Category Archives: The Nature of Introversion

Extroverts and the Concept of ‘Deserval’

We turn on the TV and encountering the concept is inevitable:

“I deserve it.” says a waifish, urban thirty-something woman as she justifies buying that expensive dress or that decadent slice of raspberry chocolate cheesecake in the store window.

“Why pay more? We’ll give you the low price you deserve!” says the affable fortyish car salesman with a silver buckle and cowboy hat during the commercial break.

When we turn off the TV encountering the concept is inevitable:

Most extroverts seem to have a concept that there are things they ‘deserve:’

Lower prices, a raise, free health care, flexible mortgage rates, a pension, a secure retirement, a facial, a new set of power tools, disposable income, a stable career, honest politicians……….

How do they decide what they deserve?  Why do they deserve it?  Isn’t the whole idea of deserving completely subjective and fluid?  Another TV cliche comes to mind:

Henchman: Master, I brought you the power crystal as you commanded!  (hands it over)

Cardboard Cutout Villain:  Ah, finally!  I have it now.  Now I will give you exactly what you deserve!

*Henchman greedily anticipates goodies right up to the moment Villain pointlessly kills him with the power crystal*

As an introvert I looked to history and to the people around me without finding any sensical answer.  I was confused.  Surely the concept of deserving was entirely meaningless.  No one gets what they want just because they decide they deserve it!  Why would anyone actually be swayed or flattered by a sycophant assuring you that you ‘deserve’ more?  Why would someone justify their actions with ‘deserval.’  What do they see in the whole empty idea of deserving something?

I got an inkling when I for a time interacted with kids in a classroom setting.  The people I was working for insisted I give the kids points for answering questions in class and taking away points when they misbehaved or didn’t turn in homework.  There was an entire elaborate system on the board for everyone to see with a tally of total points for every kid who passed through the room in the course of a day.  The kids had created an entire system of social prestige around these point rankings that they took very seriously.

Children have a very strong sense of a primal, tribal level sense of social justice.  They would be horrified if they thought one of the students deserved a point and I hadn’t given it.

When given an extra point on accident, even the beneficiary would instantly come forth and tell me to take away the undeserved point.

The kids always screamed for the worst possible punishment for anyone they saw breaking the rules.  When punished themselves, they accepted it glumly but without question.  As much as they hated punishment, they seemed to concede that they deserved it.

I realized that most of these children, especially the extroverted ones carry some semblance of this tribal level concept of social justice into adult life.

I began to realize I was rather strange for not having an intuitive grasp of ‘deserve.’  Upon further reflection I realize that the whole idea ceased to have meaning for me long ago during my own childhood.  Living as an outsider from the outset, I took plenty of punishment just by virtue of being insufficiently protected from the pent up malice of others.   It was clear I hadn’t done anything bad to anger those who gave me difficulty.  There was no reason for any of it.  Whether I deserved or didn’t deserve had no meaning at all.

As an introvert, I was never truly part of the tacitly understood justice system that governed most of the other children.  Partly because of my fundamental personality and predispositions, partly because of the isolation created by my predispositions, I never fully acquired the concept of ‘deserval.’  In absence of this tribal justice, I viewed the school world around me in terms of power relationships.  Bullies didn’t deserve to have power.  They had power because they were able to take power.  Really quite simple.  I also had an inkling at an early age that bullies would never treat insiders the same way as outsiders.  They would even be quite deferent to someone higher ranking.  Was there any reason the people the bullies respected deserved respect?  Not really.  They just had more power.

A group of kids who knew each other in a structured classroom environment functioned well using their inborn senses of deserval.   The point system I had to use made abundantly clear how every kid in the classroom was aware of the exact prestige level of every other kid.  Each kid had an astoundingly precise mental tally of what every other kid deserved or didn’t deserve in class.  Their feelings of justice and injustice were visceral and resulted in emotional protest whenever there was the slightest breach.

