Attitudes
and the Spiritual Life-031
09-09-07
The Enneagram and The HAM’s:
Power HAM Strategies The 5, 6 and 7
Review of the Enneagram HAM’s
• HAM is the acronym for Happiness Attainment Motivators.
• These are the built-in desires for various types of human
happiness.
• These motivators are part of the Human Nature we inherit
from our parents, their parents, and so on, all the way
back to Adam, who started the process when he
disobeyed God and ate the fruit of the Tree of the
Knowledge of Good and Evil.
• This fruit genetically contaminated Adam to create what is
known as the Sin Nature, the source of the 6 HAM’s:
– Sexual, Chemical, Religious, Approbation, Power and
Materialism.
Attitudes
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Review of the Approbation Types
• One of the HAM’s found in the Enneagram
is Approbation, the desire for recognition,
respect, honor, appreciation, etc.
• Two - Pleaser: Seeks Approbation by
making you indebted by giving and helping.
• Three - Over achiever: Seeks Approbation
by being the epitome of the ideal person.
• Four - Dramatic Individualist: Seeks
Approbation by being unique and not being
the epitome of ideal.
Attitudes
LWBC 09-09-07
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Review of the Power Types
• Another HAM found in the Enneagram descriptions is Power;
this desire for security ranges from concerns of personal
safety to domination.
• Five - Observer: Avoids Power issues by avoiding interaction.
Isolate themselves and live in their mind, where they have the
Power to control.
• Six - Doubting loyalist: Fear of having insufficient Power over
the circumstances of life. Seeks security by being hypervigilant. Always wonders “What if”. Avoids change.
• Seven - Experience Seeker: Seeks the sense of Power or the
avoidance of the lack of power through endless outside
experience. They avoid thinking.
Attitudes
LWBC 09-09-07
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Review of the Religious Types
• A third Enneagram HAM is Religion; the desire to
relate to Absolutes, such as God or Right and Wrong.
• Eight - Challenger: His “Religion” seeks to correct
wrongs (as he sees them) with power by bullying
others. Avoids feeling weak, denies being wrong.
• Nine - Peacemaker: His “Religion” seeks peace by
avoiding conflict and dynamic situations. Pleasant to
be around, but passive aggressive.
• One - Perfectionist: His “religion” seeks perfection
internally and externally. Sees imperfections and tries
to right them. Holds in anger, becoming tense.
• “Banker’s nieces seek Perfection, expecting all the
gifts that Wise Men bring” (B. Dylan)
Attitudes
LWBC 09-09-07
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The 5-6-7 Strategies
• Fives, Sixes and Sevens are usually called
"fear-based" types, because, as Power
Based, their inadequacy results in fear as
their basic preoccupation.
• These diverse types of fear make quite
different experiences of life, but all three live
in varying degrees of terror, partially
because they live from their "head" center.
Attitudes
LWBC 09-09-07
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The 5-6-7 Strategies
• They think a lot and frighten themselves.
• Their knot is in their will, they have a variety of ways of not
being able to take action in their world.
• These two characteristics, fear and thinking, come
together via anticipation.
• The types in this center tend to approach life by limiting
their life to what they can figure out; by preparing for any
eventuality; or by avoiding thinking about what may
happen in the future.
Attitudes
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The 5-6-7 Strategies
• Fives try to be in control by gathering
information, thinking everything through,
understanding everything.
• Sixes expect the worst to happen so they
spend a lot of time making sure they have
thought of every eventuality.
• Sevens don't expect things to work out very
well, so they keep busy, deliberately not
looking at whatever may be negative.
Attitudes
LWBC 09-09-07
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The 5, 6 & 7 Power Strategies
The 5, 6 and 7 Approaches to Power Issues
Avoid Thinking or Reckless Power
Think of Every Possible Threat
Power
Restrict Thinking to, or Expand, the CZP
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LWBC 09-09-07
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The Instincts and the 7
• The instinctual energies often appear to manifest
differently in enneatype Seven, but the underlying
structure really is the same as with any other type.
• The Seven fixation results in a running away from
the internal, away from boredom or pain.
• Sevens go towards the external world for relief.
