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Monthly Archives: January 2009

The Moonlit Path

A great many introverts, especially early in life, believe that they are the only one.

They yearn for some sense of belonging in a society that seems to reject them at every turn.

Later in life, there is no way one can explain what it was like. That it was not just one of the normal pains of growing up. That it was to see all of society in motion as if entombed behind a pane of thick and impenetrable glass.
One grows up with a completely different background from everyone else, can never really confide or ask for understanding. Isolation begets isolation. Every year one grows farther still from the sunlit world. In time one gladly travels down the divergent path enjoying the fulfillment the other way promises to all yet delivers to far too few.

At the beginning of the moonlit path
When one is young and outcast,
There is a lonely sort of torture
To be the only one
Is a very different thing than being alone

The Albatross

Because introverts spend many hours alone, they are often misconstrued as lacking, or having lesser capacity for friendship and love for their fellow human beings.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

There is a type of bird called the albatross that glides over thousands of miles of empty sea. But it always eventually returns to the same small and isolated island in the same place to meet with its lifelong mate.

The introvert is an albatross:

Soaring above a curved horizon
Of rolling lapis lazuli dunes
This desert of time and space is its element
It will never forget its spirit’s home
When it comes time to return to love and life’s companions
It is as though not a moment has passed.

Extroverts typically attempt to keep surrounded by people most of the time. The bonds they form in the competitive social group require constant reinforcement to stay alive. The typical extrovert friendship is a fire lit only with kindling. It must constantly, emphatically be renewed or else fade away. Its maintenance is a constant task, a drain of the self for all involved for the sake of the social artifact they wish to create. Even the greatest of ‘pals’ are quickly reduced to sending each other cards at Christmas without regular face to face interaction.

The introvert friendship is seldom, but it is based on a deep loyalties that are not so tied to place and circumstance as a bond quickly and adeptly acquired. More specifically, the introvert friendship exists underneath the tumultuous surface of the mass society. Companionship, fellowship, and maintenance are all one and the same. There are no chores to perform in the introvert friendship. It is self-sustaining and a source of renewal for those involved. It lasts a lifetime, outside of the larger society, outside of time.

To Touch Without Touching Another

I stumbled upon an outstanding post concerning the nature of introverts at this URL.

The author makes an excellent analogy using a story from the bible and then ties it up with a striking insights about how touch, whether physically touching others or their lives is carries special meaning for the introvert.
The author sums up this line of inquiry with the statement.
“They desire to attain their needs without touching other people too deeply.”

Being Different vs. Being ‘Original’

One might argue mass societies are tolerant of those who do not observe common practices: After all, there are many people with body piercings, tattoos, or even deliberately different hairstyles such as mohawks. On college campuses in particular, one finds a great variety of cosmetic departures from the norm.
This contingent of those who adopt a certain out of the ordinary ‘look’ are all too often in their own words, ‘being original.’
Such persons, however, tend to confuse their often ostentatious trappings with the actual state of being different in one’s values and formative experience.

In fact: the ‘original’ emphatically embrace the larger extrovert culture promoted in Western mass society. They exhibit the belief that the outer advertisement they have adopted creates the desired reality underneath. The man with the blue mohawk at the club, or the woman in college dressed like a hippie are just exhibiting the common set of attention-getting behaviors that the mass society promotes. Adopting an unorthodox exterior is just another way to gain recognition and increase status within the accepted order. The ‘original’ undergo a personal upgrade so that their self-banner can get more clicks. Those who are ‘original,’ desperately try to cultivate this status, expending considerable capital and actively changing their appearance, habits, and music preferences so that they can be accorded this title.
Such ‘originals’ are certainly celebrated in segments of the mass society: ironically, they more than most adhere to the accepted values.

Those who are different never tried to be as they are. In fact, those who are different needed not make any effort at all; the distinction of otherness was thrust upon them by no choice of their own. Their condition is not a commercial ploy for ‘originality’ but a stigma that follows them through life, though they might try to hide it.

Many who are different have spent years of their life at some point in lamentation. The journey to self-acceptance and conscious departure is a long hard one against every current in the stream. One who is different often knows pride for having endured, but does not flaunt it. It is a grim sort of pride, the divergent self that has been ‘earned’ is absolutely to be concealed from public ridicule. The one who is different is circumspect in their personal matters. Being different was never the aim, but rather the privilege to be different. It is a privilege that can be revoked at a moment’s notice, so one who is different often fits a personality type known as ‘introverted.’ It is in the interest of one who is different to avoid attention, to live beneath the surface and limit one’s close associations to kindred souls.

