
Song of the Introvert - filament
http://randsinrepose.com/archives/the-song-of-the-introvert/
======
ctdonath
Way off. Maybe it fits some, but is far from definitive "introvert". Maybe
some are fear-driven, but author seems to miss the point that many (most?)
introverts just LIKE solitude, communicating thru contemplative mediums, are
more about doing than talking, and just find smalltalk insufferably
boring/pointless.

Post sounds more like a non-introvert trying to understand & explain, having
concluded "well, they're just _afraid_ of disruptive contact with others." No,
we just don't like expending resources on the uninteresting.

~~~
claudiusd
The OP clearly has Social Anxiety Disorder, also known as "social phobia". The
result is introversion, but the cause is a psychiatric issue. You joke, but
the OP is likely _legitimately_ afraid of making eye contact.

It's too bad people with Social Anxiety (like me) are just told their
"introverted" or "shy" their whole lives. Social Anxiety is a very real
psychiatric disorder that should be identified and treated in people like
this.

~~~
lutusp
> The OP clearly has Social Anxiety Disorder, also known as "social phobia".

Has anyone considered that giving an empty name to a description adds nothing
to the conversation? Until the day Social Anxiety Disorder shows up in an
electron micrograph (pics or it didn't happen), it's something that
psychologists made up, like Asperger Syndrome (now abandoned) or homosexuality
as a mental illness (abandoned in the 1970s).

The fight against homosexuality as a mental illness was terrifying to watch.
Many professionals appeared before hearings wearing masks, to argue against
this addition to their oppression, before psychologists finally realized their
disease mongering was causing real harm and removed homosexuality from the
DSM.

With Asperger's it was exactly the opposite -- it was an attractive diagnosis,
everyone wanted it, such that psychologists finally realized they had created
a monster lacking the clear definition that might have brought it under
control.

~~~
tedks
I really wish the Scientology-esque anti-psychology crowd would stop using the
struggles of queer people as an excuse to be anti-scientific.

Social anxiety disorder definitely exists, it can be treated chemically
(meaning that it is biologically real), and arguing about this anyway is a
fundamental misunderstanding of how mental illnesses are defined and
diagnosed.

Virtually every mental illness include a diagnostic criteria of interference
with normal life functioning. If you have the symptoms the OP has and you feel
you live a normal, happy life, you do not have social phobia.

Further, saying that social anxiety is something "psychologists made up" is
grossly insulting to people who actually have the disorder. Saying that
_recognizing_ it as a disordered state and not as "just being shy" adds
nothing is grossly insulting as well. Some people live their whole lives,
afraid of making eye contact, ruminating on every interaction, thinking that
they are just "awkward" or "shy" or "introverted" and as a result never form
close connections to humans and die alone.

I hope the OP gets the help he or she needs, and I hope that you stop standing
in his or her way.

~~~
lutusp
> I really wish the Scientology-esque anti-psychology crowd would stop using
> the struggles of queer people as an excuse to be anti-scientific.

You mean, like Thomas Insel, sitting director of the NIMH, who recently
described psychiatry as pseudosciene and announced the abandonment of the DSM,
on the common-sense ground that it has no scientific content? Read more here:

[http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/the-rats-of-n-i-
m-h](http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/the-rats-of-n-i-m-h)

Maybe you could read up on current events in the field before posturing as
though you know what's up?

As to "anti-scientific" there is nothing more anti-scientific than a group of
people who invent diseases by voting rather than research, that we're all
supposedly suffering from. Asperger's was included in DSM-IV by vote, not
research. Asperger's was removed from DSM-5 by vote, not research. As a
result, the DSM is being abandoned along with Asperger's.

> Virtually every mental illness include a diagnostic criteria of interference
> with normal life functioning.

That's true, and that is why the DSM is being abandoned -- it's a description
of symptoms with no hint of causes, and in a scientific era, that is both
absurd and offensive. Here's what NIMH director Insel said as he announced the
DSM's abandonment:

[http://www.nimh.nih.gov/about/director/2013/transforming-
dia...](http://www.nimh.nih.gov/about/director/2013/transforming-
diagnosis.shtml)

Quote: "While DSM has been described as a “Bible” for the field, it is, at
best, a dictionary, creating a set of labels and defining each. The strength
of each of the editions of DSM has been “reliability” – each edition has
ensured that clinicians use the same terms in the same ways. _The weakness is
its lack of validity_."

