This morning during my aimless web wanderings I stumbled upon book review about a book on introversion in Goodreads. An hour later I was sifting through the brightly lit pages in my laptop. I could only read through the first chapter which dabbled a bit with definitions of introversion and extroversion and the cultural history of both so called 'personality types' in USA ( No comments !)
I just now closed the book after feeling scared of knowing what the next few chapters would hold. I scored pretty high on the authors introvert test, so I know my group well enough. The author raised questions about whether is it really necessary to be outgoing, aggressive, to speak a lot and what do you do when you are with a room full of people and want to jump out of the fire exit. I was not unfamiliar with these, especially the last one. I remember giving up my opportunity to take a physics class for teacher's day in school even though I loved and sort of understood the topics given reasonably well, because I was scared and very deeply uncomfortable about speaking in front of so many people (never mind most of them were my friends and all of them my classmates !).
Now I'm slightly better off, speaking in small groups and in front of my classmates once in a while managing to hold my flight or fight responses in check. The funny thing is that I wasn't always like this. From my first standard to a handful of years back I used to speak in front of the assembly and teachers, like other kids without much ado.Then a few things had happened in my life which had somehow wiped out my sense of security and a a larger-than-life bit of my confidence. It took me six years, till this July to realize this and start trying to get it back. Will speaking be any different for me now ? I guess I'll have to find out.
There is a much more abstract conflict here, quietly lurking behind the screen. In reality, as we all know, most of our security is not security at all: we have the profoundest sense of false security. Let me explain here, after some years of living, we realize that almost nothing can be said certainly, though we can sometimes predict how probable things are with an amount of sureness. It is certain that there will be one morning where you, as well as your loved ones are going to be part of the soil, that too quite irrevocably. It is quite uncertain whether we'll get there happily, whether we'll reach that point alone or with company. Still all of us have a sense of security believing that things will turn out for the better if we work hard enough and some of the things we like will remain unchanged. Then it seems all the efforts directed at building a sense of security are ill placed; we're trying to close our eyes and not see the world. However nothing could be farther from the truth because it is precisely the same security blanket that gives us hope and enables us to be happy which makes the whole life worth living. Now not realizing this I couldn't go back to being secure for a while, in fact six years.
The other question is of adventure. Are we by hiding beneath our security blanket from situations that are difficult for us, that enables us to grow ? Are we being in the 'comfort zone' and not living ? Is it smothering the deep questions and doubts that should help us see the world better and in a different light ? It seems entirely plausible since all of us do hide or hides from some things which we don't like. By now you will have come to the conclusion that I'm a neurotic worrier but bear with me a bit more ( and I admit that I'm bit of one :D ). Here the catch is that we have mistaken the lump under the security blanket. The metaphoric blanket is not protecting us from situations and fights and adventures; it is enabling us to believe in ourselves so that we can have those adventures ( and less preferably fights !). It is enabling us to be calm and collected so that we can deal with those questions and doubts with the best of our abilities, as if our life didn't depend on it.
In my mind this post started out as a portrayal of introversion and extroversion and their conflicts; however as my sister says I have a knack of starting with something and then talking about something else all together :) That will have to wait for another post.
I just now closed the book after feeling scared of knowing what the next few chapters would hold. I scored pretty high on the authors introvert test, so I know my group well enough. The author raised questions about whether is it really necessary to be outgoing, aggressive, to speak a lot and what do you do when you are with a room full of people and want to jump out of the fire exit. I was not unfamiliar with these, especially the last one. I remember giving up my opportunity to take a physics class for teacher's day in school even though I loved and sort of understood the topics given reasonably well, because I was scared and very deeply uncomfortable about speaking in front of so many people (never mind most of them were my friends and all of them my classmates !).
Now I'm slightly better off, speaking in small groups and in front of my classmates once in a while managing to hold my flight or fight responses in check. The funny thing is that I wasn't always like this. From my first standard to a handful of years back I used to speak in front of the assembly and teachers, like other kids without much ado.Then a few things had happened in my life which had somehow wiped out my sense of security and a a larger-than-life bit of my confidence. It took me six years, till this July to realize this and start trying to get it back. Will speaking be any different for me now ? I guess I'll have to find out.
There is a much more abstract conflict here, quietly lurking behind the screen. In reality, as we all know, most of our security is not security at all: we have the profoundest sense of false security. Let me explain here, after some years of living, we realize that almost nothing can be said certainly, though we can sometimes predict how probable things are with an amount of sureness. It is certain that there will be one morning where you, as well as your loved ones are going to be part of the soil, that too quite irrevocably. It is quite uncertain whether we'll get there happily, whether we'll reach that point alone or with company. Still all of us have a sense of security believing that things will turn out for the better if we work hard enough and some of the things we like will remain unchanged. Then it seems all the efforts directed at building a sense of security are ill placed; we're trying to close our eyes and not see the world. However nothing could be farther from the truth because it is precisely the same security blanket that gives us hope and enables us to be happy which makes the whole life worth living. Now not realizing this I couldn't go back to being secure for a while, in fact six years.
The other question is of adventure. Are we by hiding beneath our security blanket from situations that are difficult for us, that enables us to grow ? Are we being in the 'comfort zone' and not living ? Is it smothering the deep questions and doubts that should help us see the world better and in a different light ? It seems entirely plausible since all of us do hide or hides from some things which we don't like. By now you will have come to the conclusion that I'm a neurotic worrier but bear with me a bit more ( and I admit that I'm bit of one :D ). Here the catch is that we have mistaken the lump under the security blanket. The metaphoric blanket is not protecting us from situations and fights and adventures; it is enabling us to believe in ourselves so that we can have those adventures ( and less preferably fights !). It is enabling us to be calm and collected so that we can deal with those questions and doubts with the best of our abilities, as if our life didn't depend on it.
In my mind this post started out as a portrayal of introversion and extroversion and their conflicts; however as my sister says I have a knack of starting with something and then talking about something else all together :) That will have to wait for another post.
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