Neurodiversity » Zygmunt

Tolkien the Introvert

Zygmunt — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 06:00:15 +0000

J.R.R. Tolkien was the sort of man who tended to stick close to an adored few friends and family. He was an academic who spoke awkwardly and had an uncharismatic presence. He loved obscure subjects that no one else cared about. Yet within himself he developed a whole world that no competitive, self-promoting socialite could ever think to imagine.

Indeed, his project was not tailored to meet popular demand. It was written first for family, friends, and most of all, for his own satisfaction.
From these insular motives comes a great deal of its power.
There is something haphazard and unpolished about Tolkien’s storytelling. His pace is slow, the direction of his plot imprecise and shifting. It’s always given me the feeling that I’m sitting with him by a fireplace and he’s prodigiously making it up or recalling it from memory right there on the spot.
Tolkien had a natural grasp of the Subtle way of thought. He understood the charm of imperfection. As a result he sounds more like a storyteller, less like an author.
The details we learn aren’t necessarily relevant to the plot. A lot of that stuff is just for fun. You have to understand that playful impulse, that curiosity and creativity for its own sake to enjoy the story to its fullest.

Tolkien never intended to single handedly resurrect the mythological paradigm in Western society, but his stories obviously spoke to a deep human need
Tolkien understood viscerally that no society could be grounded without legend and mythology—narratives that establish a meaningful continuity that extends far into the past and which will extend into the future. A continuity that invites us to be a part of something greater than our own fleeting lifespans.
Tolkien was a true introvert and his mythology tells us something of a sense of isolation and alienation in a rapidly changing world.

When one encounters interpretations of the Lord of the Rings, the first thing people always seem to look for is allegorical references to the World Wars.
To do so is to fundamentally misunderstand the man was about.

Though Tolkien writes epic stories about great nations, the geo-politics of our world were never his overriding concern.
He was there in the trenches during WWI and lived through WWII, yet he never wrote obsessively about futility and disenchantment as did so many other writers from his ‘lost generation.’ Nor did he seem to perceive the opponents of his nation as evil forces out of some sense of nationalistic zeal.

Many of us who are familiar with Tolkien’s stories dismiss most of the real world allegorical interpretations, seeing instead reflections on the nature of good and evil. After all, the ethical questions posed by Gyges’ invisibility ring have been around since ancient Greece:
If a man named Gyges finds a magic ring that makes him invisible and unaccountable for his actions, would he still be moral?
Should he still be moral?
The Ancient Greeks believed that Gyges should resist his desire for power. Though external laws and punishments do not apply to him, the real danger is being reduced to a warped animal state:
Gyges need not fear going to jail, but by casting away restraint, he becomes prisoner to an ever growing addiction to power.
In the Lord of the Rings, there is a contrast between the Bagginses and Gollum, Sam and Boromir when faced with the temptation of the ring. The corrupting influence of power is clearly a theme, but it is not the theme that rules them all.

Tolkien’s works, though generally upbeat, have an elegiac message constantly hinted at: the old world with its legends, tradition, and magic is dying…

In this old world, with all its epic events, it is often a Hobbit, someone small, reluctant, and shy who has the formidable inner strength to save the day.

In the Hobbit homeland, the Shire we see an idealized representation of traditional village life, sheltered from events that shake the rest of the world.
The Hobbits work hard and grow their own food, but there is no rush or sense of toil.
There are no strangers in the Shire. All the families are known to one another, as are their reputations.

In the new world, our ‘age of men,’ traditional culture is dying out. It would seem there is no longer a place for these little people. Tolkien tells us those few who survive will be forced into hiding.
It’s a world where you have to compete to survive amidst a faceless crowd.
A world in which even friendships are contingent upon social status and money.
A fast-paced world in which no one has time for second breakfast.

It is not the clash of nations or moral quandary that seems to preoccupy Tolkien, but deep changes within society itself:

-The elves, the epitome of ancient virtues are forced to leave the continent by the oncoming forces of change. They embody a sense of mystery and reverence that cannot exist in a world where everything is explained away as mundane phenomena, where predictability and repetition are the aims of most endeavors.

-The ents are losing a bit more of their vitality with every passing year. Eventually they will all be ordinary sedentary trees. Their abhorrence for the cutting of trees and of machines echoes Tolkien’s personal disapproval of industrialized mass culture.

-The dwarves, stubborn, honorable, followers of principle live in a post-apocalyptic world, their underground cities overrun and in ruins. The new world won’t need their craftsmanship. Their skills will be replaced with machines. They too are doomed to fade away and be forgotten.

Humans alone are to be the future but they are fickle and perhaps prone to evil without the wisdom of the ancient races to guide them.

In the Orcs, we see a polar opposite of Tolkien’s values, a deliberate perversion and antithesis of the elves. In their race we can see his worst fears come true.

Most often, the Orcs are depicted as a screaming, faceless mass-produced mass(it is implied they might be manufactured rather than born). They move and act only as groups. They have little sense of individual agency or self. Beyond instant gain and self-promotion, they have no personal initiative. There are no Orc heroes. Their leaders rule by pure coercion. Bonds of honor and loyalty are absent. At all levels of the Orc hierarchy, there is constant, fierce competition, even for trivial scraps. Their whole society is mechanical by nature. Their armies move inexorably and in great numbers but with no sense of spirit, driving values, or purpose.
Ultimately, they’re all just obeying the will of the big boss and would be unable to act decisively without him. In every way, their society, to the extent it can be called a society is held together only through the exercise of naked power.
Furthermore, Orcs in true contrast to elves have no concept of beauty, sanctity, reverence, or mystery. Their world view is literal, pragmatic, joyless, relentless. They are devoid of creativity and imagination.

This Orcish culture tells us something of how Tolkien perceived our emerging new world. A world in which everything that made life worth living was under attack and an Orcish sort of life and world view becoming predominant.

His fantasy universe was not so much a direct allegory as it was a personal reaction to social change. Tolkien was stubborn. A devout catholic, he persisted in using Latin at mass even as everyone else switched to English.
In his personal world, he persisted with the conventions of ancient Anglo-Saxon, Germanic, Scandinavian, and Celtic legends.
Middle Earth would seem in part to have been his personal defense, his stand against the overwhelming forces of modernity.
Indeed, Tolkien tells again and again the story of a few brave individuals in seemingly hopeless opposition to insurmountably numerous and powerful enemy forces.
Dying out and coming under overwhelming assault from all sides is a pervasive theme of Tolkien’s mythology.

As an introvert perpetually at odds with the mass society, Tolkien’s besieged defender mentality speaks deeply to me. Especially powerful for me is Tolkien’s conviction that the outwardly modest but inwardly strong amongst us can prevail against a monolithic mass no matter the odds. Tolkien is one of my heroes.
He may have been one of the last hobbits who could dare live out in the open. He had the good fortune to make his way into the relatively tolerant environment of the university. Without his job as an academic, it’s hard to imagine that Tolkien would ever have had the opportunity to pursue his eclectic interests.
He probably would have been crushed as others like him no doubt were(and are).

When I first read The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings as a kid, it was just a great story, but even then when I wasn’t worried in the least about analyzing, I somehow felt Mr. Tolkien was on my side.
Now, I look to Lord of the Rings as a protest against an increasingly Loud society.
It is a project that openly defies the collective reality through the creation of a new world with new languages and societies. Everything about it, the world building, the con-langing, the plot tangents, the archaic tone, the emphasis on inner integrity over outer attributes, the lack of calculated mass appeal and shameless scraping to get to the top – it has all the ingredients for being deemed “a waste of time” or “self-indulgent” according to the conventional social understanding. Indeed, Tolkien’s works are more heretical than ever in an age defined by zero-sum popularity contests.

Zygmunt blogs at Kingdom of Introversion (and elsewhere).