"Unlike our definitions of ischemic heart disease, lymphoma, or AIDS, the DSM
diagnoses are based on a consensus about clusters of clinical symptoms, not
any objective laboratory measure. In the rest of medicine, this would be
equivalent to creating diagnostic systems based on the nature of chest pain or
the quality of fever. Indeed, symptom-based diagnosis, once common in other
areas of medicine, has been largely replaced in the past half century as we
have understood that symptoms alone rarely indicate the best choice of
treatment. Patients with mental disorders deserve better."

By the way. Insel isn't a Scientologist, he's a psychiatrist. Like many in the
field, it has come to him that psychiatry is standing in the way of progress
toward a scientific approach to mental illness diagnosis and treatment.

~~~
tedks
Personal attacks are unbecoming. I probably have more experience in this area
than you do. But I'm not going to stoop so low as to use logical fallacies,
because I'm confident that I'm on the right side of this particular
disagreement. You don't seem to be. It's worth noting your entire argument is
an appeal to authority or a personal attack.

For what it's worth, though, I think that it's positive for the NIMH to move
away from DSM guidelines for research, because research should inform the DSM,
not the other way around. Further, the DSM and mental health as a whole has
been trending towards cultural models of mental illness rather than
authoritarian mindsets that attempt to proscribe rather than describe.

Ironically, the main reason for doing so is the backlash the psychology
community suffered from the categorization of homosexuality and gender
identity disorder. This is why modern mental illness diagnosis requires an
interference with life functioning, as decided by the patient, not the medical
establishment. I think this is generally the right way for the community to go
in, for a couple of reasons.

For one, very few mental illnesses will have an empirically detectable "cause"
aside from some combination of experiences. It's not clear by any stretch that
all mental illnesses have even a biological component. The (empirically
detectable) success of cognitive-behavioral therapy seems to indicate that
since minds can be built in any number of ways, they can also be broken and
need repair purely using their own mechanisms.

If someone has PTSD because they were sexually assaulted, it's not clear to me
that you could ever say with empirical validity (beyond what the DSM already
provides you) that they have any disorder. You could be neurologically
reductionist, but even if that's possible it's several years off before that's
an effective diagnostic mechanism, and even then the original cause of the
disorder is far removed from the person's life, leaving only... the symptoms.

Second, disregarding the subjective distress of the patient is the path
towards medicalization of abnormality, just as happened with homosexuality,
hysteric personality disorder, etc.. In the extreme cases, legal structures
exist to determine if a person is not responsible for themselves. At the end
of the day, mental health is inherently socially constructed rather than
objective, and you're never going to be able to bottom out to something
objective.

To say that the DSM is devoid of scientific context is simply false; the DSM
is written by scientists, based on all available scientific research available
at present. It evolves, like everything else does. I don't think there's any
better way to resolve disagreements among scientists than by voting; it's
worth noting that medicine as a whole merely allows individual practitioners
to make their own judgments as opposed to regulating the field, which is a
definite trade-off without a clear winner.

~~~
lutusp
> It's worth noting your entire argument is an appeal to authority or a
> personal attack.

You mean, like when I pointed out that Asperger's was created and destroyed by
votes rather then scientific evidence? Or was it when I pointed out that the
NIMH is abandoning the DSM because it lacks scientific content?

As to personal attack, physician, heal thyself.

> To say that the DSM is devoid of scientific context is simply false ...

Don't tell me. Tell NIMH director Insel, who says that same thing I do for the
same reason -- the DSM lacks scientific substance. Insel recently said
([http://www.nimh.nih.gov/about/director/2013/transforming-
dia...](http://www.nimh.nih.gov/about/director/2013/transforming-
diagnosis.shtml)):

"While DSM has been described as a “Bible” for the field, it is, at best, a
dictionary, creating a set of labels and defining each. The strength of each
of the editions of DSM has been “reliability” – each edition has ensured that
clinicians use the same terms in the same ways. _The weakness is its lack of
validity_."

"Unlike our definitions of ischemic heart disease, lymphoma, or AIDS, the DSM
diagnoses are based on a consensus about clusters of clinical symptoms, not
any objective laboratory measure. In the rest of medicine, this would be
equivalent to creating diagnostic systems based on the nature of chest pain or
the quality of fever. Indeed, symptom-based diagnosis, once common in other
areas of medicine, has been largely replaced in the past half century as we
have understood that symptoms alone rarely indicate the best choice of
treatment. Patients with mental disorders deserve better."

