On Introversion

(saved off Tumblr, home of the Introverts, and I've lost the source)

Everyone, I'm an introvert. I always have been. When I was a kid, I was painfully shy--like, to the point of being literally terrified of talking to people in authority, of being so nervous about things like talking in front of people that I never raised my hand in class and would let other pick on me without saying anything because being picked on quietly was better than being forced to say outloud, where people could hear me, what was wrong.

As I got older, I got less shy and more confidant. A part of it was a decision I made one day on the bus when I was in ninth grade: I no longer wanted to miss out on things because I was afraid, so I just decided to ignore the fear and act like I wasn't afraid. It had mixed results, but it did teach me how to control social anxiety somewhat by simply acting like it wasn't there. I'm smart. I know how things are supposed to go. Part of it was ICFA, and later Slayage, where people like me wanted to hear what I had to say, and where I learned I can read a paper with the best of them (even if the Q&A is still terrifying).

But I think another part of it was less in my control. There's this idea that I keep running into that there's something wrong with introverts, that they're not right to prefer quieter settings, time alone to think about things, working one on one to massive group things, and so on. I think, and TEDTalks (posted below) agree, that it's because of this shift in recent generations to an ideal of everyone being open and sunny and gregarious all the time. Everyone is supposed to be a TV newscaster at all times, and there's a near total lack of understanding that almost half the population would rather cut off an arm than be forced to network whenever they go out into the world.

But see, there's the problem. You can't change how your brain is wired. Well, if you can, I don't know how to do it, and decades of soul-searching and metacognition have only taught me how to cope, how to pretend really well, and how to function, somewhat, in an extrovert's world. But the older I get, the less I want to. I mean, there are so many books to read. And so many real, meaningful conversations to have with just a handful of people who I really know, rather than a roomfull of people I can't remember the names of, who already obviously have little in common with me. I went to a small college and a smaller grad school because big classes are just heartless distractions to learning. I have just a few close friends, and I keep them for years. And I firmly believe that the unexamined life isn't worth living, but that means I need space and time to examine things.

And you know what? That's fine. Coping and interface skills are necessary, but there is absolutely no reason why I should have to live in a way that gives me ulcers and panic attacks, and there's no reason why anyone else who would rather not has to either. Society needs introverts. We're the ones who write the books, who invent new things, who come up with the ideas that define our generations. Where would the grand American Dream of progress be without these things?

So I'm learning how to just be an introvert. How to not lose social interaction just because rooms full of strangers are horrifying--there are smaller, tighter ways to meet people, and I'm uncovering them. I'm relaxing the shell that I've built up around myself, and allowing myself to know that it's okay if I'm not smiling all the damn time, okay if I don't have anything to say and so just keep my mouth shut. And I'm slowly getting the idea that more people need to hear these things. Which would, eventually, maybe, put me in the spotlight again, but not until I do have things to say, and entirely on my own terms.

How about you? Are you an introvert or an extrovert?

More info:
My Super-Charged Life: Five Top Misconceptions Introverts Battle
My Super-Charged Life: Introvert vs Extrovert

On being enthusiastic

So, as a follower of the right good Wil Wheton and John Green*, I'm coming to grips with the fact that I just need to let myself be excited about things, and to not worry about that being too much for people. So I'm liking things more, and loving things more, and it's making me happy.

But being so flaming poor lately has had a side effect in this category: see, I've been so poor for so long now, that things like having a few extra dollars to buy chocolate, or to get the good toilet paper instead of the cheap stuff, or to go to see a matinee, makes me really happy. I mean, on the one hand, there's that mean little part of my brain that's telling me that's pathetic. On the other hand, though, there's the new, positive part of my brain saying I'm allowed to be happy about silly things, and that right now, those are among the things that make me happy, so I should revel in it.

And it's something I used to not think about, so it's adding to my Examined Life--I mean, how often does the average person really worry about choosing between dinner tonight and a candybar now? Or about whether they even have an opinion on which toilet paper they're buying?

Don't get me wrong, being this broke sucks, and I'm not sticking around in this state any longer than I have to, but it's given me this appreciation of little things to counter all the piles of annoying and frustrating things, and it's okay to be happy about them. It's okay to be enthusiastic about anything that makes me happy.** And I really don't see, now, why I ever squelched that.

