Neither Label Fits
Posted: Friday, February 17, 2012
by George Stay
Growing up, my best friend was always a book.
No one book, mind you, just whatever book I happened to be reading at the time.
When you grow up in the country with three sisters and the nearest male your age is more than a mile away and you have no way to get to his house, then a book becomes a mighty trustworthy and able friend to have. It is always there when you need to escape the mundane, boring and tedious world you live in.
In other words, an introvert.
And I would say I have been an introvert my entire life except for two things: As a teen and throughout college I was a rebel -- not in a south of the Mason-Dixon Line rebel but in an against-all-tyranny kind of rebel. You cannot be a rebel without stating your case in a somewhat extroverted way. Not that I went out of my way to find or cause trouble, but when it came calling or I saw it on its way, I spoke out.
Or, more often, I wrote out.
And that is where I get confused by myself. Inside, I am an introvert, the person who, when forced to attend a party or large gathering, tends to sit on the edges and quietly watch everyone else, thinking to himself and having a grand time all alone. But at the same time, I am a writer and as such I am an extrovert since I put myself out there, in public, with every published written word. On top of that, I've had to make myself into a speaking extrovert because -- God forbid! -- people have, from time to time, asked me to speak to groups. It often takes all of the nerve I have to do it, but I have become extroverted enough to speak in front of large groups.
These two sides have had their clashes, often when someone has read something I have written and, recognizing me in a public place, comes up to speak to me. They feel, because they have read my words, that they know me. They recognize me from my photo. But I don't know them and therefore am shocked when they speak to me, often as if I am an old friend. The more this has happened the less shocking it has become, but it still offers surprise, sometimes tolerable, sometimes strained and strange.
While I am unable to accept myself as an extrovert, preferring the company of myself and a good book over the company of other people, I cannot totally wear that label since, as a writer I am in many ways a permanent extrovert, for while the spoken word may disappear those written in ink are more or less permanent.
And the irony of it all, to me, is that if not for books -- my lifelong friends -- I would not be a writer. But being a writer means giving up being an introvert because we pour ourselves into our words.
Neither label will stick, so I shake them off. And don the coat that best fits me -- writer.
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Top-level comments on this article: (2 total)Interesting. I think most writers (at least what I guess) are introvert as they need to fight for privacy and imagination to focus on their thoughts. A busy crowded place is not for them. They are rather by themselves because their world is within them. How much am I right here ?Hilda, I think you are correct. And yet some of things I have written have been done on a portable computer while sitting in the stands of a crowded sporting event. Inspiration comes when it comes and we must grab it and run with it. But, yes, I think most of us are introverts in that where we look when we begin to write is to what is inside us and not what is inside others. Thanks for reading and for commenting.
Hi George.
This is a great analysis. I think that you are probably correct. While writing my own introvert/extrovert article, I was struck by the same incongruity. Great job!
Hugs,
DianneThanks, Dianne. Yeah, I realized that a true introvert would never write, at least not about themselves, and certainly would never want the attention writing sometimes gets you. So I realized that we may write because we are introverts but become something of an extrovert through the process of writing.
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