The Power of Introverts in a World that Won't Stop Talking

[DesDownunder]

Anyone taking bets about how long before President Obama appoints EleCivil to head up the nation's education?

[blue]

For Trab: Don't give up, and don't let the extra codes deter you, please. I don't know what's causing that. But the stuff you're seeing is raw HTML code. The ' is just a typewriter-style single quote mark (not the curly one, the straight one). Paragraph tags and a few other things are in there too. It's as if it isn't running part of the forum software to transform your input. But...I wouldn't think that'd be something on your end, particularly. Huh, I don't know yet. I think this is something the Dude may need to refer to the forum software people. You probably already know to try clearing your cache. Good that you've tried both Safari and Firefox. I'd suggest you let Dude, Des, and myself know your Mac's OS version and the versions of Safari and Firefox you're using. Google's Chrome browser, by the way, is ultimately based on much of the same engine, called webkit, that Safari is. I won't subject you to the pain of MSIE. But please, those codes, while annoying to you or others, are not a barrier to understanding you. So please continue posting. :hugs: You're liked and appreciated around here. The place wouldn't be the same without you.

For Others: I haven't yet had a chance to read the rest of the thread. I'll get there.

[Cole Parker]

From what I know about elementary education, which of course isn't the the weight of the dust on a moth's wings compared to what E/C knows, there is the same problem at that level as there is throughout our educational system. Too many teachers don't have the level of enthusiasm, the work ethic or the ability to be really good instructors or motivators. When that is put up against today's indulged kids, argumentative and disrespectful parents, weak principals and school boards whose main focus seems to be avoiding lawsuits, one can easily see how difficult a task E/C has in front of him.

If anyone can succeed at this, I think he can. And I wish him luck. If he can succeed in the environment he's in, yes, it should be written up and presented to a far wider audience.

Perhaps keeping a journal of this wild ride would be a useful tool for the future? Remembering details after the fact is always tough.

I wish you great success, E/C. I have a friend I assist in her classroom. I see what she confronts. And you have been dealing with that firsthand. I marvel at the tenacity and endurance elementary teachers must have today to be successful. Classrooms are not as they were a half-century ago when I inhabited them.

C

[blue]

Cole, like you, I tend to feel uncomfortable, like I'm faking it, when I have to be very outgoing, greeting people or at parties and things like that. I do sometimes choose to do that, or get in that hyper and outgoing mode, but again, there's a key with feeling hyper, too "on" about it. Somewhere along the way, I got to where I'd force it sometimes, feeling I had to, and...I really want to get back to where I don't force myself into a mode that feels off to me. Others don't seem to see it as off-key, which puzzles the crud out of me. I do like to talk with friends. (You couldn't guess from frequent and long posts, huh?) (Frequent and long? What? Hmm.... OK, hush, libido, wasn't talking about that.)

I agree with Trab's point about charisma and the danger of following like lemmings when a leader is, well, full of it. People do tend to do that, and it is bad when it happens.

Charisma can be a good thing. We want and need that undefinable inspiring factor that makes us want to do well for others or follow (or befriend) a person, or a leader. We do need leaders, someone who'll bring cohesion and order and direction to a disparate group. We do want likeable people. I have seen charisma in action, people whom you very much want to be with, do for, follow, because they have some intangible magnetism or a quality to them that inspires likeability, trust, loyalty, several other things. When there is good charisma, that is a wonderful thing. It's only when the person acts badly or has wrong-headed ideas and acts badly on them, or towards others, that that charisma is such a danger, I think.

Des said,

I think there is a real problem when we compartmentalise people with labels of an introvert being' date=' a deep thinker, an anti-social recluse, and an extrovert as being, an outgoing, sociable or shallow thinker.[/quote'] Yes, absolutely. The one does not imply the other; they are not always correlated, in tandem, in common.

[blue]

Yet more evidence EleCivil is one of the coolest guys ever.

What he and Des are talking about, nerves at being in the public eye, yet somehow able to function at public speaking/singing/acting? Yes, that's very much how I feel. I've been told I do well at it, but you couldn't prove it by me. I can get a little ego boost by hamming things up, and I can like performing or speaking, but...on some level, I'm very insecure about it too. Practice is what's gotten me better at it and able to ignore some of the insecurities and sometimes enjoy doing it.

I used to know two people, man and wife, who were almost painfully shy and sometimes very awkward around people, even friends. Yet if you gave the guy a chance to sing or act, particularly acting, he could have fun and entertain and let his hammy and pretending/imaginative sides out to play. He was still shy, but less so, because somehow it was "OK" to be outgoing in that context, because he was pretending, and the audience was pretending with him. I learned from that and use it myself.