Tolkien the Introvert appears here by permission.

[image via Flickr/Creative Commons]

Introverts and Night Clubs

Zygmunt — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 06:00:23 +0000

Night clubs embody a mentality that is inimical to my own. That is exactly why I have been drawn to them on occasion.

To grow we all need challenges and changes. Putting oneself in an unfamiliar insecure place is a good way of doing so.

I hate all the latest pop music and dislike dancing to it even more, yet I would get myself out on the dance floor and experiment.

Strangely, I find there is a place for night clubs in the life of an introvert.
Night clubs are full of crowds so it’s like an arena full of bumper cars at an amusement park.
No matter how much you screw up, there’s no real consequences.
Short of threatening or physically assaulting someone, you can try what you like and see what happens.
You’ll make a fool of yourself again and again, but you’re a stranger. You’ll never again see all those other people.
You can keep trying and trying until you’re up to speed with everyone else.
At a night club, an introvert has that great ally of anonymity on their side.
Really, it’s not so different from posting articles online under silly pseudonyms such as “Gluon the Ferengi.”

You don’t even have to make a whole lot of conversation, the music is so damn loud most of the time that no one can really say anything except by shouting at the top of their lungs into each other’s ears. It really is reduced to raw chemistry.

For introverts who are behind in social development, bars and nightclubs can be a lifesaver. They are a place to remedy HID(Human Interaction Deficiency); it’s easy to satisfy the craving for physical contact with others. They are laboratories for scientific experiments in human social behavior.

Indeed, there’s no better place to take a starry-eyed romantic than a night club. In a night club, the reproductive market is laid bare. About 10% of men get most of the female attention. The rest of men struggle tooth and claw for the crumbs left over from the feast. Women get in free; men pay a cover charge. The currents of supply and demand reign supreme.
The lesson:
Women are valuable, the perpetuators of the species. Each is a bottleneck determining the potential for growth of the human population.
Men are cannon fodder, plain and simple. One man left alive after a slaughter can fertilize thousands of women.
But the top few men are the most valued humans of all.

Now, I have said before that I don’t consider myself to be one of the pickup artists. Their cynical, nihilistic ideas are a moral and intellectual dead end.
I don’t like the whole zero sum mentality of night clubs, but they do reveal our underlying instinctual drives and the social trends that must inevitably result.

If you observe one night in a night club you will understand why it is men who go to war and not women.
All those traditions that were simply handed down to us are suddenly explained.

Pickup artists embrace the nightclub mentality. As for me, going to clubs is a way of getting to know the enemy: ourselves.

If a Subtle person is to turn away from the surface world, they should first know what they turn from and why.
In night clubs, one can find the very quintessence of the Surface world. Everything you need to know to make a decision can be found there.

Ultimately I find:
The surface world has many privileges and pleasures, but is weak when it comes to meaning, purpose, and fulfillment.

Fulfillment is the greater good to me, even if happiness were the price. For the word ‘happiness’ in our modern language is just another of the pleasures.

Zygmunt blogs at Kingdom of Introversion (and elsewhere).

Introverts and Night Clubs appears here by permission.

[image via Flickr/Creative Commons]

Beyond Introvert Survival: Finding Allies in an Extroverted Society

Zygmunt — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 06:00:59 +0000

For many introverts who find themselves isolated, the advice they receive seems reasonable enough: “Get out more. Meet some people.”

Yet in practice it never seems to work. One ends up exhausted and without having made any real friends. One might continue this routine out of a certain need to be passable within society, but this doesn’t change the fact there continues to be little change.

Eventually, one, might arrive at a certain truth: time spent surrounded by people is no solution to the basic problems of the introvert. Without a genuine sense of commonality, group belonging is in vain.

If the introverted person doesn’t want to completely resign themselves to a hermit-like life or continue hanging with company that does more harm than good, what are they to do?

There is a key error in the typical advice: “Get out. Meet some people.” Get where? Meet who? Most people answer these questions without really having to think about it. Their instinct guides them where they need to go.

For the more difficult introvert situation it becomes important to perform some of these functions manually.

An extrovert advisor might not realize it but ‘some people’ isn’t just any people. In most cases, the extrovert ‘some people’ = the type of people they like to hang out with. They do not realize that an introvert has different needs.

Introverts, being lost already, tend to take their extrovert buddy’s advice literally. They go out and make themselves participate some place where they don’t belong.

Who then is ‘some people?’ One has to find new groups that will bring them closer to the answer.

Instead of trying to subordinate yourself to the common standard, ask yourself: “Where would people who don’t like the common standard go?”

In general, atypical persons are going to group around places, hobbies, activities viewed as atypical according to the common standard. If one examines the extremes of acceptability, the chances of meeting compatible persons rises from near zero to somewhat probable.

Relying on sample size over sample quality is the big mistake introverts make when looking for social belonging. Looking in the right place once will accomplish more than looking in a thousand random places.

The Surface society has manifold ways of weeding people out and sorting people into various categories. An introvert can observe the techniques the larger society uses to eliminate people and then apply them in their own personal life.

The right place isn’t necessarily easy to find or access. This is because the right place by its nature weeds out individuals who are In Tune. The right place has some kind of barrier that prevents most people from accessing it. Insufficient socio-economic incentives? Impossible if one has lots of commitments to the larger society? Is it a category that makes participants socially undesirable, thus only those who are truly Out of Tune would ever want to do it? Does it require a sacrifice or leap of faith a well grounded person would never make?

You know you’re on the right path when you’re meeting a lot of these conditions. And truly passing from the surface realm into the Void underneath it often requires a certain action of sacrifice, severance, and renunciation. Those who remain are the few who were able to perform that act and pass through that trial. These people are highly likely to be viable colleagues. They are the distillate from a seething mass of millions.

If one understands how to follow a process of rigorous social distillation, isolating any sort of person with any sort of proclivity becomes possible.

Moving towards extremes is one way to practice social distillation, but it’s precisely tough hurdles that make it work.

There are easier ways…

One way is finding simple unobtrusive ways of ‘pinging’ groups for compatible persons. An easy way to do this is to simply make subtle in-references to things only the right sort of person would understand. In my experience, nonsensical speech barely registers on most people’s senses. If the ‘ping’ fails there’s not really any consequences. The occasion that it works can be life changing. I met one of my best friends by asking jokingly if he was related to an obscure historical figure sharing his surname. He got it!

We pass our colleagues in crowded places every day. We just lack means of knowing one another. Surface groups usually know one another by a certain fixed style of dress, music. The introverts who feel mostly like hiding also succeed in hiding from one another. This is a paradoxical problem that every isolated introvert faces…

In Korea, the number of U.S. troops is greater than the country’s largest ethnic minority ( about 40,000 Chinese.) The rest are some thousands of guest workers from all over the world.

I lived in Korea for a short time and non-Koreans were highly conspicuous, Japanese tourists most of all. When you’re in a crowd that’s 99.9% locals, anyone that’s phenotypically or behaviorally variant is instantly visible amongst thousands of people. It was not uncommon to run into people I knew even though Seoul is a city of 12 million people. A distinguishing trait is clearly an extremely efficient method of social filtering. A clear difference from everyone else can allow one to completely rewrite the odds.

Yet true introverts are not about to all adopt purple Mohawks in order to stand out. Exposure results in vulnerability after all and this is what we all want to avoid. How is one to proceed? I think the subtle social pinging approach is on the right track.

An idea that’s occurred to me:

Make a custom shirt on a site like cafepress that makes a reference to something obscure or atypical. I would make it in such a way that it would seem normal enough to the casual observer, yet would serve as an ostentatious beacon for the right pair of eyes.

If one was creative, there’s probably many possible Subtle ways to advertise oneself. But we don’t search for these ideas because most of us are stuck in a typical ethic for finding the right people to associate with.