On that basis, on that _evidence_ , you should address your beliefs about the
DSM to the highest-ranking psychiatrist in the country, rather than to me. Of
course, if you actually understood what constitutes science, you wouldn't be
taking the position you are.

> I don't think there's any better way to resolve disagreements among
> scientists than by voting ...

Ah. Now I see the problem. Scientific questions are never resolved by voting
-- _not ever_. They are all resolved by empirical evidence. For questions that
cannot be resolved by evidence, scientists adopt the null hypothesis, the
precept that an idea is false until it is supported by evidence.

The bottom line is that a scientist would never say, "We don't know what this
is, but let's offer clinical treatments anyway -- because the public doesn't
understand either science or our poverty of knowledge."

This is why Insel, and his predecessor, Steve Hyman, have taken the positions
they have. This is why psychiatry and psychology are in the midst of an
historical transformation, one that faces up to the fact that they are not
scientific enterprises and considers a course of corrective action.

~~~
tedks
Yes, I read that quote when you posted it the first time. I notice you've
posted it many times in this thread, so maybe you got confused.

By the way, the director of the NIMH isn't the "highest-ranking psychiatrist".
That title doesn't exist.

>Ah. Now I see the problem. Scientific questions are never resolved by voting
-- not ever. They are all resolved by empirical evidence. For questions that
cannot be resolved by evidence, scientists adopt the null hypothesis, the
precept that an idea is false until it is supported by evidence.

This is not true.

In most fields, including general medicine, there is no governing licensing
body similar to the APA. This is because psychiatry is the only medical
discipline that postdates the concept of regulatory bodies.

In general medicine, it's very common for two doctors to treat the same
illness differently. This is why cancer patients can choose between radiology
and surgery and chemotherapy.

Now, the APA could abandon the concept of regulation and allow any licensed
psychiatrist to treat anything in any way, but as a society we've
democratically (by vote) decided that psychiatry should be regulated, so its
regulatory body decides the treatments that can and cannot be administered,
and what constitutes something worth treating. (If you want to go outside this
structure, you just can't call the person you're getting treatment from a
psychiatrist. Priests, consolers, social workers, etc., are examples of
alternatives.)

So, the world does not work the way you think it does. This is because you're
espousing a philosophy of science called Positivism or Verificationism:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_positivism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_positivism)

This school of thought was abandoned in the early 1900s. Currently, the
dominant philosophy of science is Falsificationism:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability#Falsificationis...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability#Falsificationism)

...which holds that ideas compete via aggregate evidence judged by each
individual scientist, gaining ground via confirmatory evidence (though never
being proven) and losing ground via falsifying evidence.

>The bottom line is that a scientist would never say, "We don't know what this
is, but let's offer clinical treatments anyway -- because the public doesn't
understand either science or our poverty of knowledge."

This is also not true. Doctors offer treatments that aren't definitively
explained all the time. It's far better to treat something however you can
than to hold off for some logical positivist verification of your claim.

\--------------

But, you've said a lot about what other people think. What is _your_ opinion,
and how did _you_ form it?

~~~
lutusp
> By the way, the director of the NIMH isn't the "highest-ranking
> psychiatrist". That title doesn't exist.

Of course it does. In psychiatry, authority matters. In science, it doesn't.
How else could Insel unilaterally describe psychiatry as a pseudoscience and
rule that the DSM is to be abandoned, as he recently did? That would never be
accepted in a scientific field, where authority is disparaged.

How else could a panel of authorities vote to include some imaginary
conditions, and exclude other imaginary conditions, from the latest DSM? They
did just that, and one change from the past was that the votes were held in
secret. Another difference was that the governmental agencies that rely on the
DSM have decided to abandon it.

>>The bottom line is that a scientist would never say, "We don't know what
this is, but let's offer clinical treatments anyway -- because the public
doesn't understand either science or our poverty of knowledge."

> This is also not true. Doctors offer treatments that aren't definitively
> explained all the time.

This kind of reply makes me wonder what is the point of this exchange. Doctors
are not scientists, they are to medical research what an engineer or a
technician is to a scientist in another field. Further, if a doctor really
offered a treatment not vetted by research, he would have his license pulled.

> What is your opinion, and how did you form it?

