Simply Me: The Final Chapter

...I am 42 years old. In 10 years, my youngest will be grown and I will be in my fifties. I have been married almost 25 years and in 25 more I will be 65 years old! Math is not my strong point, but the way I see it, I have wasted enough smucking time and am running out. I watched the sun go down tonight over the river from my deck, knowing that it is one of the last nights I will be able to see the river from my house this Spring because of everything bursting out green. This weekend is a full moon. What if there is no next Fall for me, how many river sunsets have I wasted, how many full moons have I missed while sitting in front of this screen? I pretty much start my day here and end my day here. This is where my child finds me in the morning and the last place he sees me when he goes to bed. I don't think there is enough time to waste on computers and movies anymore. If this is the only place we "meet" then we don't have a real relationship. (I am however very grateful for this computer that brings my dearest friends Mary and Jewls into my home daily from hundreds of miles away. Brilliant use of technology and as soon as Teleporting Machines are available and I can actually beam them here, I will be the first in line!) If you want to visit with me or hear my thoughts, come sit with me like my real friends do, stay for dinner and have a beer or we will go for a walk by the river or best of all, write me a letter. I am going to read more books, enjoy more cigarettes, drink more whiskey, go to church less (if that is even a mathematical possibility), eat more bacon, write my private thoughts in composition notebooks and most importantly never ever care again what anyone's opinion of me is or how they might respond. (I bet your fingers are just itching to leave a comment) My friends already know me, know what I really believe about God, church, politics and this smucking war. My opinions are now private and my thoughts are my own, they won't be posted. The computer is moving to a far off corner and I am finished with the television. I am not going to waste anymore of my time with people I don't want to be with doing things I have no desire to do. I will be down at the river sitting by a fire or walking in the mountains.
I watched a wildlife presentation recently and got to touch a hedgehog. She was created to roll herself up in a tight little ball, to hide her face and make herself prickly. Predators who want to chew her up and destroy her bat her around for awhile, try to bite down, find it unpleasant and then finally give up and leave. If God gave creatures the ability to hide for protection and survival I am sure He doesn't mind when we have to do the same. My beliefs are not up for scrutiny and judgement. They are my own.. Luna says I was born in the wrong century. If I have to become prickly on occasion to survive, then so be it.
This is one woman who has no intention of becoming another techno casualty.

So what about my blog, 'Simply Me'?...I have decided the blogosphere is simply not for me. I have a simply marvelous idea. A simple solution! How about instead of spending hours of my life simply sitting in front of a lifesucking screen & using immeasurable amounts of my mental energy, I simply stop. I will simply unplug this contraption & move it to an out of the way corner & no longer start & end my day sitting in front of this blasted thing. Sounds simple to me! Since I am a simple, private person, I go back to my preferred mode of writing which is composition notebooks. No thought about which font or who might be dispensing judgement. Simple paper & pen. Blogging is simply not for me. I find it simply draining. I will get rid of all the mental clutter & not place myself under a magnifying glass. Live & let live. Blogs are great, just not for me. To each his own. How about I simply go back to being the loner I am by nature, curl up with my cats & dogs who are my trustworthy friends & write? That sounds like a SIMPLY fabulous idea. Less technology, fewer wasted hours. What a simple solution. I simply astonish myself sometimes. The lady simply vanishes. And now, I will simply, Go Away.

~Thank you for all the kind comments and for all the support and encouragement. It is downright addictive. All of you have been great and have brought me a lot of joy & confidence. This blog & your feedback has really helped me get to a place I have been trying to get to for a very long time. It has also brought many good memories to the surface and has reminded me who I am & where I come from. It has been very therapeutic & a lot of fun. Thanks for reading. (curls up into a prickly ball & hides face)

The Atlantic Monthly | March 2003

DO YOU KNOW someone who needs hours alone every day? Who loves quiet conversations about feelings or ideas, and can give a dynamite presentation to a big audience, but seems awkward in groups and maladroit at small talk? Who has to be dragged to parties and then needs the rest of the day to recuperate? Who growls or scowls or grunts or winces when accosted with pleasantries by people who are just trying to be nice?

If so, do you tell this person he is "too serious," or ask if he is okay? Regard him as aloof, arrogant, rude? Redouble your efforts to draw him out?

If you answered yes to these questions, chances are that you have an introvert on your hands—and that you aren't caring for him properly. Science has learned a good deal in recent years about the habits and requirements of introverts. It has even learned, by means of brain scans, that introverts process information differently from other people (I am not making this up). If you are behind the curve on this important matter, be reassured that you are not alone. Introverts may be common, but they are also among the most misunderstood and aggrieved groups in America, possibly the world.

I know. My name is Jonathan, and I am an introvert.

Oh, for years I denied it. After all, I have good social skills. I am not morose or misanthropic. Usually. I am far from shy. I love long conversations that explore intimate thoughts or passionate interests. But at last I have self-identified and come out to my friends and colleagues. In doing so, I have found myself liberated from any number of damaging misconceptions and stereotypes. Now I am here to tell you what you need to know in order to respond sensitively and supportively to your own introverted family members, friends, and colleagues. Remember, someone you know, respect, and interact with every day is an introvert, and you are probably driving this person nuts. It pays to learn the warning signs.