Now let’s look at these kids as adults.  Most of adult life takes place outside of a structured classroom and they live in a society full of millions of strangers.  The tribal level deserval impulse runs amok in this environment.  When most people they meet have outsider status, they are not subject to tribal ethics.  Furthermore everyone needs to compete to get ahead.  Even people who aren’t strangers are often competitors.  As pressure increases, everyone has to work hard for survival and for prestige.  When people work hard just to make it, the deserval meter goes right off the charts.  However, they’re hard pressed to find anyone who will acknowledge the fullness of what they think they deserve. There’s no impartial chief or arbitrator keeping track of points on the board.  Most adults get cheated out of what they deserve.  The daily flouting of their intuitive systems of justice makes them increasingly sure that they deserve compensation while others deserve punishment.  Thus getting what they deserve by any means becomes justified on the most deeply visceral level.  Since others do not even seem to acknowledge the intuitive justice system, they are outsiders who do not need to accommodated or given consideration anyway.

This ‘justice gap’ attitude seeps into all of life until a Surface person sincerely believes they deserve to eat raspberry chocolate cheese cake without paying the consequences of eating it.  On the most primal level, deserving is about compensation for the crushing pressure and wrongs inflicted by an unjust life.  When ‘compensation’ is inevitably canceled out by consequences, the Surface person has been cheated yet again of getting any closer to a measure of tribal justice.

The deep and unobtainable nature of this compensation fantasy makes it ideal content for advertising.  What better way to reach people than to promise to soothe their battered egos, to promise to scratch that itch they can never quite seem to reach, to relieve the hurt that nothing seems to cure?

Introversion and Schizoid Traits

Not so long ago, I was dropped a link by a reader to wikipedia’s entry on schizoid personality disorder.  I was shocked as I read it over.

I read through the descriptions and lists on this page and found that to some degree  I could be seen as exhibiting every single characteristic.

Like narcissism, this schizoid assessment can be kind of tricky.  Obviously, everyone is narcissistic to some degree.  It’s the inevitable result of living as ourselves and no one else.  Where then does normality end and disorder begin?

The same problem with a schizoid personality disorder.  A schizoid personality type shares many traits with introversion(or introversion is considered part of being schizoid) and is considered to usually be within the spectrum of normally functional individuals.  Disorder is diagnosed at the extreme ends of this schizoid spectrum.

Since there’s so much misunderstanding of introverts, I have to wonder if defining schizoids can end up pathologizing introverted traits that are merely incongruent with the mass society.

Here is one of the lists of ’symptoms’ from the article with my comments on each:

-Emotional coldness, detachment or reduced affection.

(Defensive behaviors against a hostile society force one to emotionally detach in order to cope and survive.  It’s hard to be bright and cheerful while being defensive.)

-Limited capacity to express either positive or negative emotions towards others.

(Defensive habits make it difficult to really open up to others.  Without regular uninhibited social interaction one really gets out of practice.  If one grew up under such circumstances, it’s possible one never learned certain basic social conventions during critical formative stages.)

-Consistent preference for solitary activities.

(If others don’t share your interests, what else are you going to do?  Worse, they’ll probably criticize and ridicule if they find out.  Solitary becomes necessary!)

-Very few, if any, close friends or relationships, and a lack of desire for such.

(So little in common with others that it can be hard to find anyone who’s compatible.)

-Indifference to either praise or criticism.

(Does so many things outside of regular society that one stops caring whether others approve or disapprove.  One has to stop caring to stay sane!)

Taking pleasure in few, if any, activities.

(If one is forced to pursue one’s favorite activities solitarily and secretly then it seems as though one takes pleasure in nothing by the light of day.  Could perhaps be rewritten as: Taking pleasure in few if any socially approved activities.)

-Indifference to social norms and conventions.

(Social norms cause pain and inconvenience.  They stand against one’s personality and preferences.  If permitted to rule over one’s life, the result could only be a denial of one’s deepest self.  They are ignored when possible.)

-Preoccupation with fantasy and introspection.

(It’s a great way of compartmentalizing life and getting through all the rough parts without an excess of pain.  It’s another defense.  Who doesn’t daydream in unpleasant and boring situations?  Furthermore, the inner life is where the outer life is interpreted.  It is in the inner realm where patterns are seen and truth is discovered.  If dreams are a way for our minds to interpret, store, and clean up a day worth of overwhelming inputs, a fantasy life while awake can serve much the same function.)

-Lack of desire for sexual experiences with another person.

(Sexual experiences require lots of social skill and status.  Most importantly, it requires revealing oneself to someone who probably adheres to the conventional society.  Only criticism and censure could ensue.)

