4-Dimensional: Happiness in a Minor Key

This is one in a series of posts about my recent interest in the “Enneagram of Personality,” and how Type Four is a perfect fit for me, and also offers me insight and potential growth. For more information about this series, see the first post here.

“Even when expressing happiness, there can be a mournful or dirgelike quality to a Four’s communication.” (Susan Piver, The Buddhist Enneagram: Nine Paths to Warriorship, 114)

The first year my wife and I were married, we hosted a Christmas party. Both of us were really into music, and we thought it would be fun to make a special mix CD as a favor for everyone who attended. This started a tradition that lasted for over a decade. That first year, we selected a bunch of music that we really liked. Starting with the second year, the intent was to share music that we had discovered during that year, or which had become important to us that year. Creating these albums became a really important and fun tradition in our home. While the selection of music was something the two of us did together, it was my responsibility to order the music into a good mix, and to give the mix a name.

Some of our friends seemed to look forward to that year’s Christmas CD as much as they looked forward to the party. It was a wonderful affirmation for me – I put so much of my artistic self into the creation of these mixes. I tried to use them to tell something of a subliminal narrative. I chose the transitions very carefully, based on musical style and timbre, and also on where that song fit in the story I was creating. It was a beautiful gift to hear that others appreciated them as well. That meant they not only appreciated my work, but also who I was.

As an aside, that is so often how I experience affirmation or criticism of things I create. Whatever I create is a reflection of myself, whether it’s a blog post or a book or a sermon or a drawing or a music mix. When I create something, I’m not just using a skill to provide something for someone – I’m also tapping into my core, and mining it for meaning and beauty. That’s why I write about myself so much, because it’s the only thing I really know anything about. They say to write what you know.

So there was one year that I was really proud of the Christmas CD I’d made. It was called “As You’re Passing By Alone,” a lyric from the Phish song “The Walls of the Cave” that I included on the mix. The overall narrative of “As You’re Passing By Alone” was like a sine wave, starting at the top (in a positive tone), getting dark and bleak in the middle, and returning again to positive at the end. Songs like “Needle in the Hay” by Elliott Smith and “Hurt” by Johnny Cash formed the low point in the center. And even though the beginning and end were ostensibly happy, the songs all had this yearning, thoughtful quality to them.

It wasn’t my intention to make this particular album depressing or dirge-like, but I received at least one comment afterward from a friend who asked me to keep the albums lighter from now on!

Here’s the playlist. Dial it up on whatever streaming music service you use, and see if you find there to be a “mournful and dirgelike quality” to it!

Link to Playlist on Spotify (song 10 missing)

As You’re Passing By Alone – 2003