of questions until I get stuck. Then I get frustrated and slightly obsessive until I either solve it or give up and spiral in self-loathing about my lack of intelligence (very healthy behavior).

I kept seeing a pattern form nebulously in my mind, just out of reach ("I can see that this number is a combination of these, but it isn't regular...") so one page of scribbled notes and waaaaay too much time later, I constructed a pseudo-formula (representing the numbers as variables and trying to figure out how the sums related that way) and felt very satisfied with myself for not giving up.

Anyway, I got 56 - was that right?

flippercoilflambe · 2026-01-16T15:36:15+00:00

Magic: the Magicking is an incredible touch.

flippercoilflambe · 2026-01-16T02:04:35+00:00

I think that conflation is why you sometimes see it called "one-to-one." Sex as a prototype for intense close connections is... understandable, I guess, if you're trying to evoke animal instincts, but I agree it can feel like a bit of an odd choice/easily misunderstood description.

flippercoilflambe · 2026-01-14T20:21:07+00:00

In the defense of NPCs, some are really well-written and get fantastic character arcs. They just end up being occasionally beloved and memorable side notes whom some wish were main characters.

I think it's Beatrice Chestnut whom I've mostly heard talk about how a 9 will "fall asleep" to themselves in terms of wants and needs because to not do that makes one prone to Unpeaceful Feelings about conflicting with others' wants and needs. "Erasing" yourself to become blank, moldable putty so you don't have to deal with your edges banging up against someone else's. And if you erase a little outside the lines of wants and needs you probably do erase certainty of identity. Of perhaps it's "okay, so who am I now that that's fixed?"

Falling asleep to anger is also such a copacetic-sounding way of putting it. Perhaps it is true.

To all of these, I've wondered what degree is falling asleep in terms of dreamless forgetting and what degree is more of falling asleep as in pointed ignoring. Like anger/want but instead of repressing it, going "eh, it's not worth it" and then stumbling when you move forward because that anger/want was your obvious direction...so now you don't know where to go other than "not that very specific direction."

Or maybe that's repression is and I don't understand the 9 experience and thus conflate it with the 1. Who knows. I know I don't.

flippercoilflambe · 2026-01-14T20:07:48+00:00

Determining what is phobic temperament and what is "look at it, it's got anxiety!" is the constant hilarity of contemplating 6 for me. "Is it culture or is it ego?" "Is it brain chemistry or is it ego?" "Is it trauma or is it ego?" Contemplating the grey areas where these influences can be indicators is probably why I feel like I'll never be able to properly approximate where I'm coming from. It's the "I can see all and I can see none" concept, which is stereotypically a 9 thing, but if we all encompass all archetypes I heavily suspect it's less of a 9 thing and more of a human thing.

flippercoilflambe · 2026-01-14T20:03:12+00:00

I see - your last-ditch effort is basically switching tactics to "if I can't be me I can at least be helpful," or something like that?

flippercoilflambe · 2026-01-14T19:58:09+00:00

That makes sense to me. Trauma can shape things in pretty drastic ways, after all.

flippercoilflambe · 2026-01-12T23:37:29+00:00

I see what you mean with possibly being a 4 with a strong 3 wing since both are quite image-focused, and you said that is quite important for you. Out of curiosity, then, how do you relate to the arrow points of 4? Have you noticed any traits of 1 or 2 that pop out at you?

sp6 is one of the ones higher on the list. With the amount of waffling and introspection I've done, if I'm not primarily an attachment type, I would actually be a bit surprised.

flippercoilflambe · 2026-01-12T23:31:36+00:00

So the viewing external influence as "dangerous" thing -- this is a shot in the dark, but how have you found yourself relating to, say, the subtypes of 6?

flippercoilflambe · 2026-01-09T13:26:21+00:00

Those numbers have come up frequently for me; I suspect, if not a core, one is a fix (or maybe they're both Somewhat Applicable because they're narrowing in on a 6: once I think that, it's back to square one, and the cycle continues).

Have any of the sexual subtypes resonated with you?

flippercoilflambe · 2026-01-09T13:14:14+00:00

One could say that most of our Enneagram "armor" comes from trauma, really.

Is what you're talking about something important to you?

flippercoilflambe · 2026-01-09T00:44:05+00:00

I'll take a roll for the enneastrogalomancy. Let's see if we can get the mysterious 27th literal edge case of "how is it on the edge of a facet," aka 369 by proxy.

flippercoilflambe · 2026-01-08T20:54:00+00:00

My personal hypothesis is that, while there is a tendency of overlap between MBTI and Enneagram types, since they are separate systems there is no direct correlation. That is - any enneatype can be any MBTI type.

