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Being an Introvert

The internet is full of reassurances that it’s okay to be an introvert — but here are ten ways to make yourself look like an extrovert. Because that’s what you must do if you want to succeed in life. And anyway, it’s good for you to get out of your comfort zone.

That was then. Things are different now.

Now that so many are having to self-isolate and work from home, introverts have the edge. It’s the extroverts who are feeling uneasy and having to resort to special techniques to ease their anxiety.

I ~~almost~~ wrote a mocking list of tips to help extroverts to get over their feelings of deprivation for the company of others, but then I remembered that many have no choice about being cut off right now. In “normal” times, we introverts have to do some ~~faking~~ performing in certain areas of our lives, but at the end of the day we can return to our preferred environments. Self-isolated or quarantined extroverts right now don’t have a choice. I acknowledge all that, but here’s my list of…

Un-serious Tips for Isolated Extroverts

Simulate your preferred environment. Gather all pets, stuffies, and dolls into a small room. Crank up the music. Add crowd noise using another device. Dance up a storm.

Find non-human crowds. Seek out places frequented by flocks of noisy crows, gulls, or starlings. Parking lot? Garbage dump? Bring bird seed or french fries. Pretend the birds are humans. Mingle.

Hug a tree. (This is a real thing. Read more here.)

Do some role-playing. (A workshop facilitator’s favourite.) Play all the roles. In costume. Make a video you can watch later. Or replay that argument you lost, this time remembering the killer line.

If all else fails, fake it ’til you make it. Gradually extend the times you’re alone in a quiet room. Eventually you may get used to it and stop wanting to scream. And hey — getting outside your comfort zone is good for you!

A Few Serious Thoughts

Until I learned that extroverts draw energy from being with other people, while introverts experience an energy drain in those situations, I thought there was something fundamentally wrong with me. I wasn’t trying hard enough. I had a bad attitude. If I didn’t fix myself, I’d be a failure in life.

In recent years, books by authors such as Susan Cain, Laurie Helgoe, and Marti Olsen Laney have changed introversion from a pathology to an almost okay personality trait. Almost okay, still. In North America, at least, extrovert qualities are expected of those who want success in life, especially working life.

Is it possible to be successful — however one measures success — as an introvert, rather than a pseudo-extrovert? It depends. If you make the right choices and acquire skills that permit you to work mostly alone and earn enough to live decently, the answer is “Yes.” But not everyone can do that.

Some people, myself included, make the choice to apply for jobs in supervisory or managerial positions because those jobs pay better. Team players are valued more than lone wolves. Even we introverts can fake our way through a job interview. Unfortunately, by taking jobs that don’t suit our personalities, we may be setting ourselves up for a harder time at work than if we were extroverts. And if we don’t fit our jobs comfortably, we’re shortchanging the people we work for and with. It’s a lose-lose-lose situation.

I’m sure I’m not the only person who found her true calling after retirement from a “real” job. I’ve also discovered that if there’s something I really want to achieve, and the only way I can do it is by looking like an extrovert, I’ll gladly fake and perform. For a while, anyway.

At least I’m no longer a closet introvert. And right now, we intros are having our moment.

Flock of birds with one flying away — Can you spot the intro-bird?

Are any of you introverts? How has that influenced your life? And how are you dealing with our Covid19-constricted world?

Images by Alexas Fotos and TeeFarm from Pixabay.

Extreme Gardening?

Many sports and other activities have an “extreme” version. Think ultra-marathons, free climbing, wingsuit flying, and tightrope walking over vast chasms. There’s even extreme ironing.

So what about extreme gardening? What might that look like?

Gardening on someone else’s land or public land, e.g. in a park or on a boulevard. The last is known as “guerrilla gardening.”
Stealing plants for your garden.
Growing dangerous plants, such as giant hogweed, poison ivy, or poison hemlock.
Growing a garden of weeds (bindweed, thistles, stinging nettle, Japanese knotweed).
Not deadheading plants like purple toadflax or rose campion, i.e., letting them seed freely.
Growing tropical plants in non-tropical places; or, for that matter, alpine plants in lowlands, desert plants in rainforests, etc.
Growing plants on a vertical surface.
Growing trees in your house.
Growing Himalayan blue poppies.
Engaging in marathon pruning, weeding, or digging sessions.
Gardening in the nude.

I’ve actually done some of these things. Guess which ones…

The consequences and dangers of the above list include: getting arrested, skin irritation, poisoning, illness, hospitalization, lawsuits, infected wounds, sore muscles, back injuries, disappointment, frustration, weariness, and death. Notably missing is the adrenaline rush which is the main point of most extreme sports. (Well, OK, there might be a small thrill in digging up a plant from a garden that isn’t yours and vanishing into the night. But see the list of consequences.)

Unfortunately for the extremist, gardening is not a sport that produces adrenaline rushes. For one thing, results are usually slow to appear. The gardener’s main reward is occasional fits of quiet awe, in which he or she stands gazing at a plant or group of plants with a happy, vacant smile on their mug.

Meconopsis sheldonii "Lingholm" (grandis) Himalayan blue poppy — Himalayan blue poppy in bloom.

Extreme ironing image created by Greg Williams in cooperation with the Wikimedia Foundation. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic license.

Unmentionable?

