What kind of life in society is considered a success?  In obituaries we see ‘was a great person/parent’ and all kinds of statements, but never do we see ‘This person was successful.  In their time alive, they accomplished all the most important things in life.”

How are we to be successful anyway according to the mass society all around us?  Upon examination it seems nearly impossible.

Even if one has a happy marriage and great relations with all their family members, maybe they have difficulty getting along with their boss at work because of all the time spent with loved ones instead of work.

Even if one does great at work and is the boss’s favorite, maybe they’re workaholics distant from their spouse and family.  They’ve done well at the office because they put in those necessary extra hours.

One area of excellence excludes another in a competitive environment and yet extrovert ’success’ requires excelling in every one of them.

The result is a society of illusion where everyone strives to appear to have the best of everything in their lives.  One’s most publicly visible assets, a house and car are naturally the most important means of deception.

Though extroverts try to wake introverts up to ‘reality,’ they in fact live in a fairy tale land of their own making where every family has its own castle and magic carpet.  The price of illusion is a lifetime of servitude to the image they wish to project.  Never having known anything else, they are driven by vague notions of ’success’ that they thrust on everyone around them in turn.  They devote themselves entirely and without question, but do they ever really reach ’success?’

Many introverts out of desperation go looking for ways to become more extroverted, but would ’success’ in converting necessarily be salvation.  Even if one got more resources and recognition by becoming extroverted would one have eliminated the ability to experience happiness from these gains?  Would one end up lost in the maze of social comparisons, only happy or sad as others seem worse or better off?

To feel anything other than unfulfillment as an extrovert, one must hurry to have(or the appearance of having) a steady and loving marriage/relationship, a steady, highly paid, emotionally fulfilling job, a house, cars, an active social life, a fulfilling family life, a solid benefits and retirement package, above average, well-behaved children.

These criteria might even sound fairly ordinary but most people never come close to actually achieving them, even if they appear to do so.  It’s difficult to maintain marriage, family, friends, children when working a job that actually pays and provides benefits.  Even if one gets benefits, not many people can spend long enough in a single job to really benefit from them.  Even if one actually has the qualifications and social contacts to get one of these salary jobs, it’s still not enough to really pay for a house and cars, just for the appearance of being able to pay for them.  Even in the best of worlds where someone manages to somehow have all the bases covered, it’s an exhausting, stressful, demanding, noisy life to live.  Even in this best case scenario, this is the bare minimum one must do in the mass Western society before one has permission to be even moderately happy or successful.

In the current social climate, it takes an introvert to step back and realize that real life is by nature messy and imperfect.  That one can’t ‘have it all.’  That succeeding in one thing usually means sacrifice in another.

Once one starts asking questions, the whole idea of extrovert ’success’ is sadly delusional.  Happiness or sadness is all about expectations.

If one has unrealistic expectations, one can never really end up happy.  Success ends up being a theoretical ideal to which one tries to mold themselves.  Happiness is distant and intangible.

If one has realistic expectations, happiness is fairly easy to come by.  Success lies in making one’s peace with an imperfect, chaotic, transitory life.  Happiness is immediate and obtainable in our everyday lives.

The extrovert path to happiness and success is long, complicated, and comes with no guarantees.

The introverted path allows the possibility of happiness so long as one has clothes to wear, food to eat, and people to bond with.

It all goes back to a fundamental difference.

Loud things are grandiose, convoluted, and bloated

Subtle things are elegant, simple, and minimalistic

Like I mentioned in a recent post, the time I spent in British Columbia was blessed with rain and constant overcast skies.  We were wise in taking our umbrellas on the trip with us so that we could enjoy a few extra hours out-of-doors on walks down new trails and a few trails long ago visited.  This photo still retains traces of rain that had recently stopped.   This is a Japanese Maple which has a slightly different leaf structure that what I would call the traditional Canadian maple that is featured on the Canadian flag.

Variation comes to mind when seeing the abundance of types of flora and fauna while outdoors in British Columbia.   For me, to see that variety and note its relation to the environment is most intriguing.  All of this works as a catalyst for me and my understanding of how humans react differently to the environment, a difference rooted in typology, especially in the attitudes of extroversion and introversion.

Although it is true that everyon orients himself in accordance with the data supplied by the outside world, we see every day that the data in themselves are only relatively decisive.  The fact that it is cold outside prompts one man to put on his overcoat, while another, who wants to get hardened, finds this superfluous.  One man admires the latest tenor because everyone else does, another refuses to do so, not because he dislikes him, but because in his view the subject of universal admiration is far from being proved admirable. (Jung, CW vol.6, par. 563)

This is a way of understanding how our human variation based on introversion and extroversion provides some rooted awareness of differences is not based strictly on intention.  I think perhaps the introvert understands this idea better.  That said, it doesn’t mean that the introvert understands the extrovert any better than the extrovert understands the introvert.  Perhaps it is more that the introvert has more tolerance of the differences.  Relationship between the two attitudes is often more about a comedy of errors than it is of complementary balancing.

From a number of sites, I have learned that while introverts are very much in the minority of the population, we make up a strong majority of the gifted population.

This information comes as no surprise.

What kind of person is busy studying?

What kind of person has a personality that lends itself to deep thought?

What kind of person thinks in terms of the big picture?

Much of an extrovert’s superiority in social environments comes from thinking less.   If an introvert is standing in a long line.  They think: There’s thousands of people here.  If everyone chose to advance themselves by any means, there would be chaos and everyone loses.  I’ll continue standing here.

An extrovert thinks:  I’m tired of standing in line.  I will do whatever necessary to make things better for me.  The extrovert wins because there is no time spent reflecting.  The extrovert is lean and mean, geared for survival and unburdened by other concerns.

Introverts are disadvantaged in part because of their penchant for critical reasoning.  While an introvert is busy thinking  in terms of game theory, the extrovert has already gone out and played the game.

It takes an introvert to be emotionally detached from our own being, our own immediate benefit, and consider our existence in terms of the universe around us, on a larger scale, in the long term.  While stopping to think in the abstract compromises our ability to compete in the big social game, only people who can think outside of the game can ever hope to change the rules or operate outside of them.

Thus, the aggressive extrovert might succeed in moving up a few hundred places in line, working themselves half to death in the process.  The introvert, though far behind, has the potential to find a way to avoid the line entirely while still achieving their aims.  They have the presence of mind to actually ask, “Will my aims be achieved at the end of the line?  If so will it be worth it?  If worth it, is there an easier way?  If not worth it, why am I still in this line?”

