The Enneagram's type Six is the Loyalist, the Devil's Advocate, the Doubter, the Questioner. In the world of music, Sixes usually play within established traditions. They'll come off as regular people, with an egalitarian approach to their musical partners and audiences. They'll often be active and visible fighting for underdog causes.
Sixes are on a lifelong quest for security and support. They don't trust their own inner guidance, so they sound out opinions from friends, teachers, books, systems of belief, precedents, traditions, communities and institutions, looking for the certainty they don't feel. They don't always take the advice they get - they might do the exact opposite of it, but in doing so they're still orbiting in relation to an authority.
This search for clarity is at the core of the Indigo Girls' song Closer to Fine. In its opening lines there's a request for insight between black and white. In one verse songwriter Emily Saliers relates how she distrusted a university professor, but completed her degree nonetheless (academia, as Riso/Hudson describe, is the domain of Sixes - there's safety in a system - you might rebel against it, but at least you know where you are). The chorus tells of going to diverse sources - an authority figure, nature, children, the physical senses, and eventually coming to the all-important realization for Sixes that "the less I seek my source for some definitive, the closer I am to fine."
I'm trying to tell you something about my life
Maybe give me insight between black and white
The best thing you've ever done for me
Is to help me take my life less seriously, it's only life after all
Well darkness has a hunger that's insatiable
And lightness has a call that's hard to hear
I wrap my fear around me like a blanket
I sailed my ship of safety till I sank it, I'm crawling on your shore.
I went to the doctor, I went to the mountains
I looked to the children, I drank from the fountain
There's more than one answer to these questions
pointing me in crooked line
The less I seek my source for some definitive
The closer I am to fine.
I went to see the doctor of philosophy
With a poster of Rasputin and a beard down to his knee
He never did marry or see a B-grade movie
He graded my performance, he said he could see through me
I spent four years prostrate to the higher mind, got my paper
And I was free.
I stopped by the bar at 3 a.m.
To seek solace in a bottle or possibly a friend
I woke up with a headache like my head against a board
Twice as cloudy as I'd been the night before
I went in seeking clarity.
We go to the bible, we go through the workout
We read up on revival and we stand up for the lookout
There's more than one answer to these questions
pointing me in a crooked line
The less I seek my source for some definitive
The closer I am to fine
Sixes often identify with a place, a religion, a political philosophy - something bigger than themselves. Bruce Springsteen, having risen to iconic heights in rock and roll, has always presented himself as a working class guy from New Jersey. He dresses like one, and has the haircut of a normal guy (compared to say, David Bowie, Elton John, Mick Jagger, Prince, Bono or any other rock star of that calibre). He's played with the same band for close to forty years, and writes arrangements that make it clear that even though he's The Boss, each of them is essential, they're not just his back-up.
In Born in the USA, he tells the story of a working class man, according to Springsteen, "in a spiritual crisis, in which man is left lost… it's like he has nothing left to tie him into society anymore. He's isolated from the government, isolated from his family, to the point where nothing makes sense." In this solo acoustic demo the anguish comes through in a way the popular version with full band doesn't.
Born down in a dead man's town
The first kick I took was when I hit the ground
You end up like a dog that's been beat too much
Till you spend half your life just covering up
I got in a little hometown jam
And so they put a rifle in my hands
Sent me off to Vietnam
To go and kill the yellow man
Come back home to the refinery
Hiring man says "Son if it was up to me..."
I go down to see the V.A. man
He said "Son, don't you understand..."
I had a buddy at Khe Sahn
Fighting off the Viet Cong
They're still there, he's all gone
He had a little girl in Saigon
I got a picture of him in her arms
Down in the shadow of the penitentiary
Out by the gas fires of the refinery
I'm ten years down the road
Nowhere to run, ain't got nowhere to go
That's the Six nightmare right there: nowhere to run, and nowhere to go. No guidance from society, none from the government. No job. No support from the Veterans' Association. All that's left is a desperate cry that he was born in the USA, and that's supposed to mean something. It used to mean something. It's something I believed in. And now, who can I trust? What am I supposed to do?
Sixes may not know what to do for themselves, but they'll stand up immediately for someone or something they believe in. This is especially the case if that someone or something seems to be on the receiving end of oppression from a cruel and overbearing authority, hence the noted Six attraction to underdog causes. The Indigo Girls have held benefit concerts for the environment, LGBT rights, First Nations rights, women's rights, human rights, and the abolition of the death penalty. Bruce Springsteen has campaigned and spoken out for the candidacies of John Kerry and Barack Obama, making speeches during concerts, despite the boos he'd earn from some of his audience. He's made financial contributions to unions in the US and Europe. He's written about his backing of gay rights and marriage equality on his website. He announces his support of local food banks in his concerts, and matches the total collected from that evening's audience with his own money.
The ruling passion of Sixes is fear, better expressed as anxiety. Sixes relentlessly play out worst-case scenarios in their minds, which can stop them from doing anything at all, including something they know would improve their lives. But paralyzing doubt can be overcome. Healthy Sixes, according to (authorities) Riso and Hudson, let go of the belief that guidance only comes from outside sources, and find the inner knowing that's been there all along. Grounded, serene and valiant, they know what's needed in a given situation, and what's needed overall. They might hear protesting, anxious cries from within, forecasting disaster, but trusting their sense of right-action, they go ahead anyway, like Steinbeck's Tom Joad, whom Springsteen quotes in another Sixish song:
"Mom, wherever there's a cop beatin' a guy
Wherever a hungry newborn baby cries
Where there's a fight 'gainst the blood and hatred in the air
Look for me Mom I'll be there
Wherever there's somebody fightin' for a place to stand
Or decent job or a helpin' hand
Wherever somebody's strugglin' to be free
Look in their eyes Mom you'll see me."
