What is the Imperative of Life?
Throughout history, ancient spiritual texts have pointed us toward the fundamental imperative of life. In many traditions, it is said that God spoke the word “BE,” and the universe came into being through this command. This idea of “BE” resonates deeply with the essence of existence—life is a command to Be.
Man is a god in ruins, destined to rise again.
Synesius of Cyrene
From this cosmic perspective, life’s imperative is simply to exist. Yet, as life emerges in the physical and biological realms, this imperative becomes more complex: the need to survive and reproduce. Every organism operates from this core biological drive, from the smallest microbe to the most complicated human being.
At the center of this biological process is the brain—a sophisticated system that interprets perception to ensure the organism’s survival. But beyond survival, the human brain takes this one step further, engaging in a psychological imperative, constantly asking, “What about me?” This question illustrates our deep need to make meaning from everything we experience.
This points directly to the ego’s self-reflective nature. The ego is always, 100% of the time, self-referencing. It lives in a house of mirrors, unable to truly see outside itself. The ego builds stories, ideas, and imaginings about reality that are inherently incomplete. They aren’t wrong in the sense of being false, but they are limited—they reflect only a partial view.
Given that an Enneagram type is an expression of ego/personality, personality types are trapped in their house of mirrors.
Experiences of reality are reified and conceptualized, filtered through the ego’s narrative lens. This means that, for the most part, we aren’t in direct contact with reality—we are living in a story about reality, one that is shaped and influenced by the mind’s survival-based filters and meaning-making processes.
Perception and Survival
Survival depends on fast, often non-cognitive responses to potential threats. Take the common example of mistaking a stick for a snake. Research shows this “jumping back” reaction is chemical, not cognitive. The brain bypasses its rational, thinking parts to ensure immediate reaction—it’s about survival, not accuracy. This reduction in processing time can be the difference between life and death.
Life is but a motion of limbs.
Thomas Hobbes
Our brain’s ability to quickly interpret perception for survival forms the core of navigating the world. It also highlights the negativity bias ingrained in our brains. We are wired to remember threats far longer than positive experiences. This is why someone can hold on to a slight for forty years yet struggle to remember a compliment they received a month ago. The brain gives more weight to negative experiences because, evolutionarily, it is more important to remember dangers than rewards.
Personality as a Survival Strategy
Our personality is, in essence, a survival strategy. It’s not just a set of traits but a way of interpreting and responding to the world that ensures our psychological and emotional survival. The Enneagram maps out nine strategies, each representing a way of organizing reality to feel safe and protected. However, to truly understand these strategies, we must go deeper than personality. We need to understand how the mind works.
Happiness is neither virtue nor pleasure nor this thing nor that, but simply growth. We are happy when we are growing.
W. B. Yeats
The Predictive Nature of the Mind
One key function of the mind is its predictive nature. It’s always filling in gaps in our perception. Physically, we can see this in how the brain stitches together our visual field, even though our nose creates a blind spot in our vision. Psychologically, the same process happens: the brain fills in blanks with meaning, often creating stories and projections from random bits of information.
Thought is your enemy. It is not the instrument for discovering anything.
U.G. Krishnamurti
This predictive ability is helpful for survival, but it also means that we often project meaning onto situations that may not warrant it. From a personality or inquiry perspective, asking, “What am I not seeing?” can be just as important as asking, “What am I making of this?” This question opens the door to greater awareness and invites us to explore beyond our usual interpretations.
Emotional Responses and Affective Nuclei
Our affective nuclei—the emotional files in the brain—play a significant role in how we respond to experiences. These emotional groupings explain why we sometimes react with seemingly disproportionate intensity. For example, a person with a history of being slighted may explode with anger in response to a minor comment because the brain responds based on collective emotional patterns, not the present situation. These nuclei are key survival mechanisms but trap us in reactive cycles that can limit our growth.
Breathing in, I calm my body. Breathing out, I smile. Dwelling in the present moment, I know this is a wonderful moment.
Thich Nhat Hanh
The Body-Ego and Self-Image
Freud’s concept of the body ego helps explain how our physical experiences shape our identity. From birth, our sense of self is tied to the body and its sensations. As we grow, we develop a self-image, which is not just a picture in our minds but the sum of our experiences. It’s everything we associate with “me,” “I,” or “mine.” This includes our identification with our Enneagram type and how we navigate the world.
You have to grow from the inside out. None can teach you, none can make you spiritual. There is no other teacher but your own soul.
Swami Vivekananda
However, self-image has no real ground. It’s a construct built to help us survive psychologically and socially. Moving beyond the ego means clarifying where our sense of existence comes from. I found that seeking the “I AM” was too tricky. But the sense of isness, of simple beingness, captured my attention. I realized that isness is part of every experience, and my identity is much more connected to that sense of being than to any idea or story.
Phantom Limbs of the Psyche
The concept of phantom limbs is a powerful metaphor for understanding trauma and identity. Just as a person with a missing limb may still feel sensations in that limb, we have countless phantom limbs in our psyche—old patterns, traumas, and stories that continue to shape our sense of self. These phantom limbs are part of our self-image and often arise from early object relations and unprocessed emotional experiences. Object relations refer to how people form and maintain relationships with others, shaped by their early experiences with caregivers and influencing their interactions throughout life.
Why worry? Let destiny bring the fruit as it chooses.
Tukaram
The Comparative Framework of the Brain
The brain’s cognitive processes are largely comparative. It reifies, conceptualizes, and objectifies the world through constant comparison. This cognitive framework keeps us locked in duality—separating self from other, subject from object. We remain trapped in egoic patterns as long as we rely solely on this comparative process.
To break free from this duality, we must move into direct experience. It’s not enough to conceptualize or think about isness—we must experience its immediacy and impact. The Enneagram can serve as a tool for opening doorways beyond our habitual, comparative processes. Rather than using the Enneagram as a map of personality types, I encourage you to see it as a guide for inquiry—for spelunking into the self and isness.
If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is, infinite.
William Blake
The Enneagram as a Tool for Inquiry
At its best, the Enneagram invites us to question our habits, patterns, and assumptions. It points us toward a deeper curiosity about who we are beyond survival strategies. In this sense, it becomes not just a system for understanding personality but an invitation to inquiry, a doorway into not-knowing. The Enneagram helps us break the habit of creating meaning through repetitive patterns and allows us to experience ourselves beyond the mind’s constructs.
To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible.
Thomas Aquinas
Ultimately, the imperative of life may be to Be, but this imperative is interpreted through many layers: biological, psychological, and cognitive. Each layer adds complexity to the question of survival, but each also invites us to explore what it means to exist beyond the ego. The real question isn’t just “What about me?” but “What is me?”—a question that opens the door to a richer and more direct experience of being.