Recognizing the underlying meaning of well-intended extrovert advice is a necessary first step before one is free to construct one’s own ethic of human association. For true introverts, the establishment of such an ethic is tantamount to a declaration of independence from the Surface world. An alternative to social life on the Surface is a ticket out of the directionless, unspoken, heavy sense of disenchantment that seems such a dominant feature of an introverted life.

Zygmunt blogs at Kingdom of Introversion (and elsewhere).

Beyond Introvert Survival: Finding Allies in an Extroverted Society appears here by permission.

related: Best Possible Persons

related: Introvert Hobbies

Introvert vs. Extrovert: Restaurants

Zygmunt — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 06:00:10 +0000

I found the ideal sort of introverted restaurant in England. It’s a dying breed of restaurant except perhaps in the countryside where only 20% of the country’s population lives. It’s another Britain really, as foreign to the rest of the country as is the Continent. This sort of restaurant is called a pub.

Every small town has at least one. Often, the building was originally an old stagecoach inn that serves up the same sort food it would have 300 years ago. Upon entering, it’s clear the average person used to be shorter. A modern person of average height stands just a few inches below the ceiling. It’s like entering a comfy hobbit hole. The stone walls are often clearly the uneven type thrown together by hand. Usually, there is a crackling fire on the hearth.

Pubs are typically quiet places. They are meeting places for the locals. Not just rowdy men or young people but entire families. On slow Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays there’s usually a quiz night or some other special occasion to attract patrons.

There was a feature of pubs that at first absolutely stunned an American like me:

You have to go up to the front and order food yourself when you’re ready. If you just sit there, no waiter will come to pester you.

Once you’ve gotten your food and drink no one pressures you into asking for the check and getting the hell out of there. In fact, it’s routine for people to stick around talking for a long while even after they’re done sipping at their beers. No pressure, complete relaxation.

And the beer: It’s primarily what’s called ‘real ale’ in Britain. It’s dark, bitter, thick, and foamy. It’s liquid bread that would fill you up before you could ever get very drunk off of it. It’s often served only as cool as a cool cellar. It makes one tranquil, warm, and drowsy on a rainy winter day when the sun goes down by 4 PM.

The menu at a pub rarely has more than half a dozen different entrees. Choosing a meal is always quick and simple. After having a steaming, piping hot steak and ale pie one might wonder why British food has such a horrible reputation. Culinarily, the British are the masters of desserts served hot. In the cold and clammy climate of the UK there’s no delight greater than a freshly prepared berry tart or treacle sponge drenched in lots of hot custard.

This pub experience was all an immense departure from the norms of my home country and from the majority urban UK.

The typical American restaurant is a corporate chain in a rush to make quick profits. Customers are rushed to tables and are pressured to make decisions within a few minutes of sitting down. “Do you need another minute?” the waiters ask with nervous sweat visibly beading on their brow. I often wonder if they’d be in fear of getting fired by their manager if I told them “No, I’m going to sit and chat with my friends half an hour over an ale before actually ordering any food.”

Actually, it’s not uncommon for a typical American waiter to turn nasty if they think you’ve taken too long. They adopt a petulant sneer and start pretending you don’t exist once you’ve figured out what to order at your leisure.

An American restaurant is not so different from a night club! The noise level is usually astonishingly high with hordes of people crammed in close proximity. Customers are brought in and out of the establishment on a conveyor belt. Time is money! One can observe a freshly abandoned table wiped down and reset within a few seconds by frantic workers. Such a scene resembles a pit crew changing tires on a race car.

Who would ever want to sit down and have a meal in such horrid adrenaline drenched atmosphere? Clearly, though this place must have a strong appeal to most customers.

What could this appeal possibly be?

Anyone who’s worked in restaurants, retail, or hospitality already probably has some idea of the answer. It becomes clear that certain customers get a rise out of an environment teeming with stressed out underlings at their beck and call. An ugly truth about many people: feeling powerless in their everyday lives, they love nothing better than a clerk or waiter to lick their feet and massage their perpetually bleeding egos.

I often have trouble getting any relevant information about a restaurant when I look up online reviews. More than half the time, people have little to say about the food but instead obsess endlessly about how their waiter was five minutes late with their drinks.

No matter what one’s rank in America, one can always go to a restaurant and have an attractive, well-dressed young person grovel and make silly insincere recommendations about a menu they’ve never actually been able to try out for themselves. I strongly suspect this pre-packaged subservience plays a role in how people justify paying the substantial bill of eating out.

Unfortunately, the introvert, though harboring as many frustrations as anyone else, has little desire for this rent-a-sycophant system. No sooner has a menu been opened than a staff member descends like a gadfly, making obsequious sales pitches and asking for a decision with desperation that’s thinly masked by a grin. The hurry, the noise, the sheer ugliness and venal nature of the entire outfit! Few places could seem more unappealing to an inward oriented person. There’s no possible way to communicate to that waiter to do away with all the hurry and pretense. Even if the waiter could be made to understand, they would be compelled to stick to form by the expectations of their boss. There’s little to do but to focus on the positive aspects of the meal, still knowing well that the experience could easily be immeasurably better.

The Loud person never seems to understand that the human body is not just a machine. We do not fill ourselves with food as a car is filled with fuel. The circumstances in which we sit down to eat, who we sit down to eat with are just as important to our nourishment as any physical quality of the food itself. To be relaxed at the table is to be a free person. To be stressed and hurried even at the dinner table is to live as the most abject of slaves…

Where socialites take over, social institutions that might support Subtle people die out. Restaurants, like so many other aspects of life, have become little more than a reflection of the sheer desperate ambition of a Loud majority.

Zygmunt blogs at Kingdom of Introversion (and elsewhere).

Introvert vs. Extrovert: Restaurants appears here by permission.

[image via Flickr/Creative Commons]

The Misery of “Happy” People

Zygmunt — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 13:00:16 +0000

Surely a culture where everyone must smile must be a happy culture? Surely a merry holiday must be the happiest time of year? Surely a stunning model makes everyone feel good about themselves.

Alas, that’s not how people really think. Attractive models make people feel horrible about themselves. Holidays are ground zero for depression and social pressure. A culture in which one is disparaged for not smiling is a pressure cooker.

Ironically, all these ‘happy’ things don’t make people happy. Of course no one could publicly admit this without being subject to social censure, so these dreary processes drag on unchallenged, each person a prisoner to the uncompromising mass crowd of their ‘peers’, a faceless multitude with whom in reality they share nothing in common.

In our present modern society false public happiness is exalted into an art form. Never mind that so and so idol died from an overdose of sleeping pills just like all the rest. What matters is the brilliant smile they had in all those pictures on posters, in films, in magazines. In old Aztec times, priests would sometimes wear the flayed skin of their sacrifices. Too often, the very fame that ‘everyone’ craves is just such an Aztec priest, wearing their skin while they languish, exposed and bleeding. Too often, the actual person dies without even ownership of their skin. That bloody priest of fame keeps his garment. Nothing fuels fame and sales like self-inflicted ‘martyrdom’.

When I ask people about favorite holidays anymore, everyone above the age of 10, myself included usually says ‘Thanksgiving.’ Maybe 4^th of July or St. Patty’s day for some. Everything else, the dreaded death of X-mas, birthdays, and especially anniversaries and Valentine’s Day is a horrific minefield. The slightest misstep results in a social explosion. Making it through holidays requires nothing less than a steady hand at disarming bombs.

What do the few holidays people still actually look forward to have in common? They’re still simple holidays that take place mostly in the home with family and friends, revolving mostly around traditional foods and company. There is a minimum of social expectations, demonstrations of loyalty, and pressure to perform.

This is precisely why an introvert secretly cringes when asked “Why don’t you smile?” “Why are you so gloomy?”

