For The Introverts
EPISODE 078: FOR THE INTROVERTS
Introversion seems to have become a movement lately and as someone with strong life-long introverted characteristics, I think it's great that we're finally celebrating those quieter qualities, but there's also a danger in allowing the label to define and limit us. Jung said introversion and extroversion were about where we got our energy, our fuel; maybe it's time we stopped yakking about which pump we get out gas at, focused more on where we're going with our creativity, and got in the car. Let's talk about it.
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FULL TRANSCRIPT
I wanted to begin this episode by asking all the introverts in the crowd to raise your hands, but I think we know just asking that makes the introverts nervous. You could be completely alone right now and you're still looking around the room hoping nobody is watching, aren't you? Meanwhile the extroverts, hating to be left out, they're putting their hands in the air anyways, just so they can be part of this. So much for that experiment. But I know you're out there, those of you who identify as introverts, and I know you're happy in your corners, so I won't ask you to come on stage as a volunteer; I won't even look you in the eye. Just know that this one is for you.
Over the last few years I've noticed something like a movement, a resurgence of introversion. Suddenly everywhere I look there are articles and memes that start with the words, "you might be an introvert if...." and Amazon is full of titles like The Introvert's Way, The Introvert Entrepreneur, The Secret Lives of Introverts, The Awakened Introvert, The Quite Rise of Introverts, and more.
There is, it should surprise you not, at least one colouring book for introverts, though it encourages you to do your colouring separately and in your own home. There is even a Dummies-series book called Success for Introverts for Dummies. Introversion has become more than a tendency to keep to yourself, it has become a genre and a market all its own, and I'm wondering how long it'll be until there are splinter groups of more serious introverts who are tired of all the attention.
I'm lighthearted about all this because I would most certainly identify with many of the personality traits used to define or describe introversion. But I'm nervous about it, too. Never having liked the pigeon-holes I've been crammed into by myself or others, I get twitchy when people start identifying with a label in a binary way, as if to say I am this one thing and not another.
I get it. I think it's healthy to be OK with being who you are, and saying-so unapologetically, especially if these traits are things about which you've felt shame in the past. But I worry when labels get involved, whether we're self-applying them or sticking them to others, and I thought maybe we could talk about it. I'm David duChemin, and this is episode 78 of A Beautiful Anarchy, welcome here.
It feels ironic that being an introvert is now a badge of honour given the introvert's general lack of desire to show that badge off to others, doesn't it? And yet, I think it's important that those who always compared themselves with the more extroverted among us, to the one so inclined to the spotlight, and to the ones that—because they lacked the inhibition to stand out in a crowd and volunteered to do whatever it was for which volunteers were called, while our hands remained at our sides—I think it's important that the quieter qualities are not only acknowledged but celebrated.
There has got to be a connection between these introverted qualities and creativity. Creativity draws upon a rich inner life, and the muse tends to reward those who take time to themselves, to quietly process ideas and to make things for the joy of making rather than the acclaim a more extroverted person might hope for, or be more comfortable with. A bent toward introversion has huge payoffs when it comes to focussing on the process of being creative. We tend to listen more than we speak, we pay attention and watch for longer before jumping to action, especially if others are watching, and all of this pays dividends in creative work. So it's probably about time that our culture acknowledge the value of these traits many of us felt so self-conscious about for so long.
So you weren't the captain of the hockey team and you weren't as popular as Steve, who was. I'd like to see Steve throw a flawless pot from a lump of clay, or write a novel, and you know what, maybe he can. We all contain multitudes, and though it's unlikely that Steve is now quietly composing haiku in his bohemian loft in SOHO, I like to think it's possible. There's a thread here that I want to keep track of because I want to come back to it, but my point in bringing Steve up is that there are people in our lives to whom we compare ourselves and it's probably good that at some point you realize the scale has never been fairly calibrated and your quieter qualities—while they may never win a hockey game—are as important to who you are and what you do, especially as a creator, maker, or artist, as Steve's more extraverted qualities are to making him good at what he does.
There were few trophies, if any, given out for the things that might have interested the introverts when our personalities were really beginning to reveal themselves and galvanize in our younger years. Even those of us that might have really excelled at writing, or ceramics, photography—or those quiet unsung introverted heroes of the AV department who ate their lunch in the sound booth with the lights off—there was no acclaim. We had no cheerleaders. And I don't say this wishing that there had been. I suspect many of us played those roles so willingly because the lack of an audience—or any chance of having to stand in front of one—was a big part of the appeal, never mind the fact that we were just really frigging good at those things, and becoming better because we weren't distracted by Friday night parties or busy social lives. The downside is that few of us had a shelf full of trophies that might now and then have buoyed our confidence, and even now some of us aren't sure there's a place for us in a world that rewards the extrovert, and overlooks those of us who chose to stay at home rather than attend the awards show, even if—or maybe especially if—we had accolades coming our way.
So, yes, it's time the quieter qualities, and those that possess them, or perhaps are possessed by them—it's time that they were honoured and celebrated, and if you generally identify as an introvert then you need to know you're not the only one. I did a quick search for famous introverts, not because the celebrity matters, which they likely abhorred, but because I think you'll agree the impact they had was significant, despite—or most likely because of—the qualities for which one might call them introverts.