The abstract and deep reasoning that socialites associate with rocket scientists is the default pattern of thought for an introvert.  Delving into larger problems and searching for the simplest solution comes as second nature.   Thus, it is a matter of course that gifted persons are largely introverts.

I took this photo on the eastern coast of Vancouver Island in between Courtney and Campbell River at a place called Oyster River.  The beach wasn’t your typical beach where tourists would go for some sun in the summertime,  rather it was a wild place, a place that lends itself to reflection.  I find it interesting in which scenes attract me.  I guess that it is more about who I am than about the place itself.

Places in themselves are just that, places.  It is us as humans who attribute an affect to these places.  And there is no doubt that our personality or typology has a huge influence on how we experience any given place, especially our “attitude types.”  I have an introverted attitude as opposed to an extroverted attitude.

The attitude-types … are distinguished by their attitude to the object. The introvert’s attitude is an abstracting one; at bottom, he is always intent on withdrawing libido from the object, as though he had to prevent the object from gaining power over him.  The extravert, on the contrary, has a positive relation to the object.  He affirms its importance to such an extent that his subjective attitude is constantly related to and oriented by the object. (Jung, CW vol. 6, par. 557.)

I am drawn to this scene as it lets me escape into a safer inner space, or if you want, an outer space that is not bound by stuff in that space.  An extrovert would find interest in the content of the photo rather than the mood of the photo.  Seeing this, it becomes easier to understand why I have so few people photos posted here.  The images have a numinous power for me that lead to something behind, beyond the contents of the images.

When we say the word ghetto, we generally think of rap, thugs, and crime.  What we usually think of  is a modern economic ghetto, a neighborhood where all the poorest people live  and can’t afford to leave.

I would be bold enough to suggest however, that true introverts live in a social ghetto.   We don’t fit in and are forced to live as misfits and outsiders on the margins.  Most extroverts barely even seem to realize that we exist.  We are pushed aside into a separate ‘neighborhood’ where we live out an isolated existence.  Our state of existence is one of social poverty.

Growing up and even into college, I had to fight off resentment whenever extroverts complained about relationships and other forms of social connection I hadn’t even the luxury of aspiring to.   I understood that these people lived in another universe and that there was no way I could hope to make them understand that I had truly lived most of my life at the bare subsistence level.  Even if I could explain my situation to the other person, the response might be bewildered pity or possibly even contempt, but never understanding.  Part of the torture is that I couldn’t even really talk to anyone about my situation.

Over years, a lot of my energy had been focused on merely surviving.  It makes long term planning very difficult for me to this day.  Not long ago, I was bewildered whenever someone asked me questions about marriage, or having children.  That was all so distant as to be completely off my map.  The asker, usually a girl, would see my deer in the headlights look and conclude I was weird or just stupid.  To me, stable social relationships and settling down was a thing that the Accepted liked to talk about.  It had no relevance at all to my life.

Every encounter I had with normal people became akin to a clash of understanding and values sooner or later.  Usually sooner.  Our expectations of life were on different planets.  They were counting on a comfortable life and a family.  I was hoping for survival.  I could very well be in the same economic bracket as the person to whom I was talking yet clearly I was in some way impoverished.  Truly I lived in another place altogether from these normal people, a social ghetto of sorts.

On the internet, I’ve been discovering more and more people who grew up in the same neighborhood that I did and I’m enjoying it very much.

As a final note:

The first ghetto, Il Ghetto, was not an economic ghetto.  It was a holding area in the city of Venice where all the Jews in town were forced to live.  These Jews were often quite economically wealthy, but their social unbelonging led them to experience another, equally oppressive form of poverty.

If my dreams were removed from my life’s history, I wouldn’t know who I was.

Dreams started shaping my life starting with the first dream I can remember at age 4 or 5.  This dream influenced me to feel separate enough from my family to go inside and look for meaning in art and music. http://wagele.com/enneagram5.html In adulthood I began taking some dream classes and drawing my dreams. Getting practice drawing sparked an interest in creating cartoons, which led to trying to produce greeting cards with my friend Renee. The greeting cards didn’t succeed, but we realized there was a need for an accessible introductory Enneagram book just then, so we turned to writing one ourselves, using my drawings for non-verbal learning and to spice it up with humor. “The Enneagram Made Easy” http://wagele.com/easy.html  led to several more books and hundreds more cartoons. So in a practical way my dreams created an enjoyable second career for me following the career in music that I started out with.

Here on the left is a part of one of my dream drawings.

There are two other reasons why I love dreams. First, by paying attention to almost every dream I have, and by taking some of them to groups where I can hear what other people have to say about them, I learn  things I need to learn about myself, for example to be stronger, to take certain things more seriously, and to look at parts of myself I might be neglecting. As of today I’ve recorded 1710 dreams. Several themes stand out and certain symbols recur. When their meaning becomes clear, many things tumble into place. My dreams have given me major gifts.

Second, studying my dreams and the dreams of those in the dream groups I belong to is a fascinating activity–an  interesting glimpse into the psyche. I marvel at my teachers’ gifts at interpreting and intuiting dreams’ symbolism and meaning. It’s  interesting to watch the methods my own unconscious mind comes up with “behind my back” to get points across to the me I know myself to be. Dreams trick us into taking them literally, when that’s probably rarely where the real meaning is. So it seems crucial to me to have input from at least 5 or 6 other people to help me get the point.

Would I like to have a career as a dream writer or teacher? If I were as gifted at working with dreams as some of the dream teachers I have worked with I’d consider it. I’m surprised at how many people think dreams are not important, that they’re just the mind’s clutter from the day. I find my dreams to be more intelligent than anything I can come up with in my waking life after I delve into them to figure them out. “The Career Within You” http://www.wagele.com (available December 29, 2009) will probably emphasize dream-related careers in future editions as more people see the importance of our dream life to our psychological health and wholeness.

It is moderately popular, in some of the lighter books on the Enneagram, to assign to each type an animal, felt to be somehow emblematic of the type.  A bit crude, but as a mnemonic device fairly effective – enough so that one work assigns two animals per type, one representing the negative traits of the unhealthy individual and one for those who have risen above their type temptations.