As with the nastier holidays, the good will is simulated, the joy forced and false, money and status the bottom line.

For all one knows, the only way the smile police keep smiling is by popping pills prescribed by their friendly neighborhood psychiatrist.

Indeed, if the statistics are any indicator, the present competitive society is so pointless and miserable, legal neuro-active big-pharma drugs are the only way people keep up without wanting to kill themselves.

Consider the ubiquitous candy jar. It usually sits in an office space or cubicle with the usual pictures of family and strong hints of hobbies and a life outside of work. We go into this office for some sort of task or processing, the one time we’ll ever be there. Whether it’s an office building or a local bank, we wonder, “Is the candy in that candy jar really meant to be taken?” We hesitate and then restrain ourselves. The candy jar remains perpetually full. In nearly everyone, some deep seated intuition, ancient as human society itself tells us when giving and hospitality is real and when it is just a façade of generosity. We know when taking from another is okay and when an offer isn’t really meant in good faith but only made for the sake of appearances.

It is exactly this sort of false giving and generosity one experiences when cheerfully ‘asked’ to smile. The ‘asker’ may not realize it themselves, but they are not issuing a request but a warning. They are signaling to the introvert that their member status in the group is in danger if they fail to compete for favor more intensely. In the sycophantic setting of a royal court, those who fail to ingratiate themselves are cast aside and crushed underfoot.

Loud people seem to find the subservient smile of an underling pleasing. To Subtle folk, such an expression is unnerving, clearly akin to the snarling of a cornered animal. Yet until there is a fundamental change in the structures of power, we shall all have to wear perpetual slavish smiles as if we all had the soulless painted features of marionettes.

Zygmunt blogs at Kingdom of Introversion (and elsewhere).

The Misery of “Happy” People appears here by permission.

[image via Flickr/Creative Commons]

Introvert Survival: Diaries

Zygmunt — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 06:00:52 +0000

When we think of diaries the first image that comes to mind is the popular image. A slim volume with lots of pink hearts all over the cover. It might have a little toy lock on it so that its contents might be absolutely private. Most of us probably know the common irony of these teenage diaries as seen on movies and TV. Under lock and key, guarded like treasures are the most mundane and unremarkable of thoughts. The whole joke is that having ‘secret’ writings is just another ploy for attention with little real content underneath.

Clearly such a diary is just a toy for overgrown, self-indulgent children…

I began keeping a diary around the age of 17. I have kept it going continuously for several years to the present day.

Keeping a diary is an enormous asset to an introvert on the edge of survival. When there’s no one to talk to, the blank page always lends an impartial ear. Discussing pressing issues, even on paper removes mental weight and relieves an overwrought mind. To put experience and feelings into words makes them more tangible. And problems that can be grasped can be dealt with. Over time, one might well discover that once insurmountable problems have been mapped out in detail and overcome, all without one even being aware of it.

Diary writing is a skill. At first one might be amazed at just how difficult it is to get past all the mental noise and discover our true feelings and concerns. Diaries no doubt have their terrible reputation in part because most people who attempt it never get past their petty internal noise. Yet any person accustomed to regular inward thought should be predisposed towards quickly moving past the initial barriers. The rewards of doing so are inexhaustible

Keeping a diary is a ritual act of emptying oneself. Hence one always feels lighter afterwards. When one feels isolated and alone, even the removal of a feather from one’s personal burden makes a huge difference. In a life where one’s soul lives at the subsistence level, a diary can sometimes be the margin between starvation and survival. Since diaries are made to seem silly and frivolous in the popular culture: I cannot sufficiently emphasize their importance in keeping a healthy mind.

A diary is a means of keeping track of one’s own personal progress and patterns. A long term diary writer can hold themselves to account in a way most people never can. Most of us make excuses about what we do and why we do it. This becomes a lot harder to do when we look back on an entry from a year ago and see ourselves doing the same old thing. One who keeps a diary can perform audits on their books. In time the inherent mission of a diary writer becomes obvious: That the future self reading back on each entry be a better, wiser self.

A diary is a time machine:

It allows us to exist more gracefully within the flow of time.

It allows us to see the flow of our thoughts from outside of time.

When I first started keeping a diary as a teenager, there were some things I quickly discovered:

I found that every time I wrote ill words about someone, I always looked back on it later with shame. It always seemed so petty and shallow in retrospect, so obvious that my written disenchantment only placed me under their power. I never again mentioned people I didn’t like by name and never again went out of my way to focus on them. In one step I was liberated from a good measure of my own reactive spite. This new control over myself also made me less vulnerable to social expectations. I was a step closer to social immunity years before the idea ever occurred to me.

The people and events that seemed important in a given moment were rarely still important when I looked back even a few months later.

The overhead, extra-temporal view given me by the diary allowed me to discover what things were truly important.

I learned what things endure and which quickly become irrelevant and forgotten.

I learned that the big, central things are not always important and that it’s often small or peripheral things that stay with us through time.

The size of events does not matter so much. A diary helps reveal to us what things are spiritually the largest in our lives.

In a matter of months, I was learning lessons that most people don’t seem to learn in an entire lifetime. A diary is one of the greatest teachers one can ever have, without a doubt one of the supreme tools of introspection.

Diaries are ideal for recording and developing ideas. I’m sure most people have good ideas all the time. The trouble is that they remember only a few of them. The few that are remembered have to be held in valuable mental space until they too are forgotten. A diary allows us to grasp these fleeting moments and store them. The mind is then free to come up with more good ideas. Actively focusing upon and storing these ideas makes it progressively easier to come up with them in the first place.

Many of the ideas that became this blog began as diary entries. At first these ideas were mere ventings. Because they were written down, however, I was able to develop them and then build on them. Taken one piece at a time, one can actually attempt to make some sense of this world.

A diary can allow us to sort out and make some sense of a cluttered confused mind. A simple blank book and something to write with can accomplish feats that expensive paid professionals could never aspire to.

A diary is one of the greatest possible assets for one who has a quiet spirit and feels renewed in times of solitude. It can nearly by itself sustain one through loneliness and suffering. It serves as a chronicle and repository. It provides friends and a social life. Every time you open that book, you’re in a room full of people from the past who share your name and identity, but are never the same person as you’ve become.

Zygmunt blogs at Kingdom of Introversion (and elsewhere).

Introvert Survival: Diaries appears here by permission.

[image via Flickr/Creative Commons]

related: A Dream Diary

Introvert Survival: Any Small Thing

Zygmunt — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 06:00:06 +0000

One of the most powerful remedies for feelings of depression, loneliness, and rejection is a hobby or discipline that commands your intimate attention. As a kid I loved insects and all kinds of small life. I gained an appreciation early on by dissecting bugs from the garden under a stereoscope. I realized just how intricate and otherworldly they were. I had already seen how most people passed them over, only noticing them long enough to kill them.

Years later during the deep black states of mind of my teen years, I learned that by doing something intimate and intricate with my surrounding environment could revive me.

Once as I high school junior, I was crushingly depressed and lonely. It was a depressingly sunny cheerful day near the end of the school year when everyone else seemed so happy and unified.

I turned my attention as I had done since childhood to the leaves and branches of various shrubs. I knew well how to search. I soon noticed small bumps that I instantly recognized as plant galls. Plant galls, I well knew were the nurseries of the larva of tiny parasitic wasps.

I broke off some galls and snuck into the biology lab. No one was there but me.

I delicately cut open the galls and extracted the larvae for viewing under the microscope.

My state of mind was much improved when I was done.

Something, any small thing that makes you appreciate the enormous intricate beauty of our universe will save you.