I'd bet EleCivil is good at his new job, but I think he'd be great in the classroom too.

Unrelated to anything, the other day, I happened to run errands, jeans and white socks. I was putting on the socks when I realized, both were white, almost the same, but there was a difference in the knitting method. This meant they subtly did not match. I went through my whole morning/afternoon of errands and got home and not one person noticed my socks did not quite match. How fiendishly subversive! How deliciously out of character! Hahaha (oh wait, "Bwahahaha!" :evillaugh: ). Now, granted, I had no real occasion to lift my leg up and point out, "See, behold! My socks do not match!" but still, it was funny to me how the world perceives things, how I could be picky about something like that, and yet...it does not matter at all in the grand scheme of things...it's "OK". No, I don't know what point I have to that. Say, you know, about that hiking a leg up, I really never have had the irresistible desire to hike my leg on a fire hydrant or tree, or do that ballet bar thing with my leg on a counter to show someone. I dunno where I'm goin' with that one either. Must be all these dogs and orangutans and raccoons. Or maybe I need to watch Billy Elliott again? (Michael, his friend in that, would've confused the crud out of me as a kid, too, by the way.)

Rambling there. Blame the wild weather today.

You know, I've always equated introversion with shyness and extroversion with being outgoing and confident. How to contrast those, to differentiate them, I'm not sure.

One other thing? I tend to be a loner. When I get down about something, I tend to go into hermit crab mode, pull in into my own little shell, and I used to almost hibernate. (That was a (bad) way of trying to deal with depression at the time. I tried to sleep it away, basically pull the covers over my head almost literally, and cease existing in some degree. Like I said, not good.) That, I think, arose out of being teased a lot as a kid, on top of my natural tendencies.

What gets me, though, is that occasionally, when I go out (typical day to day activities, rather than "go out" in the sense of socializing) I will sometimes get the very disconcerting feeling that I'm mostly unnoticed, almost invisible, among other people, running around, doing my errands, going through all the motions. Sure, other people interact with me and I interact with them, but it's that feeling you get of a certain detachment in a crowd, not really a detachment from reality, but a sense of being out of the loop, out of sync, with those other people. When you'd like to be more part of things, belong more, that is a strange feeling to have.

I mention it because it's a darker shade of what EleCivil was talking about with the sublimation of self, being able to concentrate and feel either apart or at one, and the riff about the sale on coffee filters. I hardly ever drink coffee. Yeah, that must be it, drinking coffee will make me as one with the universe! (Hahaha, NO!, too much coffee will make me so freakin' hyper, you'd think I was on something. Not a good thing, trust me. Tea doesn't do that to me, just coffee.)

Having wandered so far afield he's probably lost in the woods getting burs and avoiding chiggers and other tiny microfauna, Blue gets down off the soapbox and wanders off to do something else. :)

Charlie Brown: Classic introvert, but lovable.

Linus: Classic introvert with oral issues ;) which might bear exploring.... (Hah, I can't criticize, I had a security blanket at night way too late into childhood development.) (What? No, you doofus, not last week...!)

(Hmm, yes, I've heard the rumors about Peppermint Patty and Marcie. I dunno about Linus. OK, there's probably a strange fanfic fanwank in that somewhere....)

And with that vaguely disturbing or titillating mental image in your heads, now back to you in the studio, Stewie....

[FreeThinker]

I so wish someone had been saying these things forty years ago. I have always been an introvert, preferring books to parties, reading-thinking-writing to group interaction. As a child, I was made to feel guilty for not fitting in, not conforming, not being like everyone else. We have an ambivalent attitude in America to the introvert/extrovert dichotomy. We respect and revere the individual and individualism, until he starts thinking differently than the rest of us. We (Americans, not necessarily me) like nonconformists as long as they conform. The introvert is a thinker and creative. I go for long walks and that's when I create my stories and blog entries.People say I'm lonely, and in some ways I am, but I'm also quite happy sitting in the library (yes there are still libraries with physical books that one can hold in one's hands) or in a quiet corner of Barnes and Noble (I used to go to Borders, but...oh well). I think I'm a bit Aspergerish in some ways because I don't understand people very well and often say inappropriate things when forced to be extroverted. I like quiet contemplation. But our culture doesn't encourage this. Americans may like individualism, but when someone actually is an individual... well...

Thank you, EleCivil, for posting this video!