• While the self-pres energy is an inward turning
energy, when coupled with the Seven’s outward
orientation, the self-pres subtype of Seven can
appear outgoing, and more fun loving than other
self-pres subtypes.
Attitudes
LWBC 09-09-07
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The Instincts and the 7
• Social seven tends to exhibit a nervous
energy compared to the other subtypes of
Seven while a dominant sexual instinct
often accentuates the outward energy of the
Seven in terms of a seeking after intensity.
Attitudes
LWBC 09-09-07
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The Self-pres/Social 7
• Self-pres/soc Seven has many friends and
loves to entertain.
• Sevens want to experience life with their
friends.
• The self-pres in type Seven manifests in a
desire for sensual pleasures.
• Their energy goes to the comforts of the
body and positive experiences, both
experiences of the body and the mind.
Attitudes
LWBC 09-09-07
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The Self-pres/Social 7
• Like all Sevens, they have an enthusiastic quality,
especially as it pertains to the future.
• Making plans for life is essential for the selfpres/social Seven.
• This future orientation of the self/social Seven can
be an escape from boredom, so many of the
plans they make for the future don’t come to
fruition.
• This doesn’t stop them however from forging
ahead and moving onto the next grand scheme.
Attitudes
LWBC 09-09-07
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The Self-pres/Social 7
• The self-pres/social Seven’s plans usually
focus around typical self-pres concerns
such as making money, exploring job
opportunities, or renovating the house. With
social second in the stacking much of their
energy will spill over into maintaining social
connections.
Attitudes
LWBC 09-09-07
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The Self-pres/Social 7
• When unhealthier, their many friendships serve
mostly as tools which help keep the Seven
distracted from facing themselves and their
problems.
• The more friends, the more opportunities the
Seven has to be distracted. These Sevens can
have a hard time making or keeping
commitments, as commitments can feel like a
limitation on their options.
• With the sexual instinct least developed, they can
feel unmotivated to put in the work it takes to
maintain a close relationship.
Attitudes
LWBC 09-09-07
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The Self-pres/Social 7
• When this subtype gets healthier they learn
to ground themselves, slow down and
actually appreciate the many things they
have acquired, whether they be material
things or experiences.
• They start to realize that the next great plan
may not give them the happiness they are
expecting.
Attitudes
LWBC 09-09-07
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The Self-pres/Sexual 7
• This subtype is similar to the self-pres/social, but
their plans and pursuits are more passionate in
nature.
• There is often more of an artistic flair.
• They can be moodier then the other subtype.
• Their focus is more on relationships, although
commitment can also be a problem for this
subtype.
• This subtype can even be known to use
introspection as an escape.
Attitudes
LWBC 09-09-07
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The Self-pres/Sexual 7
• They can go inward with a seeming depth,
but they will usually avoid the most
troublesome areas, the areas and
characteristics most painful to them.
Attitudes
LWBC 09-09-07
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The Self-pres/Sexual 7
• This subtype of Seven is overall more
focused than the self-pres/social. Their
focus is on their intimates although certainly
not solely on them as they usually have
many other fires burning also. They
generally have a great sense of humor,
sharp quick minds and many interests.
Attitudes
LWBC 09-09-07
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The Self-pres/Sexual 7
• These qualities might be common to all
subtypes of the Seven, but in the selfpres/sexual subtype, the infusion of
enthusiasm comes through when they are
engaged in their plans and fulfilling them.
Attitudes
LWBC 09-09-07
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The Social/Self-pres 7
• Enneatype Seven is a mentally fixated type,
with image focus generally underdeveloped.
• For the social Seven, the concern with
issues of image and relation to the group is
somewhat at odds with dominant type
Seven fixation.
• This can result in some apparently
conflicting behaviors in the social/self-pres
Seven.
Attitudes
LWBC 09-09-07
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The Social/Self-pres 7
• There is an underlying sense of insecurity
and anxiety that isn’t as apparent in the
other subtypes of Seven which is especially
noticeable with the Six wing. (These can
even become quite needy when
unbalanced.) With sexual instinct least
developed, they can lose trust in the bonds
they have.