Any small thing at all will work. Sometimes all I had to do to ground myself was simply to stop and watch the afternoon shadows of swaying tree branches, a single autumn leaf drift all the way from its branch to the ground, a ray of sunlight suddenly shoot through a high window as the sun rose just the tiniest bit higher. The key is shifting one’s attention from the social plane and becoming aware of the vast, chaotic extra-social reality that surrounds us. Eventually that outer Void becomes home.

Zygmunt blogs at Kingdom of Introversion (and elsewhere).

Introvert Survival: Any Small Thing appears here by permission.

[image via Flickr/Creative Commons]

Subsistence of the Soul

Zygmunt — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 06:00:04 +0000

Especially in youth, an extreme introvert feeling little commonality with the surrounding society must find ways to nourish the spirit even through the most trying times. A life on the fringes is sink or swim. You either find ways to take care of yourself or you just don’t make it. To this day, I tend to be very reverential of food and intolerant of wasting any usable resources. A subsistence survival sort of mentality got drilled into my head early on. Though I never went hungry growing up, I’m the sort of person who likes to eat every last grain of rice or sop up the crumbs and juices left over from a meal with a piece of bread until my bowl is clean. My stomach lurches when I see someone throwing out food.

Most people I meet dread the passing of time and aging. I feel the passing of every day to be a gift, especially if it passed without too much trouble. I will see having a white head of hair as accomplishment because I have a feeling of good fortune and privilege to make it even as far as I have. My life has rarely been in serious physical danger, yet I feel I’ve had to claw every inch of the way out of stone. I feel I’ve already been alive nearly forever yet most others consider me to be quite young.

This sort of mentality, this subsistence of the soul is an attitude that utterly baffles most people I encounter. Rather, they find my actions strange because they know nothing of the code by which I act. How would one even begin to explain face to face in a way that really made sense? Would one want to if one could?

Do I really want to explain that every grain of rice, every red cent is another precious second of my life won from the birth society’s capricious standards and demands?

That I still make the most out of every grain of rice as I had to with every good feeling and happy moment?

That cultivating such reverence produces the sort of emotional rewards that make life worth living?

Though it could be tough to hold myself together in the worst times, I would find myself inspired to joy by things people around me didn’t even seem to notice.

Living with a lean soul has had its advantages. I find I require far less than others around me to be content with life and therefore there are less things I fear losing. I have an ongoing relationship with death in my everyday life while others postpone the very thought of it until telltale signs of aging can no longer be ignored or covered up with denial.

Most importantly, living by subsistence of the soul has the potential to teach one: fulfillment when distilled to its quintessence has very little to do with pleasure.

Zygmunt blogs at Kingdom of Introversion (and elsewhere).

Subsistence of the Soul appears here by permission.

[image via Flickr/Creative Commons]

related: Any Small Thing

School As Introvert Prison Sentence

Zygmunt — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 09:48:38 +0000

I got pretty good grades in school. Homework was easier for me than for most kids. Yet as an adult it’s easy to look back and realize that none of that was important. Once one gets into college it doesn’t matter. Once one decides not to go to college it doesn’t matter. We were told grades were important by all the authority figures, but it was a lie just to try keep us all in line for another day and to justify the system in which every one of us was trapped.

I look back on twelve years of schooling and can’t think of much beyond basic literacy that was truly important in the long run. Even with literacy, my first reading lessons took place at home, not in school. Classes at school did teach me useful things. A lot of the classwork that was boring for other kids was pure fun for me. Yet did it really need to consume 12 years of my life? By the time we’re 18, the better part of our youth is irremediably spent on years of school. Yes, humans have higher life expectancies now but the fact is we start our slide into aging soon after we hit biological adulthood. With schooling, we get barely a decade to be active in the world at our peak. People in past generations generally had begun adult-level activities by their early teens or even younger. Now a college graduate at age 21 is only beginning to be functional in the adult world. Is our increased life expectancy nearly as great when we have nearly a decade less in which to do things?

What is it all for? One obvious purpose is the simple containment of youth who would otherwise be roaming around the streets all day. With child labor laws, there’s nothing better to do than lock them up. The result is a strange combination of minimum security prison and daycare. It just doesn’t make much sense to the Subtle understanding. To really ‘get’ the spirit of school it is most illuminating to examine the extroverted view and justification.

Every well-adjusted person I’ve talked to gives me the same message when I dare criticize compulsory education and public schooling. “But it’s for socialization!” Having tipped my ideological hand more than was wise, I end up with an earful of reminiscences about fun extra-curricular activities. This always confounds me. Whatever happened to the 7 hours a day sitting at a desk doing nothing? That wasn’t fun! It wasn’t particularly social either.

When I express desire for there to be some alternative from regular schooling, I get a blank stare for a second or two followed by “Your kid wouldn’t be able to develop properly. He/she would be lonely and cut off.” Every time I hear this ubiquitous answer, I pause for a few seconds before finding a way to just change the subject.

As an introvert in the system, I felt lonely and cut off. I didn’t fit into the school society at all. I was non-socialized in school. I can pass as mostly normal now, but when I first graduated high school, I still had the social skills of a small child. I’ve spent the last several years learning everything from scratch and I’m finally feeling as though I’m somewhat caught up. I’ve been through several halfway houses, but I still can’t shake the feeling that I’m establishing a life for the first time after a long prison sentence. I spent a good portion of that time, especially the later years in something akin to solitary confinement.

It took me a long time to figure out why extroverts assign such importance to collective schooling. Every well-adjusted person seems to understand the reasons on some intuitive level but lack the ability to analyze their beliefs and articulate them. I will do my best to translate the idea of ‘Socialization’ into Subtle-ese.

I gather that extroverts value schooling primarily for its ability to imbue millions of children with a common formative experience so that they may smoothly interrelate as adults.

This ability to relate to others is like being able to speak the same language. It is one of the most critical things we’re supposed to learn. It’s the base of belonging we need to be able to establish romantic relationships and find careers. In Subtle terms, I suppose we could consider compulsory schools as a massive network of commonality factories. In the Surface world, these factories are not idle or pointless, they are busily producing vitally important social commodities.

I think the idea of social adjustment helps explain why nerds are portrayed in popular culture as morally stunted, silly, contemptible, short-sighted, petty people who have missed everything that is really important in life. The nerds were focusing on all the wrong things in school and they serve as symbols of everything one should not become. They are representative of defective units that were never properly calibrated despite the best efforts of the factory workers. In the movies, nerds are rather unsympathetic characters because they usually rudely reject the efforts of well-adjusted people to save them. The overall thesis: social adjustment is open to everyone, but there will always be a few who insist on being self-destructive.

The truth that they never realize is that most people don’t ask for a clash with the system. Some people are going to have the wrong configuration as they roll down the assembly line. The standardized parts that seem to fit with most other people just don’t apply. The true introvert frame reaches the end of the assembly line not only bare of all the necessary components, but dented and bent from going through a long series of incompatible processes.

When I tell a regular person that “School was awful.” I am often met with agreement. If the conversation goes on, it becomes clear that most of the perceived awfulness for the Surface person stemmed from completely different problems. They don’t complain about homework or classes usually. They talk about all their human relationships and ultimately how it was a time for social learning and tough lessons in human interaction. From the way they talk about it, it doesn’t sound like it was awful at all. Most of the time it seems they were having fun, but it got bad for awhile whenever some conflict arose. When I realized that this is their definition of ‘awful’ it was clear there could be no bridging the gap. In moments like that, it becomes clear we don’t even speak mutually intelligible languages and that we’ve lived our lives in separate universes. I have difficulty explaining my experience precisely because I was never properly adjusted.

Zygmunt blogs at Kingdom of Introversion (and elsewhere).

School As Introvert Prison Sentence appears here by permission.