While a true excess of any of these traits could be construed as a disorder, I see many ways that a fairly normal introverted person could receive a disorder diagnosis.  Rather than truly being emotionally cold or lacking desire to be with other human beings, such an individual could be easily misunderstood, their actions misinterpreted.  I can’t help but notice that solitary activities are a criteria for disorder without any concern for

why the activities are being pursued solitarily or

why there are few friends or sexual relationships.

why there is an unusual reliance on defense mechanisms, emotional detachment, or fantasy just to get through a day

Upon examination it starts seeming less like a mental problem and more like a way of singling out social misfits.

In fact, the social history of an introvert can often be characterized as a long history of misdiagnosis and being singled out.  Many people I’ve encountered in life have assumed the worst about me at every turn.  So much so that I expect it out of people and have to go out of my way to be extra polite and carefully avoid conflict.  I find the schizoid definitions to be an organized list of ways extroverts have misunderstood and then reacted.

The Mark of Cain

No matter where you go, nothing changes that much.  Each new set of people behaves much as the last.  A past history of low social rank or outright social exclusion leaves its mark that follows us around wherever we go.  One begins to appreciate just how effective human beings are at being social animals, just how competitive social existence is. Almost regardless of intelligence level, people can make a quick call based on how someone speaks(0r doesn’t speak) and holds their shoulders.  They always know on that gut level whether or not you’re confident and capable of defending yourself.  Whether or not you have friends and allies to back you up.  Whether or not you would be a useful ally to them.  The past keeps repeating itself, it’s a tough cycle to break out of.   There’s a couple days(at most) after meeting each new group of people before one is put into their place.  For lots of introverts it’s the same place time after time, no matter how they might scramble to put on appearances during that brief introductory period.  It’s like going through life with a mark of Cain imprinted in one’s forehead as one wanders from place to place.

Most people automatically perform these social processes and have little or no conscious awareness of what they do.  For the pensive introvert, they are painfully obvious even as they see yet another group going through its predictable motions.

Why Are Such A High Proportion of Gifted People Introverted?

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 for fun in their spare time?

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.

Women Introverts

I’m writing this as a male, I welcome introvert females who want to comment, add to, or correct me on this matter.

To begin with, women introverts are rarer than their male counterparts.  Or at least, those women considered introverted are still considerably more social in nature than their male counterparts.

I’ve met a few in my lifetime who really fit the description.  In general they had a horrible time growing up,  same as males, but the nature of their experience was quite different.

Because truly introverted behavior is so unusual in women, it begets some truly nasty reactions.  Every pair of parents wants and expects their daughter to be bright, happy, social, and cheerful.  Little girls are expected to be pleasing and put a warm fuzzy feeling in everyone’s(especially daddy’s) tummy.  Everyone wants their little girl to be  a golden girl.  Most girls step right into this role with glee and thrive on the attention they’re given.

Yet now that I’ve met introvert females I’ve seen the special treatment and attention girls get has its sinister side.  There quite simply is no place for girls who behave differently or who don’t fulfill their narrow expectations.  Such girls are thought of us as ’strange’ and are kept out of sight for fear of shame while sunny extroverts are flaunted.  Some parents are understanding, but the introvert girls I’ve known have had at least one parent who reacted negatively to them from a young age.

Most introverted girls tell me that they don’t get along well with other girls, least of all the social hostesses, soccer moms, and sorority girls.

Like men, they endured a lot of teasing from both sexes while growing up.

While introvert men are shut away entirely from the world of romance and relationships, introvert girls just end up in bad relationships because of low self esteem during their teenage years.

Unlike other girls who keep making this same mistake all their lives, an introvert woman’s heart hardens and she learns her lesson quickly.  She becomes one of those rare and precious women who isn’t chasing millionaires and movie stars.

Introvert women are much more pragmatic and analytical than other women, more so than most men.  They value fairness in a relationship and treasure the quality of a relationship over the material things that can be extracted from it.

While many women speak loudly and rapidly, introvert women tend to speak more slowly and deliberately.  They love spending time outdoors and wear less makeup than other women.

They have a deep appreciation for spells of silence and natural beauty.

They are often superb writers with a lot of creativity and flair for describing the details.

Introvert women always amaze me because they basically contradict everything male cynics have said for centuries.

The sad thing is that most of them, even as adults don’t understand just how precious they are.