Attitudes
LWBC 09-09-07
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The Social/Self-pres 7
• While they may be very good and
comfortable in a large group and when
dealing with surface social relationships,
they sometimes can struggle with forming
and maintaining connections in a closer
relationship.
Attitudes
LWBC 09-09-07
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The Social/Self-pres 7
• The self-pres backup for the social instinct
adds a grounding force that is missing with
the social/sexual.
• While still possessing a good sense of
humor, this subtype also usually has more
focus and follow-through when it comes to
their many projects.
• On the high side, they are community
minded, have a lot of energy and usually
socially accomplished.
Attitudes
LWBC 09-09-07
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The Social/Sexual 7
• This Seven has a lot of energy although not
always a productive energy, as it often
contains a frenetic quality.
• These Sevens usually have a great sense
of humor and many comedians are
soc/sexual sevens.
• The social and sexual instincts go hand in
hand with the type Seven fixation.
• These Sevens want to keep things light.
Attitudes
LWBC 09-09-07
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The Social/Sexual 7
• They have fast sharp minds that incorporate
social awareness into their humor which
they use to get by in their interactions with
the world.
• On the down side, commitment is a big
issue for this subtype.
Attitudes
LWBC 09-09-07
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The Social/Sexual 7
• They cultivate many friendships and can
thrive on winning people over, making them
laugh and entertaining them but intimacy
can feel threatening and constraining.
• For others, interacting with this subtype of
Seven can feel draining, because they are
“on” so much of the time.
Attitudes
LWBC 09-09-07
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The Social/Sexual 7
• With the self-pres instinct least developed in
the stacking, they tend to lose focus on their
many plans.
• On the down side, their health and
commitments can fall by the wayside in lieu
of the buzz of the newest excitement.
Attitudes
LWBC 09-09-07
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The Social/Sexual 7
• In intimate relationships, this subtype is “the
charmer,” but they maintain their freedom
from any strong ties to the one person.
They may end up in marriages or long term
commitments where they hook up with
someone reliable and stable, someone with
a much more low key personality. This gives
them the stability they don’t have
themselves.
Attitudes
LWBC 09-09-07
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The Social/Sexual 7
• This eventually leads to trouble if the
soc/sexual seven doesn’t realize that
responsibility for his or her own life can’t be
transferred to another. It’s not that the
soc/sexual goes into the relationship with
this kind of pattern in mind. It is just easy for
the dynamic to default to that dynamic.
Attitudes
LWBC 09-09-07
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The Sexual/Self-pres 7
• The energy of the sexual instinct is, in some
ways, at odds with the type Seven fixation.
• The Seven’s focus is future oriented and
outward, away from the inner world, while
the sexual variant is instinctual and dwells
on the inner self as far as relationships and
identity are concerned.
Attitudes
LWBC 09-09-07
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The Sexual/Self-pres 7
• This combination can make for a Seven that
can be Four-like in many ways. They can
have a flamboyant style and be very moody
and intense. In relationships, there is often
a push-pull quality. They are very attracted
to the falling in love part. The buzz and high
of that is very stimulating to them, almost
drug-like for them.
Attitudes
LWBC 09-09-07
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The Sexual/Self-pres 7
• Their problems come when that buzz wears
off. They want to recreate it again and
again, but they also have a way of
becoming attached and sometimes very
dependent on their romantic partners. On
the down side, they can be very clingy but
don’t want at the same time to lose their
freedom.
Attitudes
LWBC 09-09-07
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The Sexual/Self-pres 7
• When unhealthy, they can be very selfish in
these relationships, things become onesided in a way that favors the interests of
the Seven.
Attitudes
LWBC 09-09-07
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The Sexual/Self-pres 7
• The sexual/self-pres Seven’s addictive
behavior with relationships can extend to
other areas, like music, and performing in
general. The rock star image and lifestyle
can be attractive to the sexual Seven. Many
rock stars are sexual Sevens the buzz they
experience from music can be similar to
what they experience in relationships.
Creativity can also function as a release of
frustration from the boredom.
Attitudes
LWBC 09-09-07
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The Sexual/Social 7
• This subtype has a lot of energy, crazy, intense
energy and this energy is going to find a way to
manifest.
