Essence of Type Four – Originality, Uniqueness
Imagine that we each come from one of nine lands, the land where the essential quality to which we are sensitive reigns supreme. For Fours, this land is one of individuality, originality and uniqueness.
Type Four is called the “Individualist.” In their souls, Fours are sensitive to the significance of being a unique, original individual. Above all Fours want to live in this land where the beauty and depth of their individual self is expressed and appreciated.
To enter Four Land, imagine a Garden of Eden where the special beauty of every creature shines forth in its unique way. Every being is true to its own individual identity and in touch with its own depth and beauty. Your soul knows that you too are original and unique.
To understand the experience of Fours in the world, imagine the “fall” from this Garden where you are seen and recognized for your own depths as an individual. For type Four, expulsion from Paradise feels like being cast into a world of dull conformity, where everyone is the same and they are not seen as a special individual, they are insignificant.
You are not a drop in the ocean, you are the entire ocean in one drop.
- Rumi
Understanding The Essence of Originality
We all know in principle that we are unique human beings, but we often live as if this isn’t true or important. We put our attention out into the world and neglect our inner depths. The essence of originality and uniqueness reminds us that we are here as individuals and points us to explore our inner selves. This is because the meaning of being a unique individual lies within. When we really appreciate our individuality, we become more aware of our depths, our beauty, the special meaning of being here as our original, “one and only” self.
If we stay with the metaphor of a garden, at Four we are now appreciating the rose, the iris, the peony as separate, beautiful manifestations. The universe is created atom by atom, humanity is created individual by individual, the ocean is made drop by drop. A huge snowstorm is composed of individual snowflakes, no two alike. The deeper we look into individual phenomenon, the more we see uniqueness.
This is the essence to which Fours are sensitive - they are explorers of the depth and meaning of their individual identity. Fours don’t want to be like everyone else, they want to express their own individuality, be true to themselves, and be significant in an original way.
To understand essential identity let’s first look at what identity usually means.
Identity exists as a social construct - the groups we belong to. In recent times, we have become more aware of social justice and systemic discrimination, and how our life experience is affected by our race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, age, religion or abilities. So, we might start to think about our identity by recognizing what groups we belong to and how that has influenced our lives.
Identity can also be based on the roles we play. Being someone’s child, parent, partner, relative, friend and so on, defines us and we often interact according to our role in the relationship. Similarly, what we do for work can define our identity, our talents and abilities, our interests, how we spend our time.
As individuals, we also know our identity through our personal history. Who is in our family, our ancestry, our birth order, our life events, everything that makes up our life stories make us who we are. The sense we have of continuity in our lives is based on this personal identity - even as we age, and everything changes in our lives, we have our memories and a continuing sense of being ourselves.
So, we can get to a basic level of knowing who we are as individuals through all these facts about ourselves. Fours are sensitive to their identity as an individual in all these ways - their personal history, what makes them unique, what they do and where they belong are all matters that Fours find important to their sense of self.
But what if we take all these identifying factors away? Who are we then? Now we are getting closer to essential identity.
When we strip away all these facts, we are still different from each other, and we still have certain innate qualities. We come into this world as an individual. Think of small children and babies, how they are each uniquely themselves. When we hold a newborn, we may sense they have an identity that is special to them even though they have not developed a personality and have no specific attributes or history yet. We may say, “hello baby” because we feel as if they arrived in the world as themselves and we are meeting them. This is mysterious but true - in the old nature/nurture debate, parents will tell you each child arrives with its own inborn nature.
We can sense our essential identity directly by noticing the nature of our Being in meditation. When we are present a lot falls away, yet we can still sense a flavour of ourselves that is unique without dense layers of specific attributes.
A practical way to relate to our essential identity is through our creativity. Next time you begin a creative project stay present to the process and notice how you connect to your self-expression and originality.
You can try a creative project and stay present to this process - notice how you meet your individual self. If you need inspiration, check out The Artist’s Way book or website and possibly try writing what Julia Cameron calls “morning pages” to get the creative juices flowing. The Four in all of us wants us to take the time to turn inward and freely create something from our original self.
Art lies in the moment of encounter: we meet our truth and we meet ourselves; we meet ourselves and we meet our self-expression. We become original because we become something specific: an origin from which work flows.
~ Julia Cameron, The Artist's Way