What is introversion? In its modern sense, the concept goes back to the 1920s and the psychologist Carl Jung. Today it is a mainstay of personality tests, including the widely used Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. Introverts are not necessarily shy. Shy people are anxious or frightened or self-excoriating in social settings; introverts generally are not. Introverts are also not misanthropic, though some of us do go along with Sartre as far as to say "Hell is other people at breakfast." Rather, introverts are people who find other people tiring.

Extroverts are energized by people, and wilt or fade when alone. They often seem bored by themselves, in both senses of the expression. Leave an extrovert alone for two minutes and he will reach for his cell phone. In contrast, after an hour or two of being socially "on," we introverts need to turn off and recharge. My own formula is roughly two hours alone for every hour of socializing. This isn't antisocial. It isn't a sign of depression. It does not call for medication. For introverts, to be alone with our thoughts is as restorative as sleeping, as nourishing as eating. Our motto: "I'm okay, you're okay—in small doses."

How many people are introverts? I performed exhaustive research on this question, in the form of a quick Google search. The answer: About 25 percent. Or: Just under half. Or—my favorite—"a minority in the regular population but a majority in the gifted population."

Are introverts misunderstood? Wildly. That, it appears, is our lot in life. "It is very difficult for an extrovert to understand an introvert," write the education experts Jill D. Burruss and Lisa Kaenzig. (They are also the source of the quotation in the previous paragraph.) Extroverts are easy for introverts to understand, because extroverts spend so much of their time working out who they are in voluble, and frequently inescapable, interaction with other people. They are as inscrutable as puppy dogs. But the street does not run both ways. Extroverts have little or no grasp of introversion. They assume that company, especially their own, is always welcome. They cannot imagine why someone would need to be alone; indeed, they often take umbrage at the suggestion. As often as I have tried to explain the matter to extroverts, I have never sensed that any of them really understood. They listen for a moment and then go back to barking and yipping.

Are introverts oppressed? I would have to say so. For one thing, extroverts are overrepresented in politics, a profession in which only the garrulous are really comfortable. Look at George W. Bush. Look at Bill Clinton. They seem to come fully to life only around other people. To think of the few introverts who did rise to the top in politics—Calvin Coolidge, Richard Nixon—is merely to drive home the point. With the possible exception of Ronald Reagan, whose fabled aloofness and privateness were probably signs of a deep introverted streak (many actors, I've read, are introverts, and many introverts, when socializing, feel like actors), introverts are not considered "naturals" in politics.

Extroverts therefore dominate public life. This is a pity. If we introverts ran the world, it would no doubt be a calmer, saner, more peaceful sort of place. As Coolidge is supposed to have said, "Don't you know that four fifths of all our troubles in this life would disappear if we would just sit down and keep still?" (He is also supposed to have said, "If you don't say anything, you won't be called on to repeat it." The only thing a true introvert dislikes more than talking about himself is repeating himself.)

With their endless appetite for talk and attention, extroverts also dominate social life, so they tend to set expectations. In our extrovertist society, being outgoing is considered normal and therefore desirable, a mark of happiness, confidence, leadership. Extroverts are seen as bighearted, vibrant, warm, empathic. "People person" is a compliment. Introverts are described with words like "guarded," "loner," "reserved," "taciturn," "self-contained," "private"—narrow, ungenerous words, words that suggest emotional parsimony and smallness of personality. Female introverts, I suspect, must suffer especially. In certain circles, particularly in the Midwest, a man can still sometimes get away with being what they used to call a strong and silent type; introverted women, lacking that alternative, are even more likely than men to be perceived as timid, withdrawn, haughty.

Are introverts arrogant? Hardly. I suppose this common misconception has to do with our being more intelligent, more reflective, more independent, more level-headed, more refined, and more sensitive than extroverts. Also, it is probably due to our lack of small talk, a lack that extroverts often mistake for disdain. We tend to think before talking, whereas extroverts tend to think by talking, which is why their meetings never last less than six hours. "Introverts," writes a perceptive fellow named Thomas P. Crouser, in an online review of a recent book called Why Should Extroverts Make All the Money? (I'm not making that up, either), "are driven to distraction by the semi-internal dialogue extroverts tend to conduct. Introverts don't outwardly complain, instead roll their eyes and silently curse the darkness." Just so.

The worst of it is that extroverts have no idea of the torment they put us through. Sometimes, as we gasp for air amid the fog of their 98-percent-content-free talk, we wonder if extroverts even bother to listen to themselves. Still, we endure stoically, because the etiquette books—written, no doubt, by extroverts—regard declining to banter as rude and gaps in conversation as awkward. We can only dream that someday, when our condition is more widely understood, when perhaps an Introverts' Rights movement has blossomed and borne fruit, it will not be impolite to say "I'm an introvert. You are a wonderful person and I like you. But now please shush."

How can I let the introvert in my life know that I support him and respect his choice? First, recognize that it's not a choice. It's not a lifestyle. It's an orientation.

Second, when you see an introvert lost in thought, don't say "What's the matter?" or "Are you all right?"

Third, don't say anything else, either.

Simply Me

Monday, April 21, 2008

The Final Chapter

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