Albert Einstein, who on the subject of introversion said, "“The monotony and solitude of a quiet life stimulates the creative mind.” Rosa Parks. Bill Gates. Warren Buffett, Eleanor Roosevelt, JK Rowling. Abraham Lincoln, Meryl Streep, Elon Musk. All of them introverts and all of them undeniably known for their impact and creativity. And I mention it because to celebrate these people and to celebrate what I keep calling the quieter qualities is a two edged sword that cuts both bitter and sweet. The sweet is that we're finally realizing our introversion is not the liability we believed it was. The bitter is this: you can't use it as an excuse.
We're all good at some things, less successful at others. Some of this is down to personality, to inclination, and some to aptitude, though so much of that we either have or don't have because our inclinations have either led us to hours of focused practice in the thing at which we excel, or they've pushed us in different directions. But you're not good at something because you're introverted. You're good at it because you're you, and we contain not only multitudes, but complexities. You are not your introversion, and this brings me back to an idea I left by side of the road earlier in this conversation and that's danger of binary associations, whether it's a label applied to ourselves, or to others.
I'm not a psychiatrist, so you should take all of this with a grain of salt. So I'm going to let Carl Jung back me up here. Jung, as best as I can tell, was the one who first described introversion and extroversion and he suggested that what separated the two was a question of where we got our energy. Introverts re-charge with time alone, and need much less stimulating environments. Extroverts get their energy from being among others, and draw heavily on stimulating environments as sources of fuel. He also said, "“There is no such thing as a pure extrovert or a pure introvert. Such a [person] would be in the lunatic asylum.”
When I hear someone saying they're an introvert, and I say these same words often, though I try to catch myself when I do, I wonder: what value—or even what harm—might there be in so readily identifying with that limiting and very binary label? I am this. I am that. Especially when we are so much more than that one thing - multitudes, remember? But also, of what value are these binary labels when so much of what makes us us, exists on a spectrum - as complexities?
When we identify as I am this or I am that, how much of our internal dialogue is really saying "I am only this, or only that"? And how much of it implies that we are unchangeably these things? "Oh, I can't do that, I'm an introvert." Are you sure about that? Are you so sure you're an introvert that you're not willing to try things that, once tried might prove you're not as far along the introvert/extrovert spectrum as you thought? Are you sure that your quieter qualities exclude others?
If introversion and extroversion are about where we get our fuel—and psychiatry has come along way since Jung started using these words, so things might be seen differently now— but if it IS about how we get our fuel, is it not possible that while this is an important conversation to have, we might— just might—be making too much of it? Is it possible, and I'm throwing this question out there not for any resolution or cold hard answer just yet—isn't it possible that we could be getting hung up on the wrong question, or maybe it's not the wrong question, since it needs to be asked, but maybe there are more interesting questions beyond the question of where we gas up.
Look you need to know whether you should put unleaded fuel in the tank, or diesel, and you need to know which pump to go to. My Land Rover was a diesel. My Jeep takes gasoline. It's necessary to know the difference, to respect that difference, and fuel it accordingly. It's important not to expect the one to be like the other.
I know this is just another metaphor, and like all my metaphors they can only imply so much, and they're flawed in as many ways as they are helpful. But if we're all fuelling at different places and in different ways, doesn't—at some point—the more interesting question become "where do you want to go once you're all gassed up?" And from there to talk about how we'll get there, whether that's in a crowded bus, a van with a few friends for company, or with no one but ourselves for company?
Is there a danger that all this focus on introversion might just keep us all at the pumps and talking about the finer points of one fuel over another and why my engine won't get me where others might be going, rather than gassing up with whatever fuel you need to get the fire going, to get the pistons moving, and to get to get back on whatever particular road you're on?
Creative thinking is flexible thinking. It doesn't do well with labels, especially those that so un-budgingly declare themselves one thing or another.
Creative thought excels with multitudes and complexities, and with the possibility of change. It likes nuances and spectrums, and unexpected hybrids.
I was a deeply introverted person who had a 12-year career in comedy. My shows were exhausting, but I re-fueled alone, quietly backstage. I sit somewhere on a continuum, perhaps closer the extrovert than some will ever be, and not as close as others who seem to be so at ease being "on" all the time. But these things are not limitations. They're just observations. A recognition that my fuel isn't available at the same pump as yours, that where I'm heading is probably also as different from where you're going as the colour of our vehicles.
I celebrate your introversion the way I think your blue eyes are spectacular. And I love the way your quieter qualities, and perhaps those long hours in the sound booth, or bent over the clay in the pottery studio while I was locked away in the school darkroom—I love how that has made you the person you are and that we all make different things in different ways, and need to go to different place to find the energy to do so. I love those differences. They're what make us who we are and they are not insignificant. I just don't think those things are the point. They are not our work, they are merely the context of our work. They are the raw materials, and yes, sometimes the constraints.
I just think it's important we not get so hung up on the labels that they become identities from which we do not stray. I think that while we make our art, our art makes us and to pin down that identity before it's fully formed by a lifetime of creativity would be very uncreative indeed. A missed opportunity to let the journey take us to some surprising places, on the way to making something beautiful.
Music in this episode: Acid Jazz (Kevin Macleod) / CC BY-SA 3.0