• This subtype of Seven can have the biggest
extremes in behavior and with material success in
life.
• With the self-pres instinct last in the stacking they
aren’t afraid of taking risks, so they sometimes
become very successful, as in the case of rock
stars, but they typically also take too many risks,
look for too many easy ways out.
Attitudes
LWBC 09-09-07
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The Sexual/Social 7
• With the self-pres least developed, they can
become dependent on others to add a
much needed stabilizing element to their
busy hedonistic lives.
• They have many of the same issues and
share many of the same problems as the
other sexual first subtype with regards to
relationship addiction and have even more
dependency issues then the sexual/selfpres.
Attitudes
LWBC 09-09-07
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The Sexual/Social 7
• They can lose focus and drift similar to the
social/sexual subtype and their high energy
can likewise be draining for others.
Attitudes
LWBC 09-09-07
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The Sexual/Social 7
• With this subtype, you have drama mixed
with mental energy.
• What separates them from Fours who they
might resemble superficially is their
planning and future orientation.
Attitudes
LWBC 09-09-07
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The Sexual/Social 7
• Their drama and intensity is focused on
what they are going to do, not on what has
happened.
• They are usually blind to their past, moving
forward and not looking back.
Attitudes
LWBC 09-09-07
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The Sexual 7
• The Five wants a cerebral relationship and
the Seven wants an exciting physical one.
The Seven is attracted to the cerebral five
(her security point), but she can't sustain a
purely platonic relationship. Narcissistic
Sevens have an inflated set of expectations
of the world, an optimism that really isn't
warranted.
Attitudes
LWBC 09-09-07
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The Sexual 7
• They tend to have grandiose expectations that they will be
appreciated without having to do much to gain that
appreciation.
• For example, Sevens tend to make "entrances" rather than
just walk into a room.
• Sevens tend to be among the most self-referential of all
the types, blithely assuming that if they want to do
something, it will be all right with the rest of the world.
• This is an assumption they frequently don't check out.
Attitudes
LWBC 09-09-07
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The Sexual 7
• They assume everyone else is thinking
about themselves so they don't really care
what the Seven is thinking or doing.
• This gives Sevens a certain inner clarity as
a secondary gain, but it can be illusory
because the Seven often has trouble with
perseverance in whatever it is they wanted.
• They aren't swayed from without, but they
are distracted from within.
Attitudes
LWBC 09-09-07
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The Sexual 7
• The reason for the lack of inner clarity is that the Seven is
not going after things, they are running away from an inner
void.
• The direction toward is not primary so it lacks staying
power.
• They are much clearer about what they don't want than
what they do.
• They want lots of things - a clue - because they don't trust
any one thing, no matter how desired, to give them
satisfaction.
• Sevens tend to think about their appetites.
Attitudes
LWBC 09-09-07
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The Sexual 7
• No one thing can satisfy the Seven,
because they can't commit to a relationship,
object or course of action.
• Any activity will do, so no one thing gets full
attention.
• The full attention is unconscious and
focused on running away from the fear
inside.
Attitudes
LWBC 09-09-07
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The Sexual 7
• Sevens often report a happy childhood and
are puzzled and surprised when their
siblings talk of tough times that the Seven
has forgotten.
• They delete the negative from their
memories as well as their expectations.
• This gives them a lot of energy, but it can be
the frantic manic energy of the person
running away from something.
Attitudes
LWBC 09-09-07
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The Sexual 7
• Sevens love beginnings, they seem like first steps into the
rest of their life.
• The lure of the dream is intoxicating and if you're not
careful, you'll fall under their spell.
• In the beginning they see all the possibilities while
brushing the inevitable little problems aside, usually with a
quip or a grand gesture.
• It is the Sexual Seven who invented rose-colored glasses,
and then invited you to put them on, too.
Attitudes
LWBC 09-09-07
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The Sexual 7
• If you've ever bought snake oil, you possibly bought it from
a Seven.
• What makes them so dangerous is that they don't ask you
to do anything they wouldn't invest in themselves.