Why Introverted Nerds Like Fantasy and Sci Fi

It’s perfectly Ok and respectable to have seen some trek and wars. However, you’re crossing way over the line if you know who Salacious Crumb is or know just how Shaka felt when the walls fell.
The new Battlestar Galactica is borderline respectable because of its general lack of aliens and elaborate makeup. You’ve probably gone too far though if you know the model number for each of the skinjobs.
You might possibly be able to pass yourself off as a semi-acceptable citizen even if you watch Stargate.
If you’re into firefly, B5, or Earth final conflict, forget it. It’s too late to save you.
If you:
-Consider yourself a member of clan Malkavian
-Have killed an ancient netch with the fork of horripilation
-Know the significance of the phrase ‘hello sailor’ or have been eaten by grues
-Have ever saved against death
-Know that every point of S after 3= -1 to armor save
-Have ever put a saproling token into play or accumulated poison counters
-Could swear Washington D.C. was founded in 4000 B.C. and believe Elvis has existed since ancient times
-Know the significance of the line “My shoes are too tight and I have forgotten how to dance.”
-Can sing ‘the man they call Jayne’ by heart.

then you have become indescribable in the horrific Lovecraftian sense of the word.
Yet there are lower levels still…

Some moderate exposure to fantasy and sci-fi is deemed to be an ordinary part of pop culture, but there’s a certain point where you’ve crossed the Rubicon and entered into Nerddom.

In Nerddom a movie, show, book, or computer game goes beyond mere entertainment. It becomes a subject of scholarly zeal and nationalistic devotion. In Nerddom one:
-Memorizes geographical features on fictional maps.
-Memorizes the specs of fictional weapons and vehicles.
-Masters a large body of spoken or written material to the point where they can quote from it at will.
-Knows details that are not actually divulged in the original work.
-Knows the customs, histories, or languages of fictional peoples…

To those who live on the surface, these behaviors are completely irrational and bizarre.
Acceptable people wonder why anyone would be so fervent about such obscure information.
Obscurity and exclusivity is precisely the point! Far from being insane, it’s a ritual of distinguishing those who belong to Nerddom from those who belong on the surface of society.
When people do not identify with the culture they were born into, surely it is no stretch of the imagination that they would invent a new culture.
Every culture has its lore and mythology. The culture of Nerddom is no different. A denizen of the surface might say ‘OMG WTF, why would anyone ever learn that?’
One could just as easily ask the same thing of conventional pop culture with its emphasis on frivolous details from the personal lives of countless ‘celebrity’ strangers.
In any given society, shared lore is hugely important. All those small details help bring members closer together while simultaneously keeping outsiders in their place. The small details are difficult to learn properly unless one is genuinely enthusiastic about the values held by the group. It is a means of quickly filtering out impostors.

Among surface dwellers, nerdly scholarship is at best regarded as an amusing and pitiable curiosity. At worst, it is seen as a symptom of derangement and an attack on traditional society.
Those who belong notice a pattern:
Nerddom attracts lots of people who just can’t seem to fit in.
This observation only reinforces the disgust of Accepted observers. Nerddom is the place where rejects go and hide from ‘reality.’

Why does this phenomenon exist?
It ought to be obvious!

When one grows up as a misfit and shares few interests with their peers, one undergoes regular bouts of social censure from an early age.
All one gets from the ‘real world’ of the conventional social environment is negative reinforcement. The every day experience is one of alienation and humiliation.

Why then is it a surprise then that those who are rejected should turn to fictional worlds?! Fictional realities in which all the traits that merit rejection are accepted. Fictional worlds far away from the order that judges and condemns.

These fictional worlds are an escape and separation from a hostile society, but that is only the beginning.
Having been thrown away like garbage by one’s birth culture, it follows that one ought to actively distance oneself from the conventions of one’s oppressors. By doing this one moves from a land and culture associated with shame and loneliness to new lands that promote pride and serve as a means of group bonding with others who have been cast out.
Before long, you have a black market of social belonging operating under the surface of the ‘Legal’ order. I suspect a lot of conventional resentment comes from the fact that the orthodoxy’s monopoly on acceptance and rejection has been effectively broken. Seeing Fracture in progress is inherently disturbing to those who believe there is only one Correct social order.

Far from being crazy or a curiosity, Nerddom is the understandable easily predictable result of the present system. Why on Earth would someone reviled by their fellow Earthlings stay on Earth when it is so easy to emigrate?