If we are going to do this, I want to assign the hermit crab as type beast for my 5s.  The hermit crab protects its vulnerable parts with a borrowed shell.  I, the 5, protect my softness by putting on The Great Stone Face – an expression that expresses nothing.  The hermit crab defends itself against frontal attack by holding in its pincers small sea anemones with stinging tentacles.  The 5 develops a persona than can ward off attacks with barbed words.

Finally – but I yam what I yam.  Disclaimer:  while the brachyuran true crabs generally are seen to walk sideways, anomuran hermit crabs have a different structure with a narrower, more rounded thorax and are handicapped by the shell.  They step forward.  But it suits my point to use this gait trait, and to bring it in by an unethical use of the “crab” part of the popular name.  The crab [note, I do not here say "hermit crab"] walks sideways.  The 5 tends to sidestep uncomfortable issues by the use of coded speech and equivocation.

And unethical or not, here I am keeping my promise to discuss coded speech.  Let me give an example.  It is late afternoon in Queenstown and I am walking Alix home after Overton’s class.  We are idly chatting of this and that.  My beady eyes spot an ear piercing that I am certain was not there the last time we walked that way.  I have a number of confused and conflicting reactions.  I disapprove because I don’t like the idea of piercings.  I am unclear on whether I like or dislike the outcome [it can take me months to know where I stand on a new haircut].  I oppose any sort of change.  I stand behind Alix’ decision.  I have no right to an opinion because, for all anybody knows, I am just a friend.  I have a duty to speak out because I think I may be more than a friend whether or not she is.

Tell me, Miss Manners, what does one say in this situation?  As it happens, I remember exactly what I did say, what I felt it was my duty to say:  “Generally speaking, it is a good idea not to make irreversible decisions without being really certain.”

I think it very probable Alix had no slightest idea what that was about.  And of course that was the point.  The 5 is often the miser who passes the bill across the counter but cannot quite let go of it.

I want to convey information while concealing information.  To comment while apparently not commenting.  To say something to one person while making it impossible for anyone else to eavesdrop.  To get data out without sounding an alarm from my data leakage monitor.

It can be completely involuntary.  I can be convinced I have talked about something at great length – and the hearers think I have said nothing. I can believe I have explained things clearly and simply – and the hearers are baffled.  It is most conspicuous when I am under stress.  Give me a heavy topic and figuring what I am saying can be like reading Etruscan written in archaic Japanese calligraphy.  I am barely comprehensible when I am at ease, off duty and joking around.

I can’t say WHY control of data flow is so big in 5 consciousness, but it is at least as important to us as rectitude is to the 1.  I can only say all of this because you are not here, because you may not exist.  I am talking to the software and to myself.  Part of me thinks someone may read this, and part of me is content that someone with ears to hear might read and understand.  But at least I can’t see you.

If I want to say anything important to you, I will take off my glasses.  I will look anywhere but at you.  I can only talk, you see, if you are invisible.  The Third Noelle once told me she switched to contact lenses when she realized she used to hide behind her glasses.  Mindboggling.  Crazy talk.  Like you CAN hide behind glasses?  Like hiding is not the whole idea?

Well, here I am.  I still shield my quiz paper with my arm and bend low.  I still go sideways [not in real life a hermit crab trait] into the kitchen to make myself a snack – silently.  I still use my spectacles to do the ostrich thing.  And I would still say that it is just as well not to give the ambassador a haircut down at the barbershop.

There.  That was an example, if you have ears [even if pierced] to hear.

This last week was total hermitting.  Very much needed hermitting.

I am a dichotomy of introverted and extroverted, of social and anti-social. I have very strong needs for both.

Which is why when I do too much of one, I also go to the extremes of the other.

Thus after an extremely social week (almost week and half), I needed… NEEDED.. a week of nothing.

I literally only left my apt for groceries and getting the mail, with one exception which was business related.  I hermitted until Thursday when I ventured out to Panera and then went shoe shopping… if you can count a quick lunch at Panera and shoe shopping as unhermitting.. I still did them both alone. Happily alone I’ll add.

It wasn’t really until about 11pm Friday night that I even mildly got a hankering for company.  I didn’t really want to be social mind you, but I would have liked the company similar to that of a roomate.  No need for makeup or getting dressed up, you can lounge around in your way too old but comfy stained sweatshirt and relax. That is the kind of company I thought would be good, unfortunately I know no one in town that would fit that bill.

But it was a good week. A good chilling out, doing exactly nothing week, and I needed it.

I’m having the laziest day evar. I just put on my clothes, and it’s THREE PM.

This is why I wanted a yard. The dogs peed before I even had to get dressed.

It seems ridiculously extravagant to still be lying on the bed reading in my bathrobe well into the afternoon, but I needed the rest. Yesterday wasn’t really a day off. I had to go to a conference to keep up my continuing education credits with the AHTA, so it was like another work day. Spending a day surrounded by total strangers does not make for a restful time. Although it was actually a lot better than I thought I would be. It reminded me that I am, and always will be, a product of Montessori:

I find structured labs where I have to follow structured activities (many of which I do not find educational) rather stressful. It usually involves a certain amount of interaction with the people in your class, which in this situation would be total strangers. It also requires that you shoulder a certain amount of responsibility. Here I am, doing something for the very first time, and I’m just supposed to fetch supplies and follow instructions on my own, instead of being personally taught and guided.

That is what I was expecting of the wet labs at the conference, but they weren’t like that at all. They basically treated us with a “you paid to be here so come on down and get your money’s worth” attitude which I highly appreciated. We were allowed to wonder around, watch demonstrations and do as much or as little hands-on practice as we felt comfortable with.

…Which meant that I played with the goniometer, but just watched people use the Gulich. I waved my hand over the Pulsing Magnetic therapy bed, and let them attach electrodes to my arm to feel what muscular electric stimulation feels like (WEIRD). They gave me full control over how high I turned it up, which meant I felt quite comfortable cranking it up quite high, trying to get my hand to twitch. Then I helped myself to the peppermint and tea trea muscle relaxing oils.

If they had created a structured lab, I would have hated every minute of it, even while learning. But this was actually quite pleasant. This is what Montessori school was like. They didn’t FORCE us to learn. They set certain goals, like you had to do a minimum of one math activity, one English activity and so on, but from there on the choice was yours. They assumed that you wanted to play and learn, and so it never occurred to any of us to fight it.