• They are not conscious frauds, they are in an optimistic
trance and so they expect you to see things the way they
see them.
• All Sevens prefer new experiences and a Sexual Seven
prefers to share these new experiences with someone
else - not necessarily sexual at all.
Attitudes
LWBC 09-09-07
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The Sexual 7
• Any new, unusual, exotic, intense
experience - from hang-gliding to
adventures in the apothecary to the study of
Arabian love poetry - will energize the
Sexual Seven.
• And as they energize, they "share." So they
want to share with you.
• All their charm and energy is focused on the
partner so the partner must go along.
Attitudes
LWBC 09-09-07
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The Sexual 7
• The self-referential character of the Seven manifests in
their attitude that says even though they make constant
attractive efforts to get you to go along with them, they are
put off by having to go along with someone else's idea of
excitement.
• Sexual Sevens really get into magical thinking.
• The New Age Movement is permeated with Seven energy
and their love of magical thinking (creating just by thinking)
shows up everywhere.
Attitudes
LWBC 09-09-07
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The Sexual 7
• Sevens have a fear of criticism.
• Sevens are working hard (remember, our
enneagram style is something we do, not
who we are) to see only the possibilities
and if someone starts picking and pecking
(that's how it feels to a Seven), they are not
just making observations, they are
challenging the Seven's whole world view.
Attitudes
LWBC 09-09-07
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The Sexual 7
• Sevens will often drop the charm and flash
anger, usually only briefly, when negatives
are brought up, especially in the form of
criticism.
• This seeing only the good in things is called
idealization.
• Because they focus on their partner, they
can often idealize their partner.
Attitudes
LWBC 09-09-07
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The Sexual 7
• The technique they use to keep the idealization working is
reframing.
• "All right, she burned the dinner, that's because she's so
sensitive to the children's needs that she couldn't pay
attention to anything else."
• The instant reframe can keep the idealization alive for
longer than most types and can easily lead them to stay in
negative relationships much longer than you'd expect from
people who are known as escape artists.
Attitudes
LWBC 09-09-07
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The Sexual 7
• They don't always physically escape, they
escape through the reframe.
• The opposite of fascination is boredom.
• Bored to tears and bored to death are
powerful metaphors for the Seven.
• The Sexual Seven runs the risk of
becoming bored with the partner.
Attitudes
LWBC 09-09-07
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The Sexual 7
• Idealization is one way of not being bored, but
romanticizing works, too.
• "Here we are huddled in this one room flat. When we're
old and rich, just think of the stories of rags to riches we'll
tell our children."
• Their imaginations are not only powerful, but they are
focused on the future because in the future all these loose
ends will somehow magically come together and we will all
be wonderfully happy.
Attitudes
LWBC 09-09-07
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The Sexual 7
• Sevens believe in a premature heaven.
• What is seductive about the Sexual Sevens
is that because fantasy is more powerful
than fact, they can talk their partners into
living a future dream while not facing the
wretched current conditions.
Attitudes
LWBC 09-09-07
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The Sexual 7
• Sexual Sevens, when they seduce, (especially but not
exclusively sexually) they don't tell lies.
• They are not phony, they are successively sincere.
• Today she really loves Brad but tomorrow she will really
love Brian.
• Today she desperately wants to go to the symphony, but
tomorrow she much prefers light opera.
• The appetite is for variety.
Attitudes
LWBC 09-09-07
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The Sexual 7
• Now that's fine in many areas.
• No harm in eating from different ethnic traditions every
night of the week.
• But if you are putting moves on solid Susan today and
tomorrow you are equally enamored of Brigid, you may
have a big problem.
• Remember, this is fear-based.
• The fascination is rooted in a fear of boredom.
• The fast pace is rooted in a deeper unacknowledged fear
that life is dull, slow and insipid.
Attitudes
LWBC 09-09-07
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The Sexual 7
• The penalty in every style is that the more
we flee, the sooner we run up against what
we are running from.
• So with an initial fascination, if the Seven
doesn't persevere, she finds little
satisfaction, because of lack of depth.
• Without depth, life is boring. Imagine being
sentenced to be on a desert island with
nothing to read except Reader's Digest!
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