Enneagram Stories
The Experience of the Type One
The Experience of the ONE
Once upon a time…
There was a battle between good and evil.
Many fairy tales, stories and movies revolve around this battle- the wicked witch, the big bad wolf, Darth Vader, Voldemort- there are forces of evil in the world that must be defeated. Even God has a counterpart in the Devil.
There is universal truth to this “problem of evil” which is the theme of One. We see evil in the world, we can’t explain it, we must fight it. We confront the forces of evil in our stories.
The woodcutter rescues good Little Red Riding Hood, who is bringing a gift to her sick grandmother, from the wicked wolf who (again) wants to eat her.
Innocent Hansel and Gretel outwit the witch who wants to eat them, after being abandoned by their father because of the evil stepmother. How truly frightening and horrifying is this?
There is truth about the world in these stories- there are bad forces out there. Working through the existence of good and evil and how to cope with this reality is very important for us- children learn that good triumphs and they face the bad things that happen in life through such stories.
Over and over, we see that good will triumph in the end through these stories. We look at the dark forces and see we will survive. Often the forces of good are magical- Luke Skywalker finds “the force” and Harry Potter uses the Elder Wand to kill Voldemort. We learn that something magical and mysterious ultimately protects the good.
In many genres there are the “good guys” and the “bad guys”. Cop stories, westerns, gangsters and villains vs. law and order, and so on. Some theme of opposing good and bad forces is probably present in almost every story. After all, there’s the good, the bad and the ugly in life.
We all have both good and bad inside - we all must manage these forces within ourselves- and we all must struggle with the reality of evil in the world. This is the universal story of One, and the One in all of us.