To sum it all up, emigration to Nerddom is a means of:

-Declaring independence from a hostile society. Unable to succeed and too isolated to bring any change, the best solution is to secede from a harsh and abusive organization.
-Including those who fail to identify with the conventional ways
-Excluding one’s persecutors.
-Finding pride and belonging when one’s birth culture gave only shame and exclusion
-Escaping to a place where it is not necessary to constantly be on guard. It is a way of releasing accumulated tension and stress.

In time, what started as a temporary shelter becomes more of a home than the birth culture ever was. In a sense, all of those fictional worlds are more real, more genuine than ‘reality’ ever was. From a shameful beginning characterized by being a sin, absolution follows.

Introverts and Sports

Sports in their most popular form are just another social venue. The minority players are involved in an intricate group activity and the majority spectators are involved in a mass cult of fandom.

A Subtle person tends not to fall into either of these categories. The wide world of sports is merely another obstacle in the way of belonging to the surrounding society. Attending team rallies and wearing team paraphernalia seems exotically tribal and altogether incomprehensible.

Why?

Someone who tends to feel out of touch with the group mentality is unlikely to feel drawn to team sports and probably even less so to the idolization of team sports.
Participating in a team sport is a ritual of belonging and being part of a social machine. It is about achieving victory by taking the ‘I’ out of team and subordinating oneself to the group for the benefit of all. A career outsider naturally doesn’t perceive the appeal of engaging in team sport. Why contribute to a ritual of social endorsement when one has never felt a part of society? Why make a dramatic display of submitting to a collective when one has never felt a part of the collective?
Adulation for athletes is distasteful to the outsider. Athletes’ enormous social status gained by playing a mere game seems artificial and shallow. Those who belong by participating in and promoting a hostile social system are more enemies than sympathetic heroes or ‘role models.’ To bow down to and give the gift of adoration and loyalty to a stranger who will never know or care about you seems the lowest and most abject form of subservience.
This lowest subservience would be given to the very people who in our youths stood at the top of the pyramid in which we never had a place.
-They were the enforcers and preservers of a hostile system.
-They were the arbitrary masters of our world for no real reason that anyone could figure. The parents, the newspapers, the ‘community’, everyone seemed to place them on a pedestal for no particular reason. They were the physical manifestation of everything the system selected for. They were the nobility of social Correctness.
To article: ‘Sports Do Not Belong In Schools’

From my personal experience:

I am actually a fairly athletic person and have been involved with cross country and track and field. These are not exactly team sports, but people from the same school do work together to win. I found that I never really belonged socially even in these lower key environments because any sport overwhelmingly seems to attract those who have a collectivist mindset. Most of my teammates had exceptionally strong ties to the popular culture and saw sport primarily as a social activity

I repeatedly found myself an outsider in these organizations.
Only in cross country did I really stand a chance. This sport tends to be the lowest in terms of social prestige and it has the potential to attract nerds who have neither the coordination or the keen feel for group dynamics required to excel in team sports. Unfortunately, even cross country was not exactly a safe haven. For most participants, the sport was their cardio social session between a sedentary summer break and the popular winter games– volleyball and basketball. Members of the chess club were still in the minority. Even on the extreme, where Subtle folk could exist in the world of sport, it was still a contentious border zone whereas the classic team sports were entirely within hostile territory.

What are some of the reasons I did not quite fit in even in the friendliest possible sports environment?
Most of my teammates saw it primarily as a social activity. ‘Stretching’ often lasted half an hour to an hour. Not only do I lack shared interests with most athletes, I was seething the whole time as I thought of how I’d have time for nothing but homework by the time I finally got home. Furthermore, I approach exercise from a rationalistic perspective. Physical fitness and self improvement come first. I joined a running club so I could get better at running.

This brings me to consider:
Why is the Subtle ethic opposed with the world of sport?

Opposite values and life experiences:

The Subtle are those who have been in conflict with their social surroundings since an early age.
For some of them, lack of athletic talent/coordination have been contributing factors to their present situation of social otherness.
Society has shown itself to be an arbitrary, capricious tyrant. As such it has no legitimate claim on our lives.
A personal system of values is above the values that we are taught. Progress is achieved by progressively improving oneself.
One can always find new ways to achieve progress.
Those who are subtle cultivate a tight inner circle. They relate to and give themselves only to a few. One ought to recognize their human limits and focus on those who are most important.
Countless millions of dollars go into charity and yet world hunger is rampant: food aid only worsens the situation by spurring additional unsustainable population growth.

