Human Design: Profile of the 2/4

In our introduction to the basis of profile, we saw that the second line is the main floor of the house with its windows at street level. The second line personality brings transparency. It permits the other to look in and to see. Mystically, this is the line of being called. This is a profile of the missionary: the personality's potential to be called coupled with the unconscious need to externalize brings. This is possibility and need to be called out to interact transpersonally with the world and externalize that call.

Since the second line is transparent, others will look in and see what in fact the second line does not see itself. Whenever the second line is present as a theme in the personality or unconscious, education is absolutely essential. It is the need for education that when the second line does get called out it does not collapse and become a paper tiger.

This is not a first line theme that will naturally seek out education to be empowered. This is not interested in being introspective. The second line doesn't care about those things. The second line personality is busy about its own business. It doesn't really enjoy being disturbed. Being called to something puts an onus on it, a responsibility on it, that it must learn something. It has to leave its protected shelter where it can go about its own business. That would mean it has to enter into a world that it is not fully equipped to meet.

It is important to keep in mind that in the modern world education is equivalent to strength as ignorance is equivalent to weakness. And the second line profile has no natural inclination to investigate. It would simply like to be left alone to deal with life existentially. This is the hermit personality; doing their own thing until called, waiting for an opportunity that it does not know it is waiting for, because it cannot see its own potential.

It is a lower trigram line. It is always a surprise that someone can look in their window and see something in them that they cannot see themselves. It can also be disturbing and a distraction. It is the other's recognition of them, "you would be great at this or that, etc.", that launches the hermit on its path.

The success of the 2/4 profile's life will be determined by the call of others. The trick is to accept the call that is correct via their strategy. Combine that with an acceptance of study and it can bring advantages.

Remember that entering correctly into any situation, whether that is relationship or career, is going to be dependent on the mechanics of the Type. The 2/4 generator is going to have to wait to respond. The 2/4 Manifestor is going to have to inform before it acts.

The second line theme, and in this case the second line personality, is essentially democratic. Not only democratic, but at the unconscious level, through the fourth line, it is willing to abdicate. It is willing to wait for the opportunity. It is willing to be led by others. It doesn't really want to get involved. The unconscious after all, has passed on the established foundation. It is the second line personality that is content to let the majority rule. Being essentially existential, it is not easily motivated. It may simply not vote at all to save itself the cost of involvement and abdicate to the majority. Remember the theme is to be called.

With a fourth line transpersonal unconscious, there is going to be considerable social interaction. Being called to friendship. The second line personality is fundamentally shy. It is calling out for boldness in the other and this is its strategy of finding friendship. The second line, unlike the first line personality, does not pursue. It's a hermit, not aware of the quality within itself that can attract the other, waiting for someone to look into their cave and say "you're for me".

It's an irony that being called for the 2/4 can often lead to bigotry, prejudice and fatigue. Since they are designed to be called, they are called often and in so many ways throughout the life. They can become over-whelmed and exhausted. They are, from the unconscious level, seeking out harmony. But the second line personality finds its greatest harmony in just simply being left alone.

The line themes in profiling also bring us genetic strategies, strategies for intimacy. The 2/4 must wait for the interest of the other. It is the need of the other to unburden themselves that can lead to the fulfillment of intimacy. To be the confidant or not. Friendship as a necessary pre-requisite before sexual intimacy can result.

All fourth line themes are designed to seek out friendship in order to eventually establish sexual intimacy. And for those of you that carry fourth line themes, either in the personality or in the design, it is so important to avoid the frustration of trying to be a first line being. Out there to pursue and to explore.

The second line is inherently shy. It is inherently shy as a strategy. It is lower trigram. It is not equipped to recognize that the other can really be there. It has to wait for them to call. Its unconscious is rooted in friendship and it is friendship that begins the possibility of intimacy.

Carrying a fourth line theme, remember that every time that you become friends with somebody that it is fundamentally a genetic strategy for intimacy. Through friendship, the intimacy is ultimately possible.

The basis of the second line personality is to be called. The result is a security strategy of being either the nourisher or the depleter. In its existential life, going about its own business, being un-called, the 2/4 depletes resources. Once called, it has the opportunity to become a nourisher, to be able to nourish itself and to be able to nourish others. In the beginning of being called, it will be forced to deplete the resources of others, in order to be able to establish its own strength.

It is the basis of our human consciousness to articulate through language. Words carry prejudicial values and those values are related to the culture and time. Please keep in mind that the universe and all it contains is dualistic in nature. Mind and body conform to this reality and as such humans live in a binary maia that is fundamentally moralistic.

It is too easy to bring moral opinions to terms like nourish and deplete. Mechanics is amoral. Positive and negative are simply different perspectives. Michelangelo, the depleter of resources of his nourishing benefactor.

Advance and withdrawal is the key to the hermit. It is the key to the second line theme. Withdrawal and not being called can result in an existential life of perfect order. It is not that this profile must accept the calls that it receives in its lifetime. Some second line personalities never receive the call and yet they live out their existence in relative harmony, without comparison, without someone looking in their window and calling attention to themselves and their life. They can be at peace in their process.

Their underlying intuition is to focus on what is relatively pure. What is corrupt or what is incorruptible. This guides the 2/4 in assessing the value or quality of any call. It will not leave the sanctity of its cave without absolute certainty that the call is its destiny. With this profile, avoiding struggle is a major theme. The 2/4 just wants to be allowed to get on with its life with as little interference as possible.

It will hear out the other and its stories. The fourth line unconscious demands that it become a confident but it does not want to be told what it should or should not do. The 2/4 will expend enormous energy in just maintaining the status quo. Why rock the boat when it only brings the unknown, struggle and problems?

The second line personality is determined in its awareness. Not being introspective, it accepts without question what has already been established. It is for this reason that the 2/4 is a profile of a potential actualizing force. If or when they receive and resonate to the call, they are transformed. Sinners turning into saints. Alcoholics into tea drinkers.

In the principle of hexagram structure, the first, third and fifth lines are yin or feminine in nature. The second, fourth and sixth lines are yang. The 2/4 profile is the first yang profile. It is common to be called, but rare to have answered. The second line personality, once it accepts a call, is forced to accept a new foundation and through its fourth line unconscious to externalize it.

When others look into their cave, and witness their transformation, it can have deep and lasting impact. There is an old mystical joke. A mystical joke that best suits the 2/4 profile. "Stupid before enlightenment and stupid after". The 2/4 will not ponder on their satori, will not ponder on their transformation. They will go back intuitively to their existential life hoping at last, to be left alone.

From the Jovian Archive