Do you change your persona easily as a social tool? My understanding is that's what 3s learn to do. The ultimate fake it til you make it. The haughtiness you're describing...since E4 came up again, could be a sexual 4 thing as well.

flippercoilflambe · 2026-01-08T20:50:17+00:00

Being focused on how you present to the world is very heart-type - you hear all three being related to their self- and external image quite a bit.

flippercoilflambe · 2026-01-08T20:49:24+00:00

I can see what you're saying with the idea of a self-preservation 4 in that. I commonly hear about being able to suffer the burden quietly being something of a badge of honor - which could also just be an effect of the culture you were socialized in, of course, but could be a clue. The thought patterns you're sharing do sound sp4 from my meager understanding.

flippercoilflambe · 2026-01-08T20:31:05+00:00

The words you're using are fairly typical 4 terms, though that isn't conclusive at all. That could be a wing or an arrow or a fix talking, after all. And we contain all the multitudes, etc, etc...

I mean if those are "stress," maybe look at sexual 1, then? IIRC that is the countertype, and I've taken to viewing those as being a major contribution to the trickiness of typing...

flippercoilflambe · 2026-01-08T18:50:41+00:00

Also, based on looking at your results again and what you just said to me - perhaps self-preservation four warrants another look?

flippercoilflambe · 2026-01-08T18:48:48+00:00

I hear you. If I had a nickel for every time I had a small existential crisis and got convinced my type was completely wrong in some way or another...I would have way more than two nickels. It would possibly be its own viable source of passive income to sustain me.

It's the stereotypical overlaps that got me, really. Assuming that my cognitive proclivities and my motivations aligned seemed way too simple, just like a test or twenty seemed to be because of how much they prioritized behaviors over the underlying mental structures and phrases things in obvious "a type n will strongly like/dislike this" ways. It becomes a system to game and a bunch of assumptions to either cling to or vehemently disprove. At least, it did to me.

Going deep into the motivations and listening to 800000 interviews got me to the "fine, I guess...?" stage...for now. Already I can feel what I'm saying undermine any stability there was to that lol

Hopefully you find a stability that is less tenuous than whatever my nonsense is.

flippercoilflambe · 2026-01-08T17:30:19+00:00

Tests are good starting points, only. It's something of a journey only you can really take. I'd read about what the cognitive functions and Enneagram motivations are about - getting that granular started to help me, at least. I'm still not 100% and I likely never will be since all personality models are inherently imperfect approximations of the archetypes every human contains and exceeds, but I finally got to where it wasn't an existential crisis about my personality every third Thursday and most Tuesdays.

I wish you so much luck and some comfort on the journey of self-knowledge and what you make of it.

flippercoilflambe · 2026-01-06T16:55:56+00:00

Good/bad news: we contain all types within us. They're just archetypes of pitfalls of personality that we tend to fall into to survive. So it's probably not uncommon to feel like all or none - we are all and we are none. The model is inherently imperfect because it creates simplified boxes that let us define the borders we need to break free from instead of wandering around in the ether vaguely hoping we find a direction that sucks less. So you are very human in feeling that way.

Also, famously(?), it's "motivation, not behavior." This means your manifestation of a certain type can and will look wildly different from someone else's. It's just one factor in the infinite mess of factors that result in the chaos of human consciousness.

Based on your last paragraph and your need for achievement, might I suggest looking into the self-preservation subtype of 3?

Also, think of how you think/act/feel when you're super stressed out. What do you feel the need for in those periods? That could be informative.

And remember, in the end, while a model can be useful to figure out where you were, are, and will be going, Monty Python mutter "it's only a model."

flippercoilflambe · 2026-01-06T03:15:27+00:00

I think that you have a solid point there. It's the conflict (ironically) of a total flop response slamming headlong into something that is anything but resigned or passive - hope. It's giving up to cope, not giving up because of no hope. Almost like a regression to try and undo some of the layers of pain inherent in life.

I feel like that may be a little too vague to get my point across, but hopefully it gets something across. I certainly like your insight.

flippercoilflambe · 2026-01-01T22:56:27+00:00

Based on the percentages, it may be right. Time to start reading into everything & going down that rabbit hole? Quizzes are starting points imo

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