[image via Flickr/Creative Commons]

Negative Charisma

Zygmunt — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 06:00:29 +0000

A friend of mine was once wondering what stats we would have if we were D and D characters. We supposed we might have strengths of 12 or so and less than impressive dexterity. When it came to charisma… My friend stopped and thought for a moment. “You probably have negative charisma.” He concluded. I definitely agreed with him. Never in my life had I stood out and taken over a group of any kind. Furthermore, I had a special talent for getting people to dislike me without any effort at all. I’d look back and wonder what I’d done to piss them off. Negative charisma seemed the best explanation.

Over time, I became better versed in social conventions but the idea of an opposite to the classic charismatic personality stuck with me. I eventually started thinking of it as a virtue. Something different than merely being disagreeable, something more than being the sunny, charming, crowd pleaser that everyone seems to worship.

‘Beware the charismat’ I sometimes told myself. It was a warning against the golden boy or girl of the hour who walks into the room and mesmerizes everyone. A charismat is perfect in their mannerisms and dazzling in their conduct. They are too good to be true, almost certainly disingenuous. They lack the most important virtue: a flaw. The charismat is the polished contrived sort of leader that thrives off of mass media in Western nations.

For a Subtle person, the most charismatic and inspirational people are those who act strange and awkward by the standards of Western society, who speak quietly rather than ostentatiously, who know how to share the stage rather than dominate, who know how to collaborate rather than compete.

A truly inspirational person does not conceal all their flaws and does not reveal all their strengths. The inspirational person is calm, matter of fact, never boastful, never sanctimonious, never patronizing.

To the Subtle person, eccentricities are one of the most endearing elements of the human character and figure strongly into the personality of someone inspirational.

Negative Charisma is about substance over form. A true introvert finds a speaker with a weak voice or a stammer to be inspirational if there is solid expertise, knowledge, and insight behind their words. It is not about the means of delivery but the content delivered.

One who has negative charisma strives to be underestimated in order to select against those who understand only what is aggressively, outwardly flaunted. It seemed to me that the fulfillment of one with negative charisma might come in a moment of vindication: When the Golden person overextends, underestimates and is confronted by strength where they expected only weakness and submission as usual. In such a moment, a charismat would be exposed with imperfections before their adoring crowd. The first instance of resistance and refutation to the seemingly unstoppable force of their personality would break their power. One with negative charisma would prevail as the Golden person was cast down by former worshipers.

Those with Negative Charisma never put themselves on a pedestal. They never set out to be the strongest, best liked, most charming person. They have no need to maintain a public image. Their object is never to move all the crowd but to speak to the most thoughtful persons within it. The moment of vindication arrives when one who sits powerfully but precariously on the shoulders of a multitude throws their strength against one who is alone but immovable.

Zygmunt blogs at Kingdom of Introversion (and elsewhere).

Negative Charisma appears here by permission.

[image via Flickr/Creative Commons]

Extrovert Critic: “You Read Too Much”

Zygmunt — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 06:00:51 +0000

We’ve all heard this criticism. We read too much. When we’re seen reading, especially some subject material that seems uninteresting, we seem ‘out of touch,’ ‘with our head in the clouds,’ ‘on another planet.’

In general an introvert submerged in reading is perceived as trading the vibrant world around them for the dusty and colorless world of books. The experience within books seems like a faded and flat flower pressing compared to the three dimensional, colorful, living flower.

To the extrovert, a book is a pale abstraction that crumbles away against the vitality of actual experience. By extension, someone who spends considerable time reading is dry, abstract, lacking in personality, vigor, and practical knowledge.

To an introvert, however, there is nothing abstract, cold, or distant about habitual reading. Rather than distracting from the surrounding world, it sheds light upon it and makes it richer. For a Subtle person, the information found in books makes the experience of our world immeasurably more beautiful. It allows us to reach back into time and through the wisdom of ages so that we may put our world into perspective.

Books allow us to perceive the wonders of our world through countless other people scattered across time, place, and circumstance. To a subtle person, an extrovert lives in a very small pond indeed. They understand their universe almost exclusively through a random handful of contemporaries. That they see introverts as deprived is just a symptom of their ignorance.

A Loud person tends to perceive dead words on a page that yield a pale impression and nothing more. Someone who focuses on all things on the Surface remains on the surface of things. A Subtle person seamlessly moves beneath the dead words and into the pure meaning they represent.

To a Loud person, the content of books is dead, dry, fossilized information. You get a can opener and open it up when you need it.

To the Subtle person, books are living streams of consciousness from other human beings in which we can actively participate. It can be almost like becoming someone else for awhile, a way of freeing ourselves from our own lonely perspective and mental patterns. We are often accused of being selfish, yet we perhaps spend far less time living in the desires and thoughts of the self than do our extrovert critics.

An extrovert could respond that TV and film perform the function of allowing one to step into another’s shoes. Surely these are more tangible, visceral mediums and therefore far more effective than a book. After all, we empathize with the characters we see on screen and are drawn into a director’s vision.

However, books operate on another level because they demand active participation and voluntary shedding of our own perceptions. Visual entertainment gives us the vision and all we have to do is sit back and watch. There is not much participation, mostly just passive dictation to the viewer. TV and film can be excellent ways of escaping our own world. They offer a complete vision to replace our own.

The importance of books that extroverts tend to miss is that one must create the vision. We must actively concentrate on adopting the thought patterns of another and seeing clearly through their eyes. In books, we must actively bring our perspective in synchrony with another. Thus we expand our own perspective rather than replacing it temporarily with someone else’s. When reading a work of fiction, for instance, we must draw from our own experiences to bring alive the blueprint the author has set before us. In trying to make the plan come to life, we are reshaping our own mind until we have a key that fits in the door to another mind. The more we practice, the better we become at falling into the mental rhythm of another human being and escaping the confines of our own solitary vision of the world. The fluid, multi-faceted understanding that results from reading is a source of incredible euphoria the equal of any of life’s greatest pleasures.

That an extrovert would consider us dead, absent, and isolated from the living world because of reading reveals their inability to see that the dry words on the page are merely a blueprint, an invitation to build something. A something that never turns out the same for any two people who try it, or even for one person who builds from the same blueprint twice.

Zygmunt blogs at Kingdom of Introversion (and elsewhere).

Extrovert Critic: “You Read Too Much” appears here by permission.

[image via Flickr/Creative Commons]

related: Rulers of Celephais

I Hate Cold Calling

Zygmunt — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 05:18:48 +0000

For an introvert few tasks can be as daunting and titanic as making a cold call. The very idea of disturbing an unseen stranger over the telephone fills us with anxiety.

-We wouldn’t want to be called by an unseen stranger who just wants something from us. Why would someone else want to be? Any ensuing conversation is bound to be an awkward exchange between two people who really don’t want to talk, but are compelled by some overriding necessity. The tension is bound to be palpable. This type of interaction is about as pleasant as nails screeching across a chalkboard.

-If only we could do it over the internet somehow without having to talk with anyone!

-We tend to put it off to the last possible moment. Almost better to wait until the progression of events makes phone calls a moot point. A mild loss incurred by doing so is probably worth it. For important calls, I used to spend a few minutes just staring at the number pad before being able to spiritually prepare myself for dialing that number. I would even have a few false starts dialing before I got through the whole number.

-There’s that horrible pause before it starts ringing, then the ringing starts. Secretly we hope for every successive ring hoping that no one will answer. If no one answers, we curse our luck that we couldn’t have just gotten it over with.

-It takes a lot of will power to make each subsequent attempt. Like lancing a boil, the longer we wait, the more attempts, the more unpleasant it becomes. The more unpleasant it becomes, the more will it takes to make another attempt.

-Even when we’ve made the call and someone answers, we’re too upset and nervous about infringing on someone else to really push them and demand their services and time in full. Thus, a rep who’s used to dealing with assertive extroverts senses they can spend a bare minimum of time on us and quickly gets us off the line. We end up not really accomplishing what we set out to do anyway! At best we accomplish the bare minimum before we can end the unpleasantness and get off the line.

