I am an observer. A conscious observer, a relevant, engaged observer, but just an observer nonetheless. I observe life; I observe my emotions; I observe the world in which I live and breath and communicate. I’m a staunch atheist, but if I had to give an answer to the question, “What were you put on this Earth to do?” I would say, “To observe. To understand. To see.”

I used to have two names for myself. I’d imagine them as titles, like what might be listed on my emotional resume.

Black Nix: Emotion Collector. Black Nix: Master Escapist.

I am an Emotion Collector. I blogged once about emotional masochism — the tendency to put myself through pain and suffering. Purposefully. And I never understood exactly why I would do such a thing. But I understand it now. See, I have a desire to search down deep, to find the blackest dark, the heaviest weight. I want to understand it all, I do. I don’t know why. But I do. There are two emotions that I feel the most:

1-  Heaviness. Waking up in the morning and having the full pressure of life weighing down on you. Heart falling through your chest like a rock pulled down by gravity. The sense of dread at having to live, constrained by an ephemeral organic shell. The foreignness of the world.

2- The spark of joy and hope when I witness beauty. Dreaming transhumanist dreams. Listening to Mothertongue. Discovering a connection between ideas, which itself is an idea, and the sense of creation and accomplishment. And the beauty of finding patterns, of seeing the world exactly as it is but from a perspective that’s colorful, brilliant, warm.

I’m also a Master Escapist. I have a tendency to separate myself from the world. I think there are many reasons for this. For one, I don’t fit most places, among most people: a gay computer scientist whose brain is constantly hooked on contemporary classical music, philosophy and video games is probably neither going to be the life of the party nor a warm and compassionate friend. But there’s more than just this, I think. It’s harder to see the bigger picture when you’re in the middle of it. It’s harder to observe life from the inside. I’m not alone because I can’t interact with people, I’m alone because I don’t want to.

So it seems that my life so far has been really a patchwork composition of the emotions I’ve collected. Heaviness is the texture, the background, the dark, the brooding. But every now and then, a spark of beauty and hope lights it up with color and fantastic brilliance before dying again, into the blackness. The unbearable weight.

I’ve never understood how people live without seeing, or without trying to see, or without wanting to see. But it seems now that I’ve spent my whole life doing nothing but seeing. Is this merely a 76-year-long film I’ve gotten front-row seats to?  No, I create too. I write, I play cello, I draw, I talk to people. I combine and manipulate ideas. I create beautiful things. But is that enough? Is that all there is to living?

Sometimes I feel like I’m just funneling the world putting it all into myself. I have the world inside of me. But then what am I good for, to others? What place do I have among people? Who befriends the telescope?

Sometimes I feel like I’m never getting anywhere in life. Like I keep trying the same old things, the same old ways, and in the end I’m left with nothing to show for it but debt and a headache. Maybe I try too hard to do things quickly. Life has always been a game of procrastinate, catch up, procrastinate, catch up. I’m usually able to “catch up”, but where does that lead me? To an average life, with an average future. An average income, an average family.

I’m not average. I know this. But then why does it always seem like I’m never able to get what I want?

I need to work harder.
I need to be more patient.

Does it seem weird that I think my laziness stems from a lack of patience? No, listen, really. I can’t work on something wholeheartedly if I can’t envision the end. If I can’t sit down and say “This can really happen, if I work at it, if I wait.” Patience is something I’ve never been good at. But with patience, we can make progress. Real progress. Goal-driven, not emotion-driven.

What do I want in life? Short(er) term, anyway?

• I want a well-paying job, intellectual stimuli and creative freedom.
• I want safety in relationships. Good friends, honest friends.
• I want to be constantly challenged in life, by life. I want to make good decisions.
• I want to learn more. I want to learn everything. But learning, especially on one’s own, takes so much effort and so much patience.

I honestly don’t know what life will grant me. Who’s to say? But I’m confident that I can have the life I want, in time. With effort. With patience.

• Learn to notice when your thinking and speculating takes you out of the immediacy of your experience. Your mental capacities can be an extraordinary gift, but only can also be a trap when you use them to retreat from contact with yourself and others. Stay connected with your physicality.

• You tend to be extremely intense and so high-strung that you find it difficult to relax and unwind. Make an effort to learn to calm down in a healthy way, without drugs or alcohol. Exercising or using biofeedback techniques will help channel some of your tremendous nervous energy. Meditation, jogging, yoga, and dancing are especially helpful for your type.

• You see many possibilities but often do not know how to choose among them or judge which is more or less important. When you are caught in your fixation, a sense of perspective can be missing, and with it the ability to make accurate assessments. At such time, it can be helpful to get the advice of someone whose judgment you trust while you are gaining perspective on your situation. Doing this can also help you trust someone else, a difficulty for your type.

• Notice when you are getting intensely involved in projects that do not necessarily support your self-esteem, confidence, or life situation. It is possible to follow many different fascinating subjects, games, and pastimes, but they can become huge distractions from what you know really need to do. Decisive action will bring more confidence than learning more facts or acquiring more unrelated skills.

• Fives tend to find it difficult to trust people, to open up to them emotionally, or to make themselves accessible in various ways. Their awareness of potential problems in relationships may tend to create a self-fulfilling prophecy. It is important to remember that having conflicts with others is not unusual and that the healthy thing is to work them out rather than reject attachments with people by withdrawing into isolation. Having one or two intimate friends whom you trust enough to have conflicts with will enrich your life greatly.

(from The Enneagram Institute website)