What makes you happy right now? What is making you giddy and silly, even if--or especially if--it's something little and usually overlooked?




*Neither of whose blogs I'm currently up to date on, but, you know, 'follower of' in the sense of liking how they view the world.
**Even when things that make me happy eat my brain. Have you seen my Tumblr? It's all stuff that makes me happy in one way or another--and it's not everything. I pick and choose. My impulse is to reblog every single Sherlock, Doctor Who, Supernatural, Castle, book, tea, colorful bedroom thing I see, but instead I pick the ones that really, honestly make me smile.

Neat Things I Saw This Week: Fourth Week of May

Number 1:

Awesome Japanese manhole covers: http://www.booooooom.com/2012/05/16/beautiful-japanese-manhole-covers/

I Like This Because: There is absolutely no reason why cities have to be ugly just because they're cities, and there's even less reason why something totally utilitarian has to be unadorned. There's all this talk about making cities better places to live, but I think just making them prettier would go a long way toward making people happier--it's why people lust after those gorgeous Italian espresso machines and all the charmingly beautiful Swedish rugs and so on: something that you see every day, that has a defined purpose, really should be something beautiful, too.

Number 2:

Trees in someone's back yard acting like a hundred pinhole cameras for the eclipse this past Sunday: http://www.itsokaytobesmart.com/post/23463228044/uselaine-solar-eclipse-projected-through-the

I Like This Because: How awesome it is! We weren't in the path of the eclipse, so I didn't get to see it, but the internet is full of amazing pictures of it from those who were and did. I never even would have thought of this, but look how well it works!

Wes Anderson Bingo

To be taken to the new movie:

 

Link to a printable version here: http://biblioklept.org/2012/05/29/wes-anderson-bingo/)

Thought Question #810: Every person needs______?

(From Thought Questions: http://thoughtquestions.com/archives/2760)

I think every person needs food, shelter, water and safety. That's Maslowe's old Hierarchy of Needs. But after that, there's the peak of the needs pyramid, and we get into the more interesting answers to this question. I think everyone needs love. People who aren't loved early and often (in the emotional sense, get your mind out of the gutter!) come out wrong, missing some vital part of themselves, unstable. Sociopaths and psychopaths, and not the the nice, clean, useful way of, say, Sherlock or Dexter.

I think everyone needs a passion, something they like doing, whether they're good at it or not, something other than how they pay their bills and whether they can afford three square meals, and all the other dumb things that clutter up a life and use up attention spans--something that they truly believe in, that raises them up above the mess of daily life.

I think everyone needs acceptance--both for themselves and for others. Everyone should be allowed to be who they are, and they should be able to extend the same acceptance to everyone else; I think the whole world would be a better, happier, calmer place that way. Governments would be forced to unwind from meddling with people's lives, and religions would have to be more open and caring, and everyone, everywhere would be much, much happier.

I think everyone needs progress, or at least a sense of forward momentum. Humans are built on change, adaptation and novelty; if nothing moves forward, we stagnate. If we feel like we aren't getting anywhere, we frustrate. If we feel like we're losing ground or going backward or sliding down, we lash out and get possessive. Grand Progress For the Human Race is probably not something viable anymore, in the broadest senses, because there are just too many people around now, with too many definitions of Grand Progress, but each individual in the world needs to feel like things are getting better. Like they're getting somewhere. Like there's something to hope for.

What do you think every person needs?

What's Been Eating My Brain: Third Week of May, 2012

1. Everything is Ending
Each year, at the end of TV season, everything sort of ends at the same time, and I get about a week of unfinished questions, cliffhangers, and the wasteland that is summer viewing until I come up with something else to watch. I don't do well with unfinished stories, and cliffhangers kill me in new and interesting ways every year. It takes up a lot of space in my head until something else takes over.

2. Supernatural
Most of this term, I've been watching my way through the first six years of Supernatural to unwind at night--but now that I'm up to season six and staring down being caught up with what's available on Netflix, it's  gone and made itself a full-on fandom. Dean and Cas? Yeah, like I really needed another couple to root for*.

3. School is done!
I just have one more thing to turn in, ten pages for the workshop crits, which I have to finish typing before midnight tonight, and then I'm relatively free. Well, free of things I'll be graded on immediately. I still need to read The Hunger Games (and see the movie so I can comment on both) for in-class discussion, and I need to plan my Teaching Module, but I have maybe a week off where I can read whatever I want and I don't have to do anything that isn't self-directed.

