Leads To: The Social Introvert
One of the great fundamental differences between the Extro and Intro
Extrovert: Form over substance
Introvert: Substance over form
Extroverts are perceived as ‘leaders’ as ‘having initiative’ as being ‘achievers.’ However, most of this is an illusion; a combination of the intrinsic quality of valuing form over substance and possessing by default the favored template.
In all aspects of life, the extrovert creates the appearance of being glamorous, driven, and interesting. Spending time alone is a supreme torture, because to be forced to spend time alone is to confront the inner vacuum. If the veneer is what gets attention/money, then it is what matters.
In all aspects of life, the introvert strives to do and achieve things of substance, at the expense of appearances if need be. What something looks like is incidental to what it actually is. Spending time in social environments that are all about appearances, jockeying for position, and small talk is a supreme torture. To do so is to confront the fact that most people around have opposite values to their own. To be forced to participate is to live in a hostile country. It is a waste of precious time alive, the veneer is an insubstantial shadow and a distraction.
6 Comments
First I just wanted to say that I am going through this blog in order of posting, since I have enjoyed some of your more recent postings. I do have to disagree with you on extroverts being about form over substance, I know and have seen many who have substance with form, which is why they succeed. They present things that we know and take for granted in ways that make others understand, while when we do it we just bore everyone.
Also I think we cannot just take ourselves out of circulation, it will just not help us get those things that we really want. I mean we can repress our desires, like I am sure most of us have been doing, but to completely run away from them is impossible.
An example of a highly successful extroverted person might be a talented salesman. The talent is persuading people to attach the most perceived value to the least true value possible. The salesman’s ability to put form above substance is equal to his profit margin. To make money, he must sell the product for more than it is worth. Form before substance.
In politics extroverts are typically most successful. They are able to play the popularity game better than the other person. Popularity is perception of the candidate before the candidate’s true personality or views. Form before substance.
Form and substance certainly are not mutually exclusive, but the bottom line is that extrovert success is defined by promoting appearances over realities; they win because of their ability to manipulate perception whether or not they also have a lot of substance to back them up.
You seem to see extroverts as people who get all the main ideas across while being exciting, introverts as those who fail to communicate exciting ideas.
I see extroverts as those who can make banal ideas seem exciting to the largest possible number of people, introverts as those who focus on new, meaningful ideas regardless of whether they’re crowd pleasers.
An extrovert would stand up at a podium and give a heart-warming speech about how good always triumphs over evil.
An introvert would have the integrity to stand up at that same podium and talk about uncertainties in the cut and dried moral universe most of us take for granted.
Take ourselves out of circulation? I for one have never completely been in circulation, nor have I felt that the Body particularly wants to circulate me.
I believe in distancing oneself from social pressures by changing one’s way of thinking and world view. I do not believe it is necessary to retreat to a cave or monastery. All that is necessary is a little time to stop and think. This sort of time is precious and hard to come by, but it is definitely within our power to get enough of it without becoming an ascetic monk or meditating all day. You misunderstand some of my points, I think, but this one especially.
I do not believe in running away or hiding, I believe in confronting and accepting oneself. I do not believe in repressing oneself, I am interested in ways of satisfying human needs while reducing one’s reliance on an incompatible birth culture. To aspire something better than a precarious existence suspended between two realms of damnation.
I have gotten most things I really want by being as I am. The thinking that I’ve done has greatly improved my quality of life and made me much happier than I was.
I am not saying that you or I should change ourselves at the core or that we need to become hermits. I think I am with you in self-reflection without actually removing yourself from society, but I disagree with you that by turning ourselves away from circulation we are still part of the society.
I think that by shunning our birth culture we become worse than monks and hermits. They don’t leave society, but become devoted to a sub culture in the said society, while we, to a great extent because of our own problems with coping with the greater collective, actually become self-imposed outcasts.
Why should it be a bad, unthinkable or undesirable thing to go beyond subculture and into a new culture? If a birth culture has failed to provide meaningful identity and sense of belonging it has lost its mandate of heaven. When the birth culture actually alienates us and causes anguish in our lives instead of nourishing us, it is past time to start considering a new culture. One might even say there is an imperative of sorts: to cast off an oppressive birth culture to not only free oneself but to clear a path for others who are in the same situation. To remain in thrall to an incompatible society is to allow oneself to live like a doormat, locked in a cycle of learned helplessness. To not take action is to fail both oneself and one’s kindred spirits in this world. From the point of view of a mass society, we are each of us very tiny things, much smaller than the smallest of insects. To the whole, we are each expendable, perishable, less than nothing. Thus, it is our personal responsibility to define our value as human beings and our proper place.
A very late reply, but as they say, better late than never (although I hate it when they say that and I think I hate them, so no idea why I just said it).
The problem that starting a new culture based on what you are talking about is that there is no chance of that culture ever propagating, since that is what the ultimate logical conclusion of, not finding a way to enter “circulation”.
I believe that the best that can be done for our kindred spirits is to find a niche where we can get by in our current birth society and live alongside it, instead of on some outside path.
I’ve thought about some of the issues you raise while wearing the guise of another alter ego, Giovanni Dannato.
The first link discusses emerging alternatives to traditional forms of social circulation. This one concerns the propagation of social organizations.