Those who strive to be ‘original’ are a mockery of everything the different introvert represents. By ‘being themselves’ they attempt to change who they are. By ‘being unique’ they aggressively reduce themselves to a public commodity.
Their lack of understanding is implicit in the fact that they try to earn as a distinction what is inflicted as stigma. Their ‘rebellion’ that stays strictly within the context of accepted society is an exercise in conformity. Their approach of putting form before substance is the opposite of everything they simulate having become.

Ultimately, ‘original’ and different are inimical. The former firmly within the sunlit world and the other under the light of the moon.

The False Choice of Participation

In any given society, among the greatest of crimes and taboos is simply non-participation in the group’s sanctioned practices and customs. This is a reality to which the extrovert remains oblivious and one which the introvert is never allowed to forget.

We typically think of transgression in terms of something one does. The crime of the introvert, however, is no single act. It is the overall failure to adopt the group approved talk, walk, behavior, and beliefs. It is a crime unlike any other crime, because it is not an action. In a sense oneself is the crime. In a word it is to be, ‘Incorrect.’

Different cultures and ethnicities are understood to be born into a different tradition. Some differences are expected from those born into clearly different circumstances. Most importantly, they are often in part shielded from the mass society by their less massive society.

Those who have diverged since birth in their personality, values, and preferences are not outwardly different and cannot be outwardly different. The mass society that claims them by accident of birth will punish or reward them according to their degree of adherence to its values and rules. There is no central intelligence or bureacracy that punishes, there is no need. There are millions of informal enforcers daily doing their work merely by holding and acting upon the common values with which they have been imbued.

A great many introverted people would likely be more social or socialize more out in the open if they did not live in fear of social censure. One key reason that introverts do not ‘get out more’ and one which most extroverts do not begin to understand is:
A life lived mostly away from the seething public sphere is safety from being revealed as Incorrect.
Introverts commonly describe themselves as being exhausted from social outings. In no small part this condition exists because: when the Correct are at their most relaxed, the Incorrect are most on guard. One is thus recharged, the other drained.

The Dumb and Silent Type

It is a regular occurrence in the life of an introvert to be presumed dumb on account of their habitual reserve in both speech and mannerism.

Extroverts take the outgoing individual to be not only to be an ‘achiever’ and a ‘leader’ but also as more intelligent.
As a male extrovert I know that extroverted women, in particular can be rude and dismissive towards those who are not outspoken.
For more on this ‘Elizabeth Bennet syndrome,’ there’s my other blog, WordPressed Latinum.

In general, if one values form over substance, then it follows according to extrovert thought that one who is intelligent actively appears to be intelligent, aggressively self promoting and letting everyone know about their talents.
One who is extroverted must think to themself: If I were intelligent I would use my talents to secure more social status, therefore, this person I see on the periphery must be an idiot.

One whose mind is wholly devoted to social matters tends not to understand what someone could possibly be doing with their mind while not socially involved. Such silence and uninvolvement seems to them like the vacuous staring of a lobotomy patient. Hence one gets “Hello, anybody home?” instead of “A penny for your thoughts.”
Suppositions of stupidity are in part a reaction to the aloofness of the introvert. In some cases, the introvert might not seem stupid to them, but they act aggressively because they view the lack of participation as arrogance and disdain, a slap in the face of everyone in the group.
Finally and most simply, with people living competitively in groups, the silent outsider of course makes a convenient outlet for all the frustrations that cannot be otherwise vented.

The underlying problem is that while an introvert can never forget that they are in a hostile country, the extrovert can live a lifetime without scarcely ever being aware any other way exists. Those few introverts they do happen to meet in social venues will generally be doing their utmost to keep their true nature concealed. On the chance that the presence of an introvert becomes clear, their misunderstanding and shock leads them to ascribe negative attributes and act out of frustration.
Thus a cruel irony: an introvert who would like nothing better than to be left alone by the highly social is doomed to always be disturbed.

The ‘Correctness’ of Extroversion

Extroverts frequently hold their way to be the ‘correct’ way as their defining traits are considered desirable in Western society. However, this is an ad populum mindset. Their ways are desirable, not because they are right, but only because more people observe them.

Any group in the process of selecting desirable characteristics also implicitly excludes.
Thus, one could imagine a system in which typical traits of those classified as introverts were held as highest virtue. In such a state, the most effusive of individuals would find themselves dismissed as unprofessional loudmouths and as shameless sycophants.