-An extrovert comes by and asks about the results of the phone call. Their brow creases in confusion at our account of the conversation. They respond:

“Why didn’t you ask this question?”

“Or this question?”

“Why didn’t you get a more detailed answer so we can be absolutely sure?”

“Why didn’t you push them until they gave in by doing this?”

“Why didn’t you make the call earlier?”/”Why did you just get around to making the call now?”

“Why don’t you call again?”

There’s a leaden feeling in the stomach. All that effort and anxiety and it wasn’t nearly enough. Why even bother.

I’ve gotten a lot better over the years out of necessity. It’s no longer a trial by fire and I no longer have to deal with lots of anxiety but it’s still not exactly my favorite activity. I still always check for any way around making a cold call if it can be avoided. Therein lies my problem. I see cold calling as a last resort. An extrovert sees cold calling and taking up time on the line as their first choice.

Zygmunt blogs at Kingdom of Introversion (and elsewhere).

I Hate Cold Calling appears here by permission.

[image via Flickr/Creative Commons]

Introversion and Schizoid Traits

Zygmunt — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 05:00:30 +0000

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.

Zygmunt blogs at Kingdom of Introversion (and elsewhere).

Introversion and Schizoid Traits appears here by permission.

[image via Flickr/Creative Commons]

related: Introverts, Asperger’s, Autism

Extroverts and the Concept of ‘Deserval’

Zygmunt — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 05:17:28 +0000

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?

Zygmunt blogs at Kingdom of Introversion (and elsewhere).

Extroverts and the Concept of “Deserval” appears here by permission.

[image via Flickr/Creative Commons]

Life After Mass Society?

Zygmunt — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 05:00:58 +0000

I received this comment from a reader:

Hey this is Adi. I have been reading a lot of your posts and like this blog a lot and I am posting for the first time.

I have a question that has been bugging me since I first started reading some of your posts. Before that let me clarify that I am your fellow intorvert as well. What I want to ask is, I still don’t understand a purpose of life that doesn’t involve social success and achieving a position in society. Because, the way I have been growing up, a lot of things that you have mentioned are extrovert traits are, the ones I have possessed too in spite of being an introvert. And yes, the way you have stated earlier, I too have wished that I was a person who is sought after by people, can make social bonds easily. But it hasn’t happened and then after realizing my true selves, I have started accepting myself. But still, I do not understand the purpose of life if you remain completely detached and aloof from society. Can you explain what are you living this life for? One example could be living for a very crazy passion if you do possess one. But what if you don’t?

Someone gets all the certificates and learns a skill.
Then the skill abruptly goes obsolete or gets outsourced. All that effort for nothing.

Someone works for a lifetime and then retires.
They ask themselves, “Why am I still here.”

Someone comes up with a great idea or does the majority of the work on a project.
Their manager takes all the credit and moves up yet another notch on the ladder.

Does all that social stuff really give us purpose or does it merely distract us from questions of purpose?
You can get rewards and praise for doing what the society values, but is it all just noise that distracts from asking whether society values the right things, or whether the society is good and just?
What kind of person makes it to the top of society? Are these the people who should be on top? Are they good and just?
Does society care about you to the degree you care about it? Can a mass society care about you? If it can’t care, are you just another insignificant worker bee? How then does society provide us with purpose or meaning?

Does it matter how many gold stars society puts on your forehead if you’ve not learned to be happy with who you are? If somebody took away those gold stars tomorrow, what would remain? If you lived for the gold stars and they’re gone now, who are you?

If one doesn’t have any ‘very crazy’ passions, perhaps they should explore and find some.

You’ve brought up excellent questions. Questions that open up more questions. Questions that can be scary to confront. But there is a much deeper sense of peace and identity when we begin to figure out the answers.

When you don’t let the sum of all people(society) dictate who you are, the result is immense freedom. This freedom has nothing to do with going off to a mountain monastery or living as a hermit. It’s a state of mind that allows you to perceive the world around you differently:
Think of it this way:

Imagine someone living in a fabulously wealthy society where everyone is expected to have a palace.
This person feels stressed out, unhappy, and ‘poor’ because they can only afford a sumptuous Victorian mansion(butler included). So long as social expectations define their world view, they will remain unhappy no matter what fantastic luxuries they might have. Circumstances might change but the big questions are constant. “How will I get what they have?”, “What will they think?”, What will they say?”

As soon as the person begins to derive expectations from within, they see the mansion through new eyes. The person is free to perceive its beauty for the very first time. It is no longer a disgusting source of social shame, it is a house. An enormous house abundantly equipped to fulfill every possible human need. A house far bigger than anyone could possibly need. Suddenly, it seems ludicrous that one’s life purpose could have been chasing after a still bigger house. Surely it was never a purpose at all, just a way to pass the time until death.

Zygmunt blogs at Kingdom of Introversion (and elsewhere).

Life After Mass Society? appears here by permission.

[image via Flickr/Creative Commons]

related: The Worlds of Sun and Moon

Introverts vs. Extroverts: Learning

Zygmunt — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 05:05:58 +0000

The acquisition of knowledge has a very different meaning to introverts and extroverts.

Extroverts: Learning is a means to an ends

Introverts: Learning is an end unto itself.

Extroverts learn something so they can get something. They usually have a very precise goal for pursuing information. What is their goal? It is almost always to get some kind of socially recognized title or certificate. Without some kind of tangible end result that manifests in one’s social relationships, there is no reason at all to learn. It is a very typical pattern for an extrovert to plow through countless dry textbooks in order to be awarded some crucial social distinction and then be perfectly happy never again reading another book. After all books are a waste of time once one has ‘punched the ticket.’ Thereafter, from the Loud perspective, it’s the water cooler interactions and the networking that matters. For an extrovert, learning is something that is done to you by others. To teach oneself would be unthinkable, and well, even if it could be done, it would be boring. Most importantly, one would go through endless hours of trouble without even a promised social stamp of approval at the end.

Introverts learn something because it is fun. There may not be any immediate or tangible goal. Or rather, there are multiple goals, some of them tangible and others more in the realm of dream. Learning is the lifeblood and life purpose of the true introvert. They will acquire whatever knowledge is necessary to make it in society, but will continue to both broaden and augment their knowledge throughout their lives. Or often, the recreational accumulation of knowledge and skills gives an introvert everything they need to succeed. It is a very typical pattern for an introvert to get the skills they need and then keep on learning and expanding just as before. They read books to get where they are, they keep on reading until the grave. For the true introvert, all learning starts with the personal volition to learn and love of knowledge. Learning starts with the self and not with society and social institutions. An introvert gets formal instruction because they too need formal stamps of approval and because they genuinely enjoy social interaction that revolves around the exchange of information. However, the instruction of others is just a tool that facilitates the process of self-learning. From the Subtle perspective learning is not done to us. Rather we do it to ourselves out of love of knowledge and get help from others along the way. Social stamps of approval are nice, but they never were the source of motivation. There is no end to learning. Instead, it is a personal lifelong journey.

Zygmunt blogs at Kingdom of Introversion (and elsewhere).

Introverts vs. Extroverts: Learning appears here by permission.

[image via Flickr/Creative Commons]

Extrovert Success and the Introvert

Zygmunt — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 05:00:58 +0000

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

Zygmunt blogs at Kingdom of Introversion (and elsewhere).

Extrovert Success and the Introvert appears here by permission.

[image via Flickr/Creative Commons]

Extroverted Critic: “You Need to Be More eMOtional”

Zygmunt — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 05:00:02 +0000

“Sometimes you need to let go man and just go with your eMOtions. You think too much.”
What Subtle person hasn’t spent years getting bombarded with this platitude?