“Write what you know.”

And something everyone knows is you have to go to the bathroom several times a day. When you gotta go, you gotta go. It’s non-negotiable.

So why do fictitious characters hardly ever need to do this?

Not that I’m keen to know every time someone in a novel needs to take a whiz, but considering how awkward it is to be “took short,” wouldn’t authors who want to make their characters suffer take advantage of physiological realities? Especially when you consider the amount of coffee imbibed by some characters and their creators. What about a detective hot on the trail of a suspect who has to stop and look for a washroom? Or a romantic scene short-circuited by a call of nature?

And what about villains? There may be other ways to foil their evil plans.

Hmm.

Seriously, I’ve read advice to the effect that readers relate better to characters with real human imperfections than to flawless types who never mess up or encounter any of the annoying little problems of life. Like running out of TP. Or making an entrance trailing some from one’s stiletto heel.

So what prompted these scatological speculations? The main character of my current work in progress is right now in a situation where the facilities are minimal and basic. No hot shower, no triple-ply TP, and maybe no toilet as such — awkward for a young American woman visiting a village on the west bank of the Nile in 1962. And things are going to get worse.

I suppose the reason for the absence of bodily functions in fiction is obvious: “Eww, who wants to read about that stuff?” Well, hardly anybody, including me. As a fictional device, this is one where “less is more” applies. Which is why my character will have to cope with the lack of facilities off-page. Besides, if I do my job right, she’ll have a lot more to worry about.

Images courtesy of Pixabay

Book Rocks

No, not “books rock” (even though they do). This is about stones.

I started reading at meals as a kid. Food and reading seem made for each other — both are at least potentially pleasurable activities, depending on the quality of what is being consumed.

Thing is, it’s hard to read while eating if your book refuses to stay open. (This, incidentally, is one area in which ebooks have an advantage over print). Some sort of weight is required, and pressing tableware into service for the purpose doesn’t work too well. The knife slides off, someone else needs the butter dish, etc.

Rocks, on the other hand, are perfect. And my house is full of them, ranging from small pebbles to large cobbles, due to a habit of picking up attractive rocks on beach walks.

Some rocks are better suited as book weights than others. Flat, rather than curved surfaces, and an elongated shape, are ideal qualities. As to weight, it depends on the springiness of the book, but something from a few ounces to a pound does the job admirably. Of course, you have to be careful; it’s not good to drop a hefty cobble onto a brand new, tightly glued paperback. A carelessly wielded stone may break the spine of a valued book.

Here are three reliable rocks I have used for years to keep books open.

The topmost one is the heaviest. Placed with care, it gently subdues any book that wants to snap shut when left unattended. The post header shows it in action, making my copy of The Egyptian Book of the Dead (a thick book with a tight spine) a little more readable. I found it by the South Saskatchewan River, near the town of Borden, in the 1980s. The middle one must have come from some beach here on Vancouver Island. Its shape was what made me pick it up; it’s less than half an inch (about 1 cm) thick, and an inch wide. It’s perfect for books that lazily flip up an unweighted leaf, and looks quite elegant when in use. The bottom one is a piece of greenish stone (possibly serpentine) from Ballenas Island in the Strait of Georgia. (OK, it looks grey in the picture, but trust me, it has a definite green tint, especially when wet. Looking good wet is something beach rocks do really well). I kept this rock on my desk at work, and used it to hold open books I was cataloguing. It’s a bit on the light side, so I’d have to position it in exactly the right spot. Sometimes the page would fight back, and the rock would slip off, requiring recovery and repositioning. Those white marks on the top two stones are eraser residue; rocks are also great eraser cleaners.

To be fair, there is another tool for holding books open — the “book snake,” an elongated cloth bag filled with dried beans or peas or similar stuff, or a weighted leather thing you can buy. I have no experience with either. Book snakes are said to be superior to rocks in that they are softer and shape themselves to the contours of a book, so will not mar pages. But you have to buy them or make them, whereas a suitably shaped stone is instantly ready for use. And it costs nothing.

Book rocks may also be used to crack nuts, or as weapons or missiles, should your dining situation deteriorate to the point that such items are required.

Pseudo-Haiku From Spam

I gather February is National Haiku Writing Month.

I write no haiku. This poetic form has quite exacting conventions and a long history. I suspect it would take considerable study and practice to become proficient in it, but many in the West seem to perceive it as “quick and easy poetry.” The result is a lot of of polysyllabic word-clumps intended to convey some fleeting notion. Or maybe I’m being disrespectful of well-meaning haiku writers.

But…

I was shoveling spam out of my email inbox the other day. Most of the time I hit the “empty spam” button without looking at what is about to be flushed. But a couple of gem-like phrases caught my eye. I noted them down.

Rearranged a bit, here they are:

Body is a baggage for life / Protect stomach lining / Better tomorrow starts now.

Starry mood? / The energy of bright feelings / Just enables.

Quick start, long action! / Life is well when you take the right meds! / Be confident!

Afraid to fall? / Do not push me / You’re mighty!

You will note that these word-strings do not contain the 5-7-5 syllables prescribed for haiku. That, among other reasons and with apologies, is why I call them pseudo-haiku.

Feel free to guess what the spammers were trying to sell.

“Spam” image courtesy of Pixabay.

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