Athletes are those who have seamlessly integrated with their social surroundings from their earliest years. For many of them, outstanding coordination and athletic skills combined with excellent social skills have catapulted them to the heights of the orthodoxy.
Having fit in by their very nature, it seems as though society is all encompassing with a place for everyone. Those few who have difficulties just need to put in a little more effort and ‘get out more.’ The legitimacy of their society is taken for granted by virtue of its mass acceptance and their personal success within it.
To make one’s own values is a destructive departure from the group. Progress is achieved by improving the prestige of the team to which one belongs.
Progress has a tangible goal. Progress ends at the top of the pyramid whether one is trying to win the state championship or become the CEO. Outside of established structures, there is only the Void.
They sincerely believe the best way of ‘making the world a better place’ is cleaning up trash from the roadside on Sunday afternoons and giving money to monolithic charity organizations.
World hunger would disappear overnight if only more people engaged in such ’service projects.’

Sports culture is a manifestation and promotion of Loud values. Those who excel in the world of sports naturally tend to be Loud people.
Thus one who ‘doesn’t follow sports’ can never quite an insider among those who stand within the orthodoxy.
As a celebration of all that is social and socially accepted, the world of sports is at best an obstacle and at worst a menace in the life of a true introvert.

Why A True Introvert Will Never Change

Introverts have wished many, many times that we could be more extroverted, that life in society could be just a little easier. We tell ourselves again and again that we ought to ‘get out more’. Many of the books and websites about introversion are about how not to be introverted. As an expression of human desire, the market readily tells us that being an introvert is a difficult place to be. Most introverts want out. Or at least we think we do.

When decision time arrives we always stick to what we were doing before. At some point we have to face the fact that ‘getting out more’ means spending time in a noisy environment with people who look down on us as inferiors. When the time comes to suck it up and shed our personality for a new one that will make life easy we never move forward. The fact is that true introverts are kidding themselves when it comes to changing.

What always stops us if we really look inside ourselves is that we don’t really want to change, not even if we could.

Yes we would like to be accepted like an extrovert, yes we would like to make life easier. We’ve all daydreamed about it, but then, when we arrive at the decision point, reality strikes. We suddenly realize that to even attempt to change, we would have to sacrifice everything that we like and value about ourselves. Such a moment forces us to realize that in part we have chosen to be as we are in spite of the difficulties. When it comes time to reject ourselves, we discover that it is and always will be worth the sacrifice required to be the selves we most admire

It’s hard to survive as an introvert. It is considerably harder to put food on the table, secure shelter, meet all the basic needs. Hardest of all is securing human companionship. Life is often loneliness. Surely it would seem, we must change ourselves for the sake of survival. We all must put on a semblance of being someone else in order to make it, but it never seems to go beyond a skin deep conscious effort. We merely compartmentalize the self we love and keep it safely, completely separate from our mask. Our very deepest desires strive to ensure that our pretend identity never taints our true one. We insist on holding tightly to our introverted ways even when survival is on the line.

Are we stubborn and irrational then?
One reader of this blog wrote to me about how he felt after spending some time out with his friends:

“I have to sit down now and find myself again as
I feel I almost lose touch of where I am.”

When introverts spend too much time matching the expectations of another environment, we start to feel a sense of disconnection from ourselves. We stand contrary to all the forces and currents that surround us, sacrificing much and risking everything. Ultimately, we are willing to compromise survival to be connected with our best self. No amount of material benefit or power can compensate for losing the supreme power–

The power of determining who is to be our inseparable companion,
The self we must live with every second of our lives,
The self that colors our perception of all the world around us.

We cannot not truly desire to change even were we faced with death, because when it comes to the decision point, we realize that losing ourselves is merely death by another name.

The Myth of Introvert Weakness

Weak, shy, sheltered, spineless, head in the clouds, detached from ‘reality’

These are the things extroverts tend to assume about someone who does not immediately compete for attention. All such a person knows is the attention game. Anyone not playing is of course just someone who can’t play it very well. The extrovert sees people who can’t quite make it sleeping on park benches and assume they’ve encountered the same phenomenon when they meet an introvert. If they can be bothered to notice, their response is a mixture of pity and disgust.