The introverted philosophy is ‘incorrect’ only insofar as it is selected against by a tyrannical majority. The extrovert reign enjoys no more legitimacy than any other regime imposed by sheer inertia of popular acceptance.

The Blank Exterior

“Don’t be so serious.”
“You need to smile more.”
Are some of the most annoying and most common admonishments an introvert receives in everyday life.
Highly social persons mistake an introvert’s typically closed expression as being dour and unfriendly. Rather, the introvert being concerned with persons rather than people is far more prone to compartmentalize their life.
They do not emote in front of strangers. That is to be done around the carefully chosen group of individuals they have let into their life.
If they spilled their pearls in front of everyone, the act of sharing itself would become meaningless. One does not see people on a subway or bus treating each other like old friends. Uninhibited friendliness is sacred to an introvert and is for those who whom they hold closest. Like trust, and respect, it is earned. All others are approached with caution and respectful reserve.
The unconditional exuberance of extroverts seems superficially sunny by comparison, endearing perhaps like a dog wagging its tail, but not indicative of any deeper feeling than that which moves them at the moment. Since it’s how they act around everyone one must wonder: are they being sincere underneath that happy veneer?
From the view of the introvert: the highly social person so habitually ventures into histrionic hyperbole of expression, that there is no means, no language they might even employ to indicate any extraordinary feeling for another human being.
Is one really their best friend or the love of their life or is it just another mood of the moment or attention getting behavior?

Perhaps it disturbs the extrovert that the inward looking person tends to wear the same blank exterior we all wear on the subway when in public places. However, this exterior is in a way a test as well as a defense.
What one sees in a blank exterior says a lot about them; it is a mirror of sorts. Those who stand a chance of moving inside an introvert’s inner circle are those rare few who look at that initial blankness and see something good and unthreatening in it.

The False Glamor of Pickup Culture

“Someone needs to get laid.” Is one of the stock responses to one who shies from conventional social venues.
The ultimate proof to the socialite of an introvert’s wrongdoing is their more frequent lack of sexual comanionship.

In addressing this matter, I would look to pickup artists, and in general those who get frequently laid by means of their social prowess.
The success of these individuals is taken to be the disproof of everything cloistered, nerdly, and inspired of solitude:

However, its not the magnificent thing it’s touted to be.
Pickup artists/seducers count themselves superior oftentimes on the most fundamental of grounds: the Darwinian.
They hold that it is they who will propagate the species, not the pathetic ‘shy people.’
This turns out to be an absurd proposition upon examining the actual conduct of these people.
It is a rarity to actually hear of them having children! If ever they do it is later in life.
They scrupulously use protection during sex so their escapades might continue to another party night. The women they court are those who wouldn’t want a kid ruining their party life. Even in the instance contraception failed, abortion would be highly likely. The chances of Darwinian success from being a pickup artist/seducer are nil.

Ironically, these party people would enjoy considerably greater success according to the standards they hold dear if they converted to conservative monotheism and entered into a traditional marriage.

Ironically, the very car salesman skills of super socialites that allow them a quick night of sex tend to impede any aims at having any sort of deeper satisfaction than the immediately physical.
For all their labors, they obtain very little more than their own hand could have given them. They perhaps obtain less in terms of intimacy than a masseuse might have given them.

The mystique that Western culture attaches to the act of intercourse is altogether undeserved. This writer has had what could be termed extremely casual sex. It was a pleasant experience, but nothing I would base an entire lifestyle around.
I have talked with many others who have had sex and express similar sentiments. Nothing spectacular unless there is some kind of deeper personal attachment involved.

What the pickup artists really become obsessed with is the ability to make the sale, however dubious the product. The rush of subduing another human being through wits alone. However, even the power that a seducer wields is an illusion.
The pickup artist must define himself by his quarry. He is a shapeshifter morphing into whatever form his target’s desires might take. He is but a slave making himself whatever others want him to be, a product well marketed to instant gratification.

Pickup artists, seducers, spend years perfecting their art. The time and energy they spend becoming adepts is time taken away from other modes of development.

The introvert often engages in sexual intimacy sparingly:
Firstly, introverts, haven’t the opportunity because they do not have the willingness to actively sell themselves. Their identity is too grounded to be malleable even if they should try.

The introvert better understands: sexual intimacy is the pleasure of life that endangers all others. Its tendency to distract and its many possible negative and even deadly outcomes are a considerable obstacle to all else. Large amounts or time, money, and energy are required to enjoy this activity that can be experienced to a lesser, but not at all insubstantial degree for free: not to mention at one’s convenience and without any risk or effort. Overall: an awful deal and hyped up beyond all proportion.

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