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Posts categoriezed as introverts

Can we all be introverts?

Can we all be introverts? published on 3 Comments on Can we all be introverts?

So I see that the Goodreads winner in non-fiction is Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking, by Susan Cain. I haven’t read it, but it’s now on my “want to read” list (meaning I’m now using Goodreads, so if you want to add me, feel free). Two things about this, however, make me wonder if introversion has become a “thing”: the fact that among the examples mentioned in the book’s blurb are a “high octane public speaker” and a “record-breaking salesman,” and the fact that this is the non-fiction winner of the 2012 Goodreads Choice Awards.

Far be it from me to tell anyone that they can’t be an introvert– I have a general reluctance to tell someone that they’re not what they say they are, up to the point of refusing to tell a fish that he’s not a monkey if he’s willing to wear the ears and tail. And, obviously, I haven’t yet read this book so I don’t know the stories of the people mentioned in this blurb. But to me, being an introvert doesn’t mean you need to “recharge in solitude” after giving your talks, high octane or otherwise– it means not being able to give them in the first place. Needing to recharge in solitude after (or before) a normal day at work. Putting off interactions that involve talking on the phone or meeting with strangers. That kind of thing. Maybe that’s just a more extreme kind of introversion, and time to yourself after a public performance really is a weird thing that most people, most non-introverts, don’t need.

Is it surprising that a book on introverts would be among the most popular on Goodreads? Not at all. A lot of extroverts, after all, simply don’t read. They’re too busy socializing to focus on more than a text or a Facebook update. A book is the perfect thing to be about introverts, when you think about it– a TV show about extroverts is more fitting, but really, every TV show is about extroverts. Except, okay, Hoarders.

But are all or most voracious readers, Goodreaders even, introverts? I doubt it. And I doubt that all of those who aren’t nevertheless have a strong academic interest in the topic, though some of them almost certainly do. So I suspect a bit of introvert…sympathy is going on. I’m not going to call it envy, because a strong aversion to attention from others isn’t an enviable thing, considering how much “Look at me”-ing is involved in life as a person (as opposed to, say, a tiger. Hunt by yourself, sleep by yourself, meet another tiger for temporary shenanigans, and then go back to being by yourself, maybe to raise some cubs which popped out of you mysteriously. By yourself). Amazon.com and self-checkout lanes are godsends to the introvert, but life is still full of minor performances like parties and major ones like job interviews and presentations. And introverts– as I understand them, anyway– are not performers.

But you know what? It’s okay to not like performing. It’s also okay to not like performing sometimes, or not like it very much, when you’re just not in the mood. It’s okay to hate small talk, find fellow patrons at the cinema who yell at the screen annoying rather than endearing, and not understand why people on reality shows tend to go WOOOO so much. That probably doesn’t make you an introvert, but it doesn’t matter. The introverts’ table is, I think, by definition not the cool kids’ table. Come sit there with me and have a beer.  We can have a good chat. Quietly.

Stage fright = selfishness?

Stage fright = selfishness? published on 3 Comments on Stage fright = selfishness?

Via Big Think, actor Jonathan Pryce characterizes stage fright as selfishness:

It’s an interesting thought, and I’m not going to say he’s wrong, but will point out a few things:

1. Self-consciousness and selfishness are not the same thing. Portraying it as selfishness isn’t just “cruel” because it’s hard to hear someone telling you that you’re selfish (though it is), but because it suggests that the anxiety they feel while speaking publicly is because they are somehow trying to monopolize everyone’s attention and make the audience think they’re better than they are. I’ve seen speakers who give off this impression, and they don’t appear to be frightened in the slightest. When a person obviously has stage fright, it’s perhaps as painful to watch and listen to them speak as it is for them to do it. Their voice quavers and they speak too quickly, and you want to whisk them away to a safer location where they may relax, have a beer (or two or three), and record their talk so that you can listen to it later. It would be a better time for all parties involved.

2. After describing stage fright as selfish, Pryce goes on to contrast it with something that sounds, to me, more like selfishness: focusing on what you have to give the audience. It assumes that you have something to give the audience, something important, something they perhaps can only get from you. I’ve never been quite able to make this assumption, though I don’t know whether that’s ultimately at the root of my own stage fright. I do know that mine is very real, and it has a very physical manifestation: I go faint. It feels exactly like I feel when I try to give blood, which is a light-headedness combined with nausea, and I start to see red and blue spots. I want to throw up or flee the room, or both. I actually did faint once while performing in a competition in high school– dropped straight to the ground. It was an unpleasant and embarrassing experience, to say the least. Since then I’ve found that I can speak before an audience only if I have a prepared paper in front of me from which to read, and the prescribed assistance of Propranolol to stop my heart from beating out of my chest as I do so. As you can imagine, I try to avoid the necessity of doing this very often. Some of us just aren’t performers.

3. This is, notably, an instance of a person who has succeeded at solving a problem deciding to diagnose the reason why people who have failed, have failed. It seems as though there are degrees of stage fright, and people who get a small amount of it tend to assume that their experience is universal– that nobody else experiences something worse. People who have a “trick” that makes their stage fright manageable are rather like people who have a “trick” that makes it easier to avoid eating too many sweets. It might work for them, but there’s no particular reason it should work for anyone else. And yet because of the popular doctrine of self-empowerment, it seems as if a trick that works for someone else should work for you, and if it doesn’t then it’s your own fault. I wonder if that creates a similar effect to that of failing at dieting– the failure brings with it a sense of personal futility that compounds the original concern and discourages future attempts to improve. This seems like something that a person trained in clinical psychology should address, and…that person would not be me.