Posted by Copperhead on April 20, 1998 at 19:54:10:
In Reply to: Fives and glasses posted by Andy on April 19, 1998 at 11:23:33:
: This is only my own observation, but it seems to me that most fives are nearsighted
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: Comments ?
I am a Five (with a Four-wing) and happily, I do not wear glasses. However, given the number of hours I have my nose in front of a book or a computer (12 to 15 hours a day on weekdays), this may simply mean I was was blessed with stronger eyes than average. I, too, have noticed that many Fives wear glasses. Still, I am not sure whether or not the number of nearsighted Fives is disproportionately large.
[*Digression begins*]
Coincidentally, Richard Rohr is an enneagram author also to have made the claim of typical Fivish nearsightedness. It was one of the many, very specific characteristics or mannerisms which he attributed to particular types. (He also claimed that Fours often wore berets and spoke with an affected accent. This is actually quite true for one of my Fourish friends; it is untrue for many others.) Although all of this makes for some interesting and sometimes amusing reading (and of course, no enneagram author can completely dispense with using such examples, at least for the purpose of illustration), I think readers of Mr. Rohr should be cautious of losing the forest for the trees. While some of the items he poses (such as the affected accent - that is a bit Fourish) could be used in conjunction with other data to corroborate a typing, many of them, I feel, (such as wearing a beret) are not serious determinants of type at all. They may provide some hint of type, but they can not replace observing the general pattern of behavior, engaging in conversation and thereby intuiting a person's basic motivations and inhibitions.
[*Digression ends*]
In my view, the disproportionate tendency of Fives to wear glasses is one of many claims which seem intuitive and believable, but which, unfortunately, are not substantiated by any real empirical evidence. Therefore, I would hesitate to conclude that "most" Fives are nearsighted. Perhaps one day, students of the enneagram will collect enough data to provide a more definitive answer to this and other intriguing questions.