Monday, September 10, 2007

Hello! my name is BamBam and I am an introvert

What is an introvert ?
in·tro·vert
(ĭn'trə-vûrt', ĭn'trə-vûrt')
A term coined by Carl Jung to describe people who reflect inwards and are drained by being in a social activity and need time alone to recharge. Simply they get pleasure out of solitary activities, given a choice they prefer to sit down and think rather than chit-chat the day away.

Is there someone who just sits down and eats his meal silently without participating in the conversation, that every so often has a smirk on his face that creates an air of arrogance around him ? do you know someone who, to your bewilderment, can be tucked away in his own corner and still come out as the happiest person on this planet without any social interaction for days on end ? then chances are that person in an introvert, and he is most likely not arrogant he just can't help being amused by the utter nonsense that comes out of some people's mouths when it is detached to their brains (muahaha yeah i countered my point i know :P)

It is highly draining to sit down for hours and hours talking about absolutely nothing, that makes me cringe to no end. yes evidently I do hate family gatherings cause you always end up being asked the same bloody question with the same "I care" attitude from people who really are just trying to be nice for the sake of it. Then to be tormented by the same topics over and over for the rest of your life. Now socially that comes off as shy, anti-social, some even go to the extent of labeling introverts as being agoraphobic(fear of public spaces) or some other colorful assortment of disorders, in actuality introverts are not necessarily any of that, they just value silence in the absence of something worth saying, hence when an introvert speak it is better to shut up and listen.

All my gripes aside (and being an INTP I can be really anal & taciturn "sometimes"), the reason I had to sit down and have this talk with one's self is the series of activities that I was involved in the last couple of weeks which shed light on some sides of me that I was in denial about. The reason for those according to my deduction is that currently I created my world to minimize annoyance to the extent that now am vulnerable to annoyances to the extent that it polarizes the way I should act with the way I act, that in a way is the reason that I feel that am faking and acting out my social interactions rather than living them.

With the amount of choice we have nowadays no longer can we live in the same world as other, we think the world is getting smaller but in fact we fragmented the world to even smaller pieces were our perceptions are irreconcilable. Then we profess bafflement and bewilderment and how can others react the way they do towards things.

Slightly loosing you there in the previous 2 paragraphs ? let me bring you up to pace with an example. Being in school you might have been the only one with the interests that you have, for the sake of the example lets say you had an infatuation with fury cuddly teddy bears. So in the past you were forced to interact with others because you had no other option. So you were exposed enough to annoyance that you became immune to it to a certain extent, people then were watching the same shows and hearing the same news. Agreeing or disagreeing based on a single reality. When you wanted to reach out to other fury cuddly teddy bear lovers, you had to expend the effort, and most likely it would be vis-a-vis. Which made the joy of finding them that more real and enjoyable. You had to be more accepting and tolerant of your environment and taking people as is, with all their flows and imperfections.

Contrast that with the reality now, you are no longer the only fury cuddly teddy bear lover.
blast up your computer and you can reach out to plenty, who are exposed to media that is dedicated to fury cuddly teddy bear lovers which shapes their perception of the world based on that perspective. They naturally presume others to atleast have the basic understanding of the culture hence when communicating to outsiders they truncate years of integration which results into them having starkly different views about things. Also for convenience the majority of their communication with other cudbears (thats what fury cuddly teddy bear lovers call themselves) is based on text which detracts from the life of the conversation and aids misunderstanding (boy how sarcasm on paper is hard to achieve!) . So as a result they end up interacting with less people than they would have in the past. Because "they just don't understand".

So how does that tie in with being an introvert (an INTP one non the less) ? well a lot really, mainly the realization that I need to raise the level of noise in my life. I am not going to be "friendlier" or be a chatter box that never stops talking about thy self, and am probably not going to join into a small talk anytime soon.
What I will do is just get exposed, no longer shying away from places I consider to be "not my type", no longer shy away from groups where there might be some people I loathe. Just be around different people.
RAISE MY LEVEL OF TOLERANCE TO THE ANNOYING THINGS IN LIFE & BREAK THE BUBBLE

ENJOY!

ps. fury cuddly teddy bear lovers has some context and it is not purely random
pps. chats and IM's still rule and I love them for stripping the human out of the conversation, but will refrain when given the choice now *psyche*
ppps. I am not an emo.

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