This is about the book:
"Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking"
by Susan Cain
The following interview prompted me to look at it:
This is her book:
Read the reviews under the book.
Also this is her recent NYT article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/
Updated 16-Nov-2013
A little instruction manual:
http://themetapicture.com/how-to-interact-with-the-introverted/
Updated 16-Nov-2013
A little instruction manual:
http://themetapicture.com/how-to-interact-with-the-introverted/
5 comments :
I think Seth would agree with the book.
Just because they might interest you, sharing some links I found interesting:
From last week:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/mar/13/why-the-world-needs-introverts?INTCMP=SRCH
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJNAvyLCTik
From a while ago:
http://harvardmagazine.com/2010/11/the-psyche-on-automatic?page=all
http://etd.fcla.edu/CF/CFE0003090/Grimes_Jennifer_O_201005_MA.pdf
And, I read "Man's search for meaning" this week, by Viktor Frankl, which is a great book.
And to leave you with:
"Inside the station I pass by patrolmen making their rounds, but they don't pay me any mind. Seems like every other guy I pass is some tanned kid my age shouldering a backpack. And I'm just one of them, melting into the scenery. No need to get all jumpy. Just act natural, and nobody'll notice me.
I jump on the little two-car train and return to the library.
"Hey, you're back," Oshima says. He looks at my backpack, dumbfounded. "My word, do you always lug around so much luggage with you? You're a regular Linus."
I boil some water and have a cup of tea. Oshima's twirling his usual long, freshly sharpened pencil. Where his pencils wind up when they get too short I have no idea.
"That backpack's like your symbol of freedom," he comments.
"Guess so," I say.
"Having an object that symbolizes freedom might make a person happier than actually getting the freedom it represents."
"Sometimes," I say.
"Sometimes," he repeats. "You know, if they had a contest for the world's shortest replies, you'd win hands down."
"Perhaps."
"Perhaps," Oshima says, as if fed up. "Perhaps most people in the world aren't trying to be free, Kafka. They just think they are. It's all an illusion. If they really were set free, most people would be in a real bind. You'd better remember that. People actually prefer not being free.
"Including you?"
"Yeah. I prefer being unfree, too. Up to a point. Jean-Jacques Rousseau defined civilization as when people build fences. A very perceptive observation. And it's true -- all civilization is the product of a fenced-in lack of freedom. The Australian Aborigines are the exception, though. They managed to maintain a fenceless civilization until the seventeenth century. They're dyed-in-the-wool free. They go where they want, when they want, doing what they want. Their lives are a literal journey. Walkabout is a perfect metaphor for their lives. When the English came and built fences to pen in their cattle, the Aborigines couldn't fathom it. And, ignorant to the end of the principle at work, they were classified as dangerous and antisocial and were driven away, to the outback. So I want you to be careful. The people who build high, strong fences are the ones who survive the best. You deny that reality only at the risk of being driven into the wilderness yourself."
Excerpt from Kafka on the Shore
by Haruki Murakami
Bye!
Jenna
Thanks Jenna for the links.
I disagree with the idea that fences define or symbolise civilisations in general. Fences are an aberration specific to a collectivist civilisation like this one, where everyone needs to defend his or her territory from everyone else.
Collectivist philosophers and politicians often talk about boundaries, rules, duties etc. They often redefine their misunderstood ideas of "freedom" within the framework of rules and limits.
Lenin wrote that "Freedom is a self-acknowledged necessity" (not a literal translation).
I believe in no such thing!
I live by the opposite philosophy!
I am a traveller. I have been on a "walkabout" since 1983. I "walked", lived and worked in Germany, Ireland, ended up in Buckhorn, Ontario for the time being.
I live at the moment in a log house on a 6 acre forest lot, half an hour from a nearby town, without any fence or any boundary markings whatsoever. I do not have to defend "my" territory because nobody is threatening me. My neighbours are friends and nobody minds if I walk over their field. Some of their fields have fences - not against people but to keeps their cattle in.
Regards,
Stan
Wasn't intending to imply you're "fenced in", I just found the quote thought provoking. Reminded me of a quote about big nations being like gangsters and the little ones like prostitutes... but just some ones "perspective", and I'm being vague again.
The quote reminded me of school too, finding that you need to fit in, because your getting beaten up if you don't, trying to fit in, but failing anyway... I was learning about myself... I remember having almost the entire school of students out of the school buildings surrounding me, as I was about to be beaten up by two girls, who haunted me for the year; they picked me out as different... thats the benefit of going to a public school, I guess, and being in a rough area, and where neither teachers nor your peers you can rely on, or trust in. I didn't find teachers to have a "moral" upper hand, most proved to be bullies or grossly incompetent. I was unlucky, in some ways.
Viktor Frankl's book, has cemented in my mind the reality of "freedom", and there being a distinct minority of people who can be considered "free", exercising their "individuality"; that it has always been this way, and probably always will...
Though, it is devastating to me, to see how many people have little chance of being the minority. How does a sexually abused child regard its environment? One thats being handed around a pedophile ring, by its own mother? How do these experiences damage ones chances to act individually, freely; self-concept is damaged. How does someone from a family of illiterate, abusive, lower socio-economic background, have a great chance of being "free"; conceiving themselves as free... I have a friend who works with these people; quite a significant amount of the population are sexually/physically/emotionally abused... It's sad to consider. But that's life. It's messy, to me.
I know it's a little late to post this but I've found the best article on introversion that I've seen and i remembered this post of yours which I also thought was very good. If you read the details of an introvert in this article you will know EXACTLY what kind of person I am. Exactly. It's uncanny.
http://musingsonmormonism.wordpress.com/2012/09/17/easily-the-most-fascintaing-and-illuminating-comparison-of-introversion-and-extroversion-ive-ever-seen/
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