So really the conference was great, just what I would have wanted. But it was still an exhausting day for an introvert – strange place, strange people, strange gadgets…

Then Perfect Husband and I had a party to go to that evening. The hosts are good friends, but a lot of the people there are strangers. Which meant more socializing with strangers.

See, it’s not that it was a bad day. I learned a lot, and then had a nice, fun evening out talking to some really cool people and breaking my heart over an incredibly adorable blond boy, who seemed fascinated by my husband and kept dragging him around by the finger saying “night night?”

But for an introvert? That was NOT a day off.

After an eight hour sleep and then another five hours of reading lazily, I finally think I have the energy to face the day.

And it’s raining.

If you’ve ever seen an oil painting or engraving of two men with dueling pistols, you might have noticed that they have both turned their bodies sideways with their arms tucked behind them so that they might be as small a target as possible.

All too often the Subtle person is in conflict with their society and finds that they are an enormous target. The accepted order has many means of attacking and coercing them. The situation seems all but hopeless.

If one would have any measure of independence from the mass society’s arbitrary standards, it is necessary to reduce your profile.

Avoid the tragedy of the lords

Most people try to appear as high in social status as possible by purchasing the highest social artifacts they can afford. This means buying a huge house, fancy cars, fancy clothes that keep one perpetually in debt. The consumer of today can look at Polynesian cultures that attached social status to gigantic stone wheels or towering ancestor statues and marvel at the absurdity of it all. Yet they remain oblivious that their own culture’s status artifacts are just another version of those very things. All their hoarded belongings are just a Yap stone wheel weighing them down.
For the Loud person, the drive to social competition and fear of social competitors simply become more acute with every dollar earned. The more they earn, the more they must appear as though they earned it. The wealthier they are, the higher the wages they must pay their wealth.
History is filled with kings who taxed their peasants as much as possible. Ironically, such a despot is no longer necessary. Today’s consumers continue to hand over money until the brink of starvation without any person or government coercing them. The mindless tyrant of mass social expectations has become more effective in stripping people of their resources than governments ever were.
Only if one separates from the mass culture can there be any hope of living one’s own life.

Financial liabilities tie you to the whims of society

Once you have mortgages, leases, and a car that depreciates as soon as it leaves the lot, you are committed.
Once these enormous commitments have been taken on, you can’t move anywhere, you can’t quit your job without going broke. You tell people you are ‘making a living’ but in reality you are hanging by a thread. Under such circumstances, you do not have the luxury of self determination. You have to do what the accepted order tells you to do so you can make it to the next paycheck.

The more dependent you are on society to give you money, the more vulnerable you are. High vulnerability makes you a very large, very easy target should you ever transgress.

Establish multiple passive sources of income

Investing in a steady, dependable portfolio and establishing side businesses establishes alternate, independent sources of income.
Money comes from these sources whether your boss likes you or not, whether or not you accidentally pissed off a co-worker at the company party, whether or not you are working for anyone.
The more money that comes for alternate sources, the less leverage society has against you, the smaller the target you present.
The dream is to reach a point where you no longer have to care what anyone thinks.
At this point, you may walk the streets, watching everyone else hurrying to their workplaces for the sake of their survival and realize that you alone of all those thousands have achieved freedom.

This is Social Immunity

I have been reading another book about personality types as I am fascinated by what makes us different as individuals and the reasons for that.  In this latest book the author’s thesis is that a large part of a person’s personality is due to biology and therefore inbuilt.  The book, Personality: what makes you the way you are by British author Daniel Nettle is just one of a growing number of books of this type to adorn my shelf.  It is slightly different from the others I have read in that it is much more scientific and contains  biological evidence for the differences in character as well as employing the use of personality test.  This focus on biology makes a refreshing change and reading it doesn’t seem to be so much like reading the horoscope as some of the other books seem to. 

 In the book there are five different aspects of personality to be tested for, which are: extraversion; neuroticism; conscientiousness; agreeableness and openness.  It is a short test and very easy to do, but the problem with this sort of thing is that I question the accuracy of my own self-assessment and wonder how much my judgement is flawed when answering questionnaires like this.  The results I got didn’t really surprise me: I got ‘very low’ for extraversion; ‘high’ (!) for neuroticism; ‘low’ for conscientiousness; ‘low’ (but it was only just low!) for agreeableness and ‘high’ for openness (which means to be open to new experiences, ideas and to easily be able to make connections between disparate things).  So I am a neurotic, disagreeable, unconscientious but open-minded introvert!  (So now I know why I have very little tolerance for most people!).  Once I had got my results, I read on before making the decision to end it all(!); perhaps there was some virtue in having the personality that I had and perhaps it wasn’t all gloom and doom? (yes I confess, being open-minded could perhaps be seen as a positive quality, but as for the rest of them?!).

It was reading the neuroticism chapter that made me feel most depressed and hopeless (well, I am neurotic aren’t I?), but I shall come on to that later.  Being ever on the look out to find the best in introversion, I was pleased to see that the author had found much to be admired in those whom score low on the extraversion test.  ‘The introvert is, in a way, aloof from the rewards of the world, which gives him tremendous strength and independence from them’, he writes after describing the case of Andrew, an introverted computer programmer.  He quotes Andrew as saying:

I don’t really have a lot to look forward to.  I mean, as soon as I find a stable job, I can move out and live wherever, get a girlfriend, buy a ton of stuff I don’t need, maybe get married, create children, buy them stuff… then maybe die or something like that.

Instead of seeing this attitude as an indication of depression, as many people might, Nettle sees Andrew’s comments as possessing a ’stoical depth….(t)hey also tell us a great deal about the motivation of the introvert…..He is not in the grip of negative emotion.  He just clearly understands that the kind of stuff that people sweat to get – material possessions, marriage, careers, and so on – are fine, but don’t have that much of an effect on him.  So, he will take them if they come, and if they don’t, I don’t think he will be too bothered.  He could make a perfectly satisfactory life either way, just as he will see his friends if they are around, but not fuss if they are not.’

Andrew’s attitude is similar to another correspondent, David, who is ‘happy observing, contemplating, learning, and developing his garden.’   David speaks of his experience as thus:

I expect to become unemployed in the near future.  I see this as an opportunity, since it would give me freedom and would relieve me from participating in the rat race of performing uninteresting tasks in exchange for money and status, both of which I am not interested in.