The critic is usually well-meaning and just trying to help, but it gets old and comes across as patronizing.

It’s implicit in their advice that they, and outgoing people in general are superior emotional beings who feel more while I’m some sort of semi-automaton.
Why do they feel more? Because they talk about it more of course. And if one’s feelings are not talked about or otherwise put on display, they don’t exist, right? Truly the Loud ethic at work!

I’m appalled sometimes at the insensitivity of social normals. They expect me to explicitly verbally communicate every little thing to them. If they were the EQ geniuses they would have me believe, why are they utterly unable to read some pretty obvious non-verbal cues that indicate my mood, especially while they’re talking down to me? But somehow totally clueless, they keep prattling on.

What they do not realize:
‘Emotion’ means very different things in the sunny surface Loud world than in the Subtle shadow lands.

To your normal person who feels comfortable within the Accepted orthodoxy, emotion refers to the overpowering instinctual survival impulses, though they would not recognize them as such.
In other words:
They worship sheer intensity of feeling whatever that feeling it might be.
Look at the heroes through whom they live vicarious lives in film and fiction!
In their world, bigger is better.

True emotion, however, is more than just capricious passions.

It is distinguished first not by intensity, but by breadth and nuance. A single overwhelming emotion is like a plain lump of white sugar. A complex blend of understated, interrelated emotions that must be puzzled out through introspection, this is a chocolate mousse cake.

To one who is subtle, simply going out for a casual walk and lapsing into a contemplative state as the sun sets and the shadows grow long is a real emotional experience.

The thing we feel when experiencing mortal fear, obsession, or despair, or exultation is just a momentary rush. It puts us outside of our own self and overwhelms the faculties.
Recalled later whether fabulous or traumatic, it’s almost dream-like…never quite real.
We weren’t feeling it, it was feeling us.

Ultimately, the small thing felt intensely is more powerful than the large thing that consumes us. Because in so doing we develop a sense of self and grow closer to it. It makes one less a passive, reactive animal, more aware of what lies within.
Feeling in the Subtle way doesn’t just happen to us. It’s a capacity in oneself that must be nurtured and encouraged to flourish.

In short,
The Subtle emotion must be cultivated within humans, it makes us more powerful
The Loud emotion is common to all animals, it overwhelms us and forces us to submit.

This basic difference I think, is why I feel resentment when I am advised to be less analytical or get in touch with my emotions. If only they would understand! Not only do I feel deeply, but have a different understanding of what it is to feel. I often wonder how I would explain, only to subsequently realize that there’s no way I could do so within normal, acceptable conversation.
And having realized this, it’s almost as if they’ve slapped me in the face, while my hands are tied behind my back!
And there’s no way I can explain this to them either…

Zygmunt blogs at Kingdom of Introversion (and elsewhere).

Extroverted Critic: “You Need to Be More eMOtional” appears here by permission.

[images via Flickr/Creative Commons]

Introverts: Denizens of a Social Ghetto

Zygmunt — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 14:54:11 +0000

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.

Zygmunt blogs at Kingdom of Introversion (and elsewhere).

Introverts: Denizens of a Social Ghetto appears here by permission.

[image via Flickr/Creative Commons]

related: Subsistence of the Soul

related: The Mark of Cain

Introverts, Social Loyalty, and Social Immunity

Zygmunt — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 11:00:09 +0000

A Subtle person often grows up an outsider and never really bonds with their birth society. Not only do we lack commonality with the whole, we might very well also have feelings of resentment after years of complications arising from basic incompatibility. Such a Subtle person might wonder why on earth they should put their efforts into working hard for the sake of a collective for which they have no affinity. They see the daily grind and the question is ‘why?’ All that hard work to just to keep it going! Most people out there seem miserable and drained from the effort. Should we keep it going?

I’ve written my last posts about the Subtle perspective of social containment zones and coercion throughout the life cycle. Someone who fits in and is successfully socialized during youth is not going to think in this way. One who sees themself as a part of the larger society does not feel they are being coerced. Because of their group affinity, they are willing to participate in whatever is expected of them. Because of their deep bond to their group, they could hardly imagine deviating from everything that has defined them since birth. When a bond is that deep, there is no ‘why?’ to be asked. One might actually be incapable of conceiving of another social system and perhaps has never encountered one. When there’s just one way, what else could one do? Belonging could make them miserable or even get them killed but there quite simply is no other option. The birth society holds a monopoly on their social loyalty by default. Good or ill is just a roll of the dice.

For those who have never belonged, involvement with the orthodoxy continues because they have no choice. They feel helpless, confined, and coerced through all of life. Worse still, they must suffer silently while surrounded by people who can never understand them. Everyone has a basic human need to belong somewhere and those who are Incorrect must somehow find ways to live without. Someone Incorrect must live with the knowledge that they would be crushed beneath social censure if their true nature were discovered. The necessity of self-concealment makes for a life of loneliness and insecurity. The nonsensical and irrational aspects of a society that everyone else accepts without question seem glaring errors to one who has never belonged…

Beyond coercion, why should one be loyal to a social organization that has yielded alienation and suffering?

Why should one hesitate to leave it if there were ever a better option?

When one grows up receiving mostly negative reinforcement from social institutions, from authority figures, from one’s parents and peers why be loyal to their ‘reality’?

Why continue a tradition that only brought misery into one’s life?

Why would one ‘contribute to society’ if they weren’t forced to? Isn’t perpetuating a hostile society against one’s interests?

Although the practical and economic reasons are obvious one might ask on the philosophical level: On what grounds is a society one is born into by mere accident entitled to one’s labor and loyalty? Angsty teenagers everywhere have a point when they say “I didn’t choose to be born” We didn’t choose to be born and yet every one of us is treated as though we signed some kind of contract before we entered the world. We all get the responsibility without any of the power.

It is important to consider to consider this philosophical level because of the implications. Since birth is an accident in which we had no part, then our birth society can have no special or legitimate claim on our lives. Many people rationalize, “I couldn’t have survived without this society, so now I(you) owe it.” The angsty teenager points out however “I did not ask to exist, I can’t help that I’ve been existed in a form that requires other people for survival, so how can I be held responsible for all the costs my existence has incurred?” If one must actively choose to take out a loan or use a credit card to be held accountable for a debt, on what does a birth society base its demands for obedience and loyalty?

What it boils down to: Without the successful acquisition of deep social affinity in one’s early years, only naked coercion remains to enforce one’s compliance and loyalty to a society. Under such circumstances, it is not only desirable to secede, but ethical. To continue to bow to tyranny dooms the next generation of Incorrect persons to the same fate.

How does one secede then from a body that is all encompassing?

One does it by using a given society’s resources in one’s own anti-social interests. To ironically use money, the material substance of social approval and influence to escape the demands of the society.

To carve out a personal domain by achieving Social Immunity is the first step in bringing about a new ‘reality’ that could ultimately incorporate more than one person. Otherwise, one remains stuck on the same treadmill that seems to define the lives of everyone else. A treadmill that seems there to keep people occupied and too busy to really think about life until it’s too late. For a true introvert it seems there must be a better way to live, but the demands of survival leave limited time to think about it. For an Incorrect person, no treasure is so precious as time to stop and think. Never until Social Immunity has been achieved can this treasure be harvested without constant interruption and interference.

Zygmunt blogs at Kingdom of Introversion (and elsewhere).

Introverts, Social Loyalty, and Social Immunity appears here by permission.

[image is from no-longer available footage used to create a fan video for Jonathan Coulton's brilliant, funny-sad meditation on social loyalty, "Space Doggity" (whose subject achieves social immunity of a sort); it may or may not be an actual picture of the doomed Russian space pioneer Laika]

related: Social Immunity

related: Jonathan Coulton “Space Doggity” live performance