In their view:
-One who does not speak out loudly is weak
-One who does not automatically assume they are right about everything has no spine
-One who does not attend attention conventions(social events) is sheltered.
-One who puts priority on mastering their inner selves has their head in the clouds.
-One who looks to the way society could be and recognizes that change is constant is out of touch with ‘reality.’

What we have ultimately is a rather low and contemptible individual. What we also have is a misunderstood individual.

The true introvert is in fact very strong and far more stable than the extrovert:

-There is no need to compete for validation from others by speaking loudly.
-There is the resourcefulness to consider what other views have to offer
-The ’sheltered’ introvert builds knowledge and skills while the ‘wordly’ extrovert fritters away countless hours in idle chitchat.
-One who masters their inner self is made strong against anything that comes from without.
-One who looks to future possibilities recognizes that the present ‘reality’ is fleeting.

Extroverts readily click with their society and swim in its substance without difficulty. It makes life a lot easier.
Life is a struggle for the introvert. A struggle just to survive even as we watch the socialites thriving. We learn early that life isn’t fair, that society is inherently unjust. We expect punishment before reward. To be left alone is usually the best that can be hoped for.
Extroverts tend to deftly blind themselves to injustice(‘that’s reality’) are rather sheltered compared to introverts. Since there is no life for them outside of social status, they will follow any instructions given them by their authority figures. From the introvert perspective this seems rather spineless! Without some measure of self definition and defiance, most introverts would have been crushed long ago.

The introvert regularly deals with challenges that the extrovert simply cannot imagine. Basic social survival can never be taken for granted, only alone or with a few friends can one’s guard be relaxed. Life under the shimmering surface of society is not for weaklings.

Introverts, Money, and Employment

What is money to an introvert?

For those in the main stream of society it defines every aspect of life.

For those who look inwards for meaning and exist outside of the larger society, it is just one part of life.

Money is a physical manifestation of social force, it is the lifeblood of society. A wad of cash is a solid chunk of aggregate human desire.

As such, one who is Subtle has an uneasy relationship with money. One receives money based on how much society desires what they have to offer. Money is a phenomenon that we can experience only in reference to a collective entity.
The dollar is a fiat currency based entirely on public confidence.
Thus the possession of wealth is in a way, a measure of popularity. It is a measure of how valuable each person is to everyone else.
To define oneself by money is thus to worship the desires of everyone else over one’s own desires. The old question goes “If you’re so smart, why aren’t you rich?”
This question is itself very revealing. The asker quite obviously perceives money to be the ultimate standard of validation and success. Clearly, it is implied, anyone with brains would put the acquisition of money before all else.

Those who look within are not likely to see the acquisition of wealth as the ultimate good, however. The importance of money for such people derives from a completely different purpose.

-One who is Loud strives for money as the supreme source of validation and social approval.

-On who is Subtle accumulates money to achieve independence from the whims of others.

Big houses and flashy cars are most important to those who let society define them. These possessions are tokens that flaunt society’s approval and esteem for all to see.

The true introvert is far more likely to see such things as superficial and a waste of time. The purpose of wealth is to obtain the ability to control one’s time, to pick and choose who one associates with, to be able to flaunt social conventions if desired. The principal use of money is not to increase one’s subordination to society but rather to sever one’s compulsory ties insofar as possible.

The hallmark of extroverted wealth is countless hours, even a lifetime spent accumulating as much money and as many tokens of social recognition as possible. Since society’s approval is the meaning of life, all hours are bent on obtaining it. One’s social relationships and self esteem are built upon it.
Without money such a person can hardly be considered to exist.
A fiat currency disappears the moment people stop believing in it. Likewise, those who have built their identity upon money are fiat people in a fiat society. The moment other people stop believing in their value, they will disappear.

To the introvert, money is meaningless if one sacrifices all their time and power while obtaining it. The purpose of money is to secure personal autonomy. I’ve found that a high proportion of extreme introverts have difficulty achieving steady employment. While most people are focused on simply ‘making a living’, one who is Subtle constantly strives to achieve the optimal balance between money and time.
Time is in fact more valuable than money. One can always make more money so long as one has time to make it. Time, however, is a non-renewable resource. We only have it in a discreet quantity that is steadily dwindling. True introverts, then, tend to cooperate with society insofar as is necessary to secure control over their time. In the hands of one who is Subtle, the very lifeblood of society is subverted into freedom from society.