AN ARROW OF STRENGTH
The Arrow of Intellect
Your mind is your best instrument, and you rely on it more than is good for you.
The whole mental plane is occupied: memory, imagination and ambition, all three. You think your way through problems that other people feel their way through, and you are usually faster.
Unlike the columns and diagonals, this line does not travel anywhere — all three of its cells sit on the mental plane. It is not a circuit, it is a concentration. Everything the plane governs is fully staffed, and nothing is required to leave it. That is the gift and it is also the whole problem.
It shows up as range rather than raw speed. You hold several framings of a problem at once and can move between them, which is why you are good at work that has no established method and why you find purely procedural tasks unbearable. People bring you things that are stuck.
It turns into a very comfortable hiding place. A fully occupied mental plane can process an experience so thoroughly that having the experience becomes optional — grief gets analysed, a decision gets modelled, a relationship gets diagnosed. Everyone around you can tell the difference between being understood by you and being felt by you, even when they cannot name it.
What to do about it
Notice how often you analyse a situation in order not to be in it. The mental plane is where you are strongest, which makes it the most comfortable place to hide.
Which cells it runs through
All three of its cells sit on one plane, so this arrow describes a concentration rather than a circuit.
- 3quick thought · mental planeSpeed of mind — connections, wit, the shape of an argument.
- 6imagination · mental planeSeeing what a thing could be before it exists — and feeling responsible for it.
- 9ambition and ideals · mental planeScale — the principle behind the thing, and the wish to see it done properly.
How common it is
1 in 11(8.7%)of all birth dates, 1930–2025
| Born in the 1940s | 5.4% |
|---|---|
| Born in the 1960s | 29.7% |
| Born in the 1980s | 5.4% |
| Born in the 2000s | 0.55% |
| Born in the 2020s | 0.27% |
The same line, the other way
A line makes an arrow when all three cells are full, and a different arrow when all three are empty.
The Arrow of Poor MemoryYou forget, and you have built an entire personality around apologising for it.You have read about it. Now have it read.
None of this is worth much in the abstract. Give the teacher the day you were born and he will tell you which of these you actually carry.
DRAW MY LATTICE →