Nettle explains that the lack of enthusiasm for everyday sensations that these two men show derives from a natural lack of satisfaction gained from them compared to extraverts, who get a greater buzz from the same sensations. This difference, he explains, is because of brain wiring.  As Nettle writes, ‘Extraversion is variation in the responsiveness of positive emotions.  In the high scorer, the responsiveness is great, and so the person is prepared to work hard to get the buzz of company, excitement, achievement, adulation, and romance.  The low scorer’s positive emotion systems are less responsive, so the psychological benefits of getting these things are fewer.  Given that the costs of getting them are the same for introvert and extravert alike, the introvert is not so motivated to do so’.

I rather like this description, and would agree with Nettle that one mode of living is not inherently better than the other but they are both just different.  I have certainly gained a lot of satisfaction from living life as an introvert, and although I haven’t been exactly bubbling with enthusiasm throughout my life, my pleasure is derived from more calmer sources.  It probably can’t always be seen from the outside, but it is there.  And it brings me a great deal of contentment to know that although I do enjoy some of the physical pleasures of the world, what brings me the most consistent enjoyment are the peace and tranquility of quiet contemplation and the joys of reading and writing about subjects that are of interest to me.  These activities are done for my own satisfaction and usually in the comfort of my own home.  I do not need to be out there chasing dreams because what I require is usually obtained within my own head.

But enough of that for now; I will get back to this subject another day when I have thought about it some more.

I’m generally a happy person.. But there are times when I get pulled down too.. And its at times like these, that some of my best expressions come forth onto paper..
This was written on an especially depressing day, the title should say it all..
Kill me!
I walk into an empty room,
with an empty cunt, an empty soul
life- it has a weary way
of colourfully depriving your whims, and say,
“Loser thou art, for, lost thou hast..
Your life, your smile — You’re a worthless stray”
Where have I come, what have I done?
Nowhere..Nothing.. I’m filthy scum..
the Earth can do well without me
I’m just a waste of my Dad’s income!
Life- here’s an ode to you,
how happy was I.. How tolerant were you
What’s become of the two of us?
The moments we shared seem so few
You’re slowly slipping away from me
like silk from the tips of my thumbs
I grasp, I grope- I try.. in vain,
my fingers are dead, they ‘feel’ numb
I have a feeling- Its new to me
I feel like screaming in agony
Its desperation, they all say
Ha! Its the end, the end of me…

I have been wanting to write about introversion and its meaning in my life for a while now, and as I’m having a quiet day at home alone, I find myself reflecting on the subject again.

I have gone through most of my life viewing my extreme introversion as a negative thing; something that holds me back from achieving what I would like out of life and stopping me from participating in life rather than just being a spectator.  But after a great deal of research and thinking (we introverts excel at this) I have changed my mind drastically.  After all, I have come to the conclusion that I like being me.  Yes, there would be a few things I would change if I could (such as the depression) but overall I have discovered that I have many positive attributes that make my life worth living, even making it blissful at times.

The first thing I have learnt about introversion is that introverted people don’t necessarily lack social skills and extroverts don’t necessarily excel at socialising. Many psychologists (beginning with Carl Jung) have viewed introversion and extroversion to be the way a person gains energy and whether he or she most naturally takes an objective or subjective view of life.  Introverts are mostly attuned to their personal experiences and gain energy from being alone with their own thoughts.  To an introvert, socialising can be exhausting and requires them to be alone to recharge afterwards.  In contrast,  extroverts are much more attuned to outer experiences and influences and they gain energy from being with others. Socialising is likely to buoy them up and energise them. 

It is perfectly possible to be a socially skilled introvert, who appears extroverted to others but who needs to retire into his or her own internal world at the end of the day in order to recoup.  This type of person often takes on the persona of an extrovert when dealing with others and discards his or her mask once alone.  It is also possible for an extrovert to have poor social skills and to appear as an introvert.  But in contrast to a true introvert, this type of extrovert needs people – maybe only one or two trusted buddies or even characters on the TV, but nevertheless people - in order to feel truly alive. Of course, it is unlikely that any person is completely introverted or extroverted, as most people are a mixture of the two in some combination.  But nevertheless, it is probable that most people favour either one or the other as their natural preference. 

I know what I am; I have never doubted it. On all of the personality tests I have taken I have either been shown to be 100% introverted or something very close to it.  But it is only recently (within the last five years) that I have come to accept my introversion and enjoy it.  It brings me many benefits, such as an ability to be alone and to enjoy that aloneness for vast periods of time.  I know how to keep myself occupied and amused without turning to others for this; therefore my introversion fosters self-reliance and independence.  I am a keen observer rather than a participant, but this can make me insightful on the behaviour of others, as well as bringing its own particular type of enjoyment.  I am a deep thinker and nothing gives me more pleasure in life than pursuing my own thoughts,  dreaming and imagining the day away in my own personal world. I probably gain as much enjoyment from my world of thought as an extreme extrovert does at a party. I like to think that because of these traits I am not so likely to conform to society’s expectations.  I like to think that I can create my life as I want to create it, being answerable to mostly only myself.  I can decide for myself what is fun for me based on whether I like it, and not for example, on whether my neighbour and her large group of friends think it is a fun thing to do. I also like to think that introversion can sometimes make me less gullible (but maybe more cynical) as I have learnt to base my opinions on what I judge to be correct without being overly influenced by group pressure.

And so, I have come to appreciate my ability to be still and quiet and to go with the flow rather than struggle to be something I’m not.  I have found that I am at my best when I am able to be peaceful and at peace with myself.  Extroverted behaviour is often viewed to be the ideal in a culture that is decidedly extroverted in preference.   This can make it hard for introverts to feel that theirs is a legitimate way of living in the world.  But the emergence of the Internet (or is it Intronet!) has made introverted behaviour much more acceptable and it is here that we can interact with like-minded people without feeling over-whelmed.  It is also a great place to find resources that may help the uncertain introvert to feel at home in his or her skin.  A great one for me (and a great many other introverts) has been Jonathan Rauch’s article on The Atlantic Online website; it is titled ’Caring For Your Introvert’ and can be found at www.theatlantic.com/doc/200303/rauch

I hope to write some more about introversion because it is a subject that has influenced my life a great deal, but until then, if you are an introvert please try to value yourself and the many good qualities that you are likely to have.

