Making Improvements

These days I work closely (though remotely) with A., who works in our office in Orlando, and I tend to stay with her when I am in town.

A. has been learning about a personality type model called the Enneagram.

Heard of it?

One thing that makes the Enneagram different from other models is that rather than describing only the strengths and greatest contributions of each type, it tries to get at your motivations, fears, and weaknesses... maybe even your favorite deadly sin. One sign you've been correctly assessed is a gut-level groan of recognition. You've been "found out."

Many Christians are really into the Enneagram these days. I was curious. So, when we were hanging out a few weeks ago, A. pulled up the Eeneagram app on her phone and started asking me the true/false questions so we could figure out my type.

This is one of the books Christians
are reading about the Enneagram.

Looks like I'm a "Type 1," called The Reformer, Perfectionist, or Improver. Type 1's tend to see what's missing, what needs to be fixed, or what can be done better... and they aren't very good at giving themselves permission to stop and have fun. They are always looking for ways to make themselves, others, or projects and processes better.

According to this podcast, Type 1's not only have an inner critic, but a whole chorus of them. Well, maybe not a chorus, says the woman on the podcast. They're yelling, not singing!

Critical thinking is, of course, the secret to my success at work.

It is not so helpful or valued in my closest relationships, where telling people I'm not good enough, that they and their work aren't good enough (and no, we can't go out and play!) are not so well received.

According to this article, Type 1 is also the rarest of the types, with only 1% of the population. You might not want more of us... a little salt will do.

Contrast that with Type 7, "The Enthusiast," evidently 29% of the population, or Type 6, "The Loyalist," with 28%. Maybe the world needs more of of those. But you can see how we might clash. (Um, don't have to imagine, actually!)

Do you know your Enneagram type? How have you found that knowledge helpful? What do you think of the model more generally?

Oh, the conveniences of the Internet (and their social and cognitive cost)

I'm not in the inner circle of the group of friends who staged this wacky photo shoot, but I love knowng people who are good about making time to get together and share their lives, pleasures, and vulnerabilities. This blog post explores some of today's pressures that may tend to push us away from the close friendships we want and need.


In a recent article for Christianity Today, writer Christina Crook describes how she saw a cross-country move that made all of her relationships into long-distance ones also make "staying in touch" come to mean scrolling through other people's social media posts. Or at least the posts of friends and family who were on social media. As for those who were not, her contact practically ended.

Can you relate?

Some of the Crook's writings on this topic over the last few years are a bit Luddite, but her views may have gained greater nuance. She seems to recognize that the tools we let hurt us aren't inherently bad, just troublesome when we don't recognize how they have affected us. She quotes former Google insider Tristan Harris who points out, "When you use technology, you have goals. When you land on YouTube, it doesn't know any of those goals. It has one goal, which is to make you forget those goals that you have."

It was while working at Google that Harris observed how many resources were being put into "making more addicting products by manipulating the vulnerabilities of its users."

Ouch. If we are to "throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles," and "run with perseverance the race marked out for us" (Hebrews 12:1-2), we need to consider what the easy and convenient communication strategies we've embraced are really costing us.

Me, I love efficiency and convenience. I consistently choose task over relationship, regret it, and do it again. So I appreciate Crook's warning and ideas for pursuing relationships in time-consuming, off-line ways instead of just the easy, online ones.

A few weeks ago our daughter got married. She and her love made fairly standard vows to one another, vows that were outrageous enough, actually. But they added some of their own. I listened with interest. Some have already been kept. "I will play video games with you... I will go see the [Grateful] Dead with you," she told him. But she also said, "I will not use your weaknesses against you," and I think that one will be harder to keep.

Would that we all kept that promise in our closest relationships. It's worth committing to, and worth trying again when we fail. But how distressing it is that the games we play, our bosses and those who work for us, companies we patronize, and the media channels we enlist or consume seem to almost systematically use our vulnerabilities against us. As for the social media channels, though they can certainly be harnessed for good, they tend to distract us from our values, priorities, and goals and work to make us forget them.

It's pretty sick, isn't it? What will we do about it?

"...How have we been co-opted into society’s push for productivity over presence, and what have we lost in the process?" asks Christina Crook "...The inefficient way is also the way to love, and without love we have nothing."

Read the article, Unfriending Convenience.