I just started The Book of Lost Fragrances by MJ Rose, and four chapters in, it inspired me to see what I could cobble together with the very few fragrance oils I have laying around the house. So I made the first Beta of my own personal birthday scent, so it can have a week or so to marry and I can still have time to try again if it comes out weird. Which is related to...

4. Nailpolish!
I really am in love with it. I mean, I always was, but this past year, not working, with no one telling me that it's a health-risk to wear nail polish, I've been doing my nails every couple of days. And now that I've decided to start manufacturing my own colors, that's what I've been doing between other things. I've made a retro-sort-of purple, a birthday color, two test runs for a Married to the Wind color, one that came out a sort of glittery zombie green, and that bright yellow I posted before. I'm just itching for the spare money to get my proper supplies so I can really make them from scratch. And in the meantime, I've been making page after page of ideas and lists and notes.

5. Revisions
Soon, precious, I have to print up the entirety of the Monsterbeast and get someone other than me to read it, and then start really chopping and rearranging and rewriting. I don't even really know how big it's gotten, since I haven't made the end-of-term consolidated draft yet, but it's got to be pretty hefty by now, and I just want to get into it. I want to be done writing it so I can revise it, so I can sent it off and let someone else worry about it for a while. And then I can write Ember or Beacon and be back in the fun part of writing, when everything is new and anything is possible.



*on top of Jane and Lisbon, Castle and Beckett (who finally hooked up, and did it exactly as you should on TV!), Finch and Reese (or Reese and Carter, either's good for me). Actually, now that I think about it, Booth and Bones are happily together, Peter and Olivia are meh-ly together, and I don't watch NCIS enough to keep up on Ziva and Tony, so, yeah, I do have space for a new couple. Also, I think the fear of women / fear of loving relationships Hawaii Five-0 has is why I have trouble hooking into it as much as I might.

Late night rambling

-I sloshed rose oil over my hand while attempting to mix a personal perfume for my birthday, and now I sort of smell like roses all over. I keep sniffing my own arms like a weirdo. -I kind of want to make a cup of tea even though that will defitely keep me up and it's almost 2am. -Somebody just roared past the house at alarming speed. There's a curve about a half block from us, and they were headed there. It's scary! -Tonight's Supernatural episodes made Souless!Sam look pretty awesome, then made him really creepy, then gave him his soul back and he's back to being riddled with guilt about everything. Also, I think someone needs to really give Cas a hug. He's been fighting a losing war all season, and still comes to help the boys when they need him. -I mixed a sparkly, summery birthday nail polish for myself today! I might tweak it some, but I like how it turned out. -That is all.

Video: Why The Star Trek Universe is Secretly Horrifying

Why The Star Trek Universe is Secretly Horrifying -- powered by Cracked.com

Packing

I just started filling boxes so that I can be a little more organized than usual when I actually get moving in a little over two months, and just as I was labeling the first box, my music player (which I keep on almost-permanent shuffle) decided to play, like, the saddest and most poignant song from Enya's entire songlist. It was like that part in a fem-flick where everything is sad and changing and I expected at any moment to have to leave the room, turn out a light, and look back one last time before we cut to three months later.

Frankenpolish Swatching: The Yellow Eyed Demon Beta 1

This is The Yellow Eyed Demon on my accent nails, with Sinful Color's Happy Ending (the green) on the rest, which I thought coordinated nicely and also is named ironically*. This is four coats of Yellow (which I think is really too many), and as you can see, you can still see the nail line under it. I think it needs some duochrome-ness added to it, but I don't have anything to duo it and all the starter colors were pretty sheer, so that's how it is. Beta 1 is counted as a partial success, as I like how it's going and it's more than wearable, but I think it still needs work. I think, after I manage to order the supplies, I'm going to try recreating it from scratch and see if I can't fix the issues this franken has.

The Happy Ending is not quite glossy, went on sheer, and though it's a pretty color, I think I need to stop buying SC's bright greens--they're always so thin. What am I saying? I'll keep buying them even knowing that.

So what do you think?



*This being named after The Yellow Eyed Demon from Supernatural, which doesn't really have much in the way of Happy Endings at all, ever.