So, it’s Thursday and I have a boatload of reading to do, but I’d much rather do other things. That has kind of been this whole week for me. Monday, I was supposed to get things done and I ended up making paper snowflakes. Tuesday, I ended up doing some work, but it was mostly cartooning my way through Greek mythology (my way of memorizing), yesterday I had the Greek quiz and then decided to call people and watch the premiere episode of V.

• Speaking of V, apparently, from what I’ve read about it, people are annoyed that it corresponds (somewhat roughly) with the universal health-care debate going on in DC at the moment and there’s been a suggestion that it’s somewhat anti-Obama. I can see the parallels, but I don’t think it’s a) intentional (the creator did acknowledge it wasn’t intentional, plus someone involved with the production bizarrely noted that it’s “just a show on at 8 about aliens,” which I find is slightly disheartening because it’s so unintellectual and unconceptual) and b) I’m not sure that the interpretation stands up when you consider that the main black guy is not only one of the aliens (promoting the world-wide health care) but is so far the only alien that’s helping humanity discover the truth about the aliens. I’m liking the fact that Firefly actors are in this show (Wash! Inara! Joss Whedon, I forever hate your decision to kill off Wash…) and that the premise is sort of BSGish, but faux-cylons and actors from other reputable sci-fi shows do not a good sci fi show make. I’ll have to see more of the show before I completely dismiss it, but so far, there are very few characters that really interest me, and I have not been impressed with the storytelling. Ironically, a lot of reviewers have been saying things like “This show has great action sequences! It’s thrilling! OMG! What a great premiere!” but to me, it sort of looks like a BSG rip-off and I’m not sure how the action is all that great in comparison to say, other action shows like 24 or even the more science-fictiony action sequences in some of Joss Whedon’s shows, like Firefly, Dollhouse and Buffy. I have to agree with the NY Times review that said ” ‘Galactica’ could be a grind, but it had complex characters who made surprising (yet believable) choices.” Not so much with V as of yet. I am still waiting for tv to get over 1. the reality show and 2. the storyline premise “THE WORLD IS ENDING, OMG!” I’m just waiting for Peter Jackson to break into TV with his Temeraire miniseries. It sounds super. But still, I want a happy, humorous sci-fi show. Is that too much to ask?!
• More theatre questions for today as well… What is the least needed/necessary to still have theatre?
• Why is introspection not allowed in the sciences, yet it appears to be all that English literature study consists of?
• When is post-modernism going to end? I hate to be grouchy, but I’m getting a bit sick of pastiche everything. I like being able to mix and match and free to do anything from any time in any style, but I’m starting to miss standards. I guess I’m still struggling with that Barthes idea that all interpretations are equally valid. I just…I can’t find a way out of that assumption, because any way that I do, I inherently exclude some kind of group or expression…but aren’t limits helpful some way? I’m not saying art has to be all about laws, but what kind of art are people really going to remember from the post-modernist period? What will be our famous works of literature and art and theatre? I think there’s got to be some kind of validity to coming up with standards. (Even if that answer is just like “Standards! Giving you challenges to work around creatively”)
• Are focus and learning mutually dependent on or exclusive from each other?
• If gender is performed, like Judith Butler points out, when is one ever not performing? (Personally I’m starting to think the answer is never/only when we are alone by ourselves?) Is there some kind of interior, essential identity to human beings? I suppose I would argue that this inner is our thoughts, while our outer/performances are actions. Is it possible to act without being encoded in some way? I’m not sure it is. How do we break free from the performance (false) vs. nonperformance (true) dichotomy?
• Why can’t I find Skittles in this province? Just saying.

Well, that’s all for now…I’m a bit tired and sort of in a disgruntled place (for no particular reason), but I’ve (as usual) got a million things to do, so I should probably do them, before I get anymore behind than I am…

Over 500 pages behind (in only a week and a half!),

Mishy

I know that many of you who are reading this are introverts trying to cope with the extreme extroversion of Orthodoxy. Its group identity, its endless minor simchas, its lack of interest in contemplation and mussar, and its turning Torah study into a collective group practice rather than an intellectual activity.What happened to the great introverted traditions of Ramhal, Vilna Gaon, the Magid of Mezritch, the Alter of Navarodk, Rav Zadok, Rav Kook and Rav Soloveitchik? They knew how to be introverts. What happened to the ideal of being the Lonely Man of Faith?

To make you feel better, Adam McHugh has written Introverts in the Church: Finding Our Place in an Extroverted Culture.The book is written by an Evangelical having the same problems in his church. The book is more autobiography, self-help, and pop-sociology than a definitive study, but it will allow those who share his concerns to know that others share his concerns

McHugh presents the same dilemma that many of my students have gone through. He describes in his introduction how he realized that he wont become an academic but then he realizes that he is too introverted for a pulpit. He describes his disappointments in dealing with the world of congregations and finding himself to be the odd man out in the extroverted world of seminarians and outreach workers.
In chapter one McHugh deals with three issues: personal relationship with God, Scripture, and active evangelicalism. Introverts in Church don’t  relate to God as part of a collective, they prefer knowledge to be contemplative and creative, and they don’t make good kiruv workers. Introverts are blamed for both keeping the religion too formal and self-defensive, as well as being too disobedient.

Introduction and chapter

From an online review:

For every introvert who has considered a job in the ministry, only to have second thoughts about the grueling expectations of congregations who assume a pastor will be endlessly gregarious, outgoing, available, and always “on”
For every introvert who has longed to share his or her spiritual gifts, but felt that being introverted made the prospect impossible, or at least difficult; or felt that the more extroverted members of the congregation didn’t approve of the quieter, subtler, more behind-the-scenes efforts of introverted members.

From the author’s blog- an outtake from the book

What do introverts reveal about God? Introverts reveal the creativity of God, who designed the world in all its beauty, color, abundance, and fecundity. They demonstrate the subtlety and the gentleness of God, who often speaks in whispers rather than in horn blasts and who is usually more reticent than he is talkative. For those who are attuned to hear God’s voice, he seems to speak in words or brief sentences more than he speaks in paragraphs. Introverts, when they have attained a level of personal and spiritual maturity, reveal the restfulness of God, who rested after his creative work and who dwells in his own Shalom. Introverts, with their multi-layered personalities that are only unraveled over time, reveal the mystery of God.

Yesterday I had lunch with some friends. I was feeling guarded about one of them, who will often fly off the handle in the passion of presenting his positions on things. I have quite an even temperament and I don’t always do so well with people who are the opposite from me in that regard. I tend to feel overwhelmed by their emotions and lose track of myself. So before we met I felt uneasy considering what I might do about this. But as I observed him talking to another member of our group I noticed what an emotional person he is–and I let it in that this has nothing to do with me. I think I’ve been seeing him as intimidating me all too readily. As it turned out, he never did go into a rage that day. Now that I have greater insight into myself, I have time to work on my own attitude before we meet again in a few weeks. I will try to accept him as a person who is unlike me; he is emotionally based. Hopefully I have tender feelings, but I would never express them so dramatically. Either it’s not my in-born style or maybe I’m too timid. He probably represents my shadow.

As often happens, this breakthrough (I call it a breakthrough because I had been struggling with this person’s temper for a long time) didn’t come out of the blue. It comes on the heels of a much larger breakthrough concerning a family member. Being mindful was a help to me in both cases. After receiving a wrongfully accusing letter from a relative, I had plunged into a negative feeling state and started to obsess about how to react. Several times I considered pushing my feelings away and trying to forget the whole thing, but my energy was so intense I decided something productive might be percolating inside of me. I had felt similarly when in on the verge of creative breakthroughs in the past. Sure enough, in another couple of weeks I had solved a big puzzle. After trying to be open and waiting, things came together and the story of this tangled relationship started to make sense. I was glad I had stuck it out, including working hard on the dreams I had during this period, and able to make more progress on this situation than I ever expected. So taking the “positive” route doesn’t always achieve the best results. Sometimes hanging out in an uncertain or even negative place turns out to be the best in the long run.

Gracias a relativamente largas conversaciones con Adriana Gomez, la psicologia del Centro Educativo Neosistemas (del cual hago parte como estudiante del grado noveno) aprendi algo que nunca habia analisado tan a fondo, se trata de los dos posibles caminos de la personalidad humana, son los dos posibles rumbos que puede tomar la forma de ser de una persona.

Antes de tratarlos, me veo en la incomoda obligacion de corroborar el hecho de que asi como fisicamente hablando todos nacemos con ciertos rasgos que con el paso del tiempo van sufriendo modificaciones (naturalez o no), psicologicamente hablando todos nacemos con ciertos rasgos (de personalidad) que gracias a factores externos son moldeados, mucho o poco dependiendo de las experiencias del ser.

Hay dos rasgos psicologicos principales de los que surgen muchos mas, estos son:

1. Extroversion, cuando una persona nace con inclinaciones hacia la extroversion, le es muy facil establecer relaciones sociales con los demas, le gusta hacerse notar, hacerle saber al mundo que efectivamente esta ahi, y esto lo hace no por medio de obras intelectuales (como si puede llegar a hacerlo un introvertido) sino por medio de obras sociales, como lo son bromear, festejar, hablar, cosas que llevan a que esa persona inspire confianza, respeto…en fin, alguien que nace con inclinaciones hacia la extroversion puede llegar a ser lo que se dice una persona “popular” muy facilmente.

2. Introversion, cuando una persona nace con inclinaciones hacia la introversion, le es algo dificil establecer relaciones sociales con los demas, bien sea por ansiedad o porque simplemente no le llama la atencion, aunque en verdad es una mezcla de las dos cosas. Desde pequenio, el introvertido se muestra interesado por cosas de indole intelectual, por ejemplo en lugar de seguir entrenando bicicross elige las lecciones de piano, o en lugar de jugar futbol prefiere leer; esto lo hace porque no se siente en plena capacidad de “hacer amigos”, asi que por el miedo a ser juzgado evita o rechaza ciertos eventos (partidos de futbol, carreras de bicicross, fiestas, etc.).

Bueno, ahora viene la que es a mi parecer la mejor parte de este embrollo que a veces califico de maldito…jmm, cruelmente haciendo cruelmente comparaciones cruelmente crueles, ser introvertido es el equivalente a ser feo, y ser extrovertido es el equivalente a ser bello, Y, asi como alguien feo puede operarse para ser bello, alguien introvertido puede llegar a ser extrovertido, es cuestion de desobedecer al instinto, es dificil al principio, pero con el tiempo y la practica, se hace natural.

Do you know if you’re an introvert? Would you be proud to know you were? As I say in my book, “The Happy Introvert; A Wild and Crazy Guide to Your True Self,” when I proudly announced to my mother that I was an introvert, she shot back angrily, “You are not! You are a nice girl!” Now that many decades have gone by, I can say with certainty that being an introvert has brought me many pleasures. I’ve never been bored except when other people don’t know when to stop talking and I try not to let that happen. I generally love people and I spend much of my time studying them. I also like my own company and can find many ways to amuse myself. This is a big subject that I filled a whole book with, so there’s not room to cover it here, but here are some questions you can ask yourself if you think you might be an introvert:

1. Do you usually prefer limiting your time with people to an hour or two?

2. Do people usually realize you’re interesting only after they get to know you fairly well?

3. Are you critical of superficiality?

4. Do you tend to concentrate in depth when doing a project?

5. Is your style of speech relatively calm and quiet?

6. Are you more likely to engage in learning or improving your skills than looking for outside stimulation?

7. Is your ability to remember people’s names average to low?

8. In social situations, do you sometimes or often stand back and observe?

If you answered “yes” to most of these questions, it’s likely you are an introvert. We all use both introversion and extraversion every single day, but one of these feels more easy and natural more of the time. I kept hearing people talk about introverts in a negative way and I wanted to help clear up some of the misconceptions about this subject. I’m glad I did. “The Happy Introvert” helps those introverts who might think something is wrong with themselves, when really introversion is perfectly natural and necessary. It also tezches people how to relate better to the introverts in their lives.

See the cover and order the book at wagele.com and/or read my articles on “Parenting Introverts,” “A 5 on Music, The Enneagram, and Infinity,” “How to Get Along with Introverts,” and “Introverted Feeling Types;” and see some reviews and an interview here.

I’m a liar.

Just so we make that clear.

I need to eat some more food so that I get on the right bent.  A belly full of peanuts and Diet Dr. Pepper doesn’t constitute positive nutrition.  And consequently, I get snippy.  But, I also get a bit truthful, which is one of the things I wanted to do this blog for.  Just flat-out, balls to the wall, NO FOOLING.  But it’s very difficult for a pathological liar to evince truth even if she knows exactly what it is.  I like to think I’m still at the stage when I can point out my own truth if only to myself and if only to decide what the best costume for that truth is.

I’m not sure what I’m doing.  I’m nervouser and nervouser.  I am drawing the devil of loving someone nearer and nearer and I’m trying to do things to get it to happen and stay.  And there is a whole vast internal landscape of shrieking goddesses and bludgeoned carcasses and rivers of blood that come into view when I think about making this nest available to anyone else.  They laugh because this effort is not unknown, not a brave new start.  It is an old dance, a biannual shuffle, a strain really that I perform to no applause and to no effect.

But what the old crones and the battlestars don’t know is that the reason there’s been no entreaty inward is because for all the masquerade, I haven’t been ready.  I haven’t known how to get ready to accomodate, modulate myself for another person.  A self I feel extreme shame over.  There have been no invitations accepted because none have been proffered.  The doors have been so barred that I can feel my heart gag for air against my clutching rib cage.  Safety.  Safety.  The future is unknown and if the future shone its full light upon you, everything would be seen.  All the pretense and the goddesses and the moonlit paths and labyrinths and bloodied gothic surrounds would be put to dust.  There would be coffee, opinions, and expectations.  I would not do well in the world where lies are not art.  I do not do well when I try to walk in that world.   I would be on the ultimate high wire.  Faking to exist, to stay upright, pretending I know this path like everyone else knows this path…as sheer instinct.

So I have my agonizingly messy life.  A universe of flotsam and jetsam strewn about, each bottle and unfolded shirt saying go away, the owner is not ready to entertain.  Miss Otis Regrets.  This is home.  Being here is watching the undergrowth become overgrowth, watching myself collapse inward.  Not writing because I might say something that makes my head uncomfortable, something less than the palatial monument to great writing would enshrine in the completely fictional confines of my gnawing, entropic mind.  Not reading because I might read something that makes me realize that the dream of writing is not achievable by someone with such rusty, disturbed and anachronistic skills such as I have.   Not doing any thing with the time I have carved out because that becomes a commitment to a personality, a place, a hope, and therefore, a threat to this life.  Such as it is.

There’s this whole cancerous mass of self and I worship it.  I worship it so hard that I scar people’s faces, I warp their words, I make lepers out of everyone who might venture a hello.  They are the ones in the colony.  Being in here is the only place to be safe.

It isn’t about being unwanted.  It isn’t about being ugly, unsettling, unfit.  It isn’t about being incapable of committing, of choosing, of finding anything outside of this poisoned Eden worthy of crossing into its miasmic, shardsand environs.  It’s about a girl who once saw a pretty thing, walled herself in with it and when she heard footsteps, swallowed the key.  Now it’s just her and the thing and whether or not she loves it anymore, whether or not there’s any other thing better or brighter or more deserving on the other side of that wall, this is what she has.  And she can either worship it and call her misery worship, too.  Or she has to stop telling lies and start asking for help.    And nobody has any mercy for liars, not really.

Have i been ignoring you?  Sorry i haven’t meant to.  The truth is i’ve been a little busy.  I’ve been Brain Storming.  I mean, i’ve been doing some real things too.  But i’ve been Brain Storming.  A Storm.  In my Brain.  It’s not painful as it might sound.  In fact, it’s kind of invigorating.  But only really if with a rapid heart.  Do it while walking.  But not walking the dog.  That’s just a distraction.  Do it while biking.  On long straight roads with minimal traffic and stop signs.  Really.  Biking is good.  You forget you are thinking.  Which is counter productive.  So the biking is good but the Storming not so much.

For productive Brain Storms, walk.  In the cold.  But don’t be cold.  Like i said, with a rapid heart.  Hot coffee. 

Walking isn’t all that keeps me busy.  But i do walk places.  And that takes longer.  But it allows me thought.  And thought leads to production.  Have i said that?

So what am i producing?  Neural connectivity aside.  Well, can’t put aside really.  It’s a pretty integral part.  To thought.  To life.  Well, to meaningful life.  One could always be just a beating heart. This is not my production.  No coffee.

Neural connectivity aside.  I’m hatching a plan. It’s a little more painful than the Brain Storm.  More visibly active.  It involves effort. Real effort of all kinds.  And decisions.  That really only affect me.  But i think too much of other people.  And i act on this.  This also causes much storm.

Not painful, but consuming. Consuming me.  And i’m consuming more.  And producing more, To be consumed.  This is my plan.  Part of the chain.  Consumer culture. 

I think. I can say it right. Turn thinking into saying.  Turn saying into feeding. Feeding into feeding. I produce. I consume.

So ends one review of Margaret Atwood’s latest -  The Year of the Flood.  I finished it today at lunchtime. What a read, but what a desperately ghastly vision of the future, I felt like I was surfacing from some sort of nightmare. I’d like to go back and reread Oryx and Crake now, but I need to get something less harrowing in my brain for a while. Speaking of which the new Dan Brown is on reserve for me, so that will be my long weekend reading! Probably a load of crap, but I am sure it will be a page turner.

Discovered that An Education is on Labour Day Monday after all , and Julie and Julia is as well. Considering sending out an email to my girlfriends here to see if anyone wants to come. Happy to go alone, but who knows I might have some company and get to catchup with some friends. Mind you the risk is that Monday will find me just wanting to stay at home. Such is the borderline introvert’s dilemma.

• Wednesdays there’s no day class (just a night module), so I gave myself permission to sleep quite late. It was delicious and felt as if my body was needing it.
• I can tell by how I interact with C that I have made progress in the area of taking good care of myself in the face of an extrovert who would–if she could–continue to talk my ear off for hours on end. When I need to retreat to my room, I just do. Before, I would have fretted over appearing rude or yes, … failing to take care of her needs.
• When I was walking up Bloor to my school, a man asked me for any change I could spare. He was pushing a grocery cart. While we waited for the light to change so we could continue in opposite directions, we had a nice chat. He called my rain boots, “fantastic.”
• One of my classmates is a reflexologist. During the break, she gave me a complimentary hand massage with Pampermint lotion. Heaven, just heaven.  At one point she paused over one part of my hand and felt it repeatedly with a puzzled expression. Finally she asked, hesitatingly, “are you…pregnant?” I said “No, but my uterus is full of huge fibroids.” Isn’t that interesting?
• Getting a very sweet card in the mail from my darling.