My opinions are irrelevant, and I have not been expressing opinions, but
facts. Note my use of literature references to support any facts I post.

------
iamthepieman
I don't think I fit in any of these boxes. Before I ever took the Myers Briggs
or read Quiet[1] or people started talking a lot about I and E and other
shortcuts I realized that I was different than most of my friends and that I
needed to change. I was 14 and wanted to be able to carry on wide ranging
conversations in the effortless manner that many of my friends and the adults
in my life could.

So I watched an older brother of a classmate(he was a senior in HS) who could
talk for hours about anything. I watched people at church and at family
gatherings and community celebrations like 4th of July parades and Labor Day
barbecues.

And I learned how to make small talk and how to engage people around me and I
learned that I could find out interesting things about people and that many
times you had to go through a ritual of small talk, sometimes for months worth
of meetings and greetings and regularly seeing someone before you really
learned anything about them.

And I learned that usually it was worth it. And eventually as I got older and
became an adult I learned to tell when someone just didn't know how to talk
about something difficult and so they talked about nothing and everything
instead and how to read them and help them just by talking something over with
them.

And I'm still learning.

[1][http://www.thepowerofintroverts.com/about-the-
book/](http://www.thepowerofintroverts.com/about-the-book/)

~~~
antimagic
To quote Jane Austen: "I certainly have not the talent which some people
possess," said Darcy, "of conversing easily with those I have never seen
before. I cannot catch their tone of conversation, or appear interested in
their concerns, as I often see done."

"My fingers," said Elizabeth, "do not move over this instrument in the
masterly manner which I see so many women's do. They have not the same force
or rapidity, and do not produce the same expression. But then I have always
supposed it to be my own fault -- because I would not take the trouble of
practising. It is not that I do not believe my fingers as capable as any other
woman's of superior execution."

------
andyidsinga
as an alternative, i've heard these definitions of introvert / extravert:

an introvert is someone who recharges their social energy by going off
somewhere familiar and likely alone.

An extrovert is someone who recharges by going off to be with lots of people
and commotion.

...what i like about these definitions is that neither are anti-social. both
can be "the life of the party" or "the quieter ones". ...is more about where
your charging cradle is.

~~~
gdrulia
and what if you find things like small talk the most boring thing in your life
which simply steals your energy in such big chunks that you can last only
couple short conversations, while there is nothing more powering in your life
than having a great debate, and it doesn't really matter much whether it is
with your friends or strangers.

I have always found people classifications slightly weird thing, not because
there is something fundamentally wrong with it, but because of how majority of
the people perceives them. We tend to simplify things in our heads, and most
of us start to treat these classifications as a final explanation to things
(using as a labels), without remembering that when it comes to classifying
people (especially their character), classification at its best is nothing
more than a guideline and should be treated cautiously.

Well at least this is how I see the world and people around me.

~~~
andyidsinga
people classifications are mos def hard.

at the extreme end, i once heard someone say "there are two kinds of people in
the world : those who say there are two kinds of people and those who don't."

------
edw519
_I am fascinated by how you punctuate your sentences with your hands. You
pause for as long as it takes to makes sure you are going to say something of
value. Sometimes these pauses are maddeningly long. You are fiercely
optimistic and state outlandish impossible things. You are fearless in giving
feedback to strangers. You are less fearless, but you can deliver the same
feedback with a momentary glance. It’s fascinating how all of you have built
all of your systems to get through your day. I am fascinated because…_

Even though I believe I can do almost anything, I can't imagine myself being
like you...

Until I learned how to write.

I write like you talk. When you call, I email. When you skype, I tweet. When
you take to the room, I take to the forum.

That's my response, because...

I am an introvert.

------
larrydag
Song of the Extrovert

You are interesting.

I like the stuff that you bring to the table. I like your Cave. Can I see your
Cave? Can I show you my Cave? I want to share the ideas from Cave with your
ideas.

You are frusturating.

Why don't you return my emails? I share your passion. I share your ideas. I
just want to engage with you to create something bigger and better. I enjoy
learning and sharing. I feel that we can learn more together. Why don't you
just give me a shot? I'm willing to take risks but you are stuck in your own
comfortable situation. Let's break on through together.

~~~
beagle90
...said the startup marketing director to the coder.

~~~
angersock
So sadly, sadly true.

And note that, in business, you need the former--the latter is a nice bonus.

------
fideloper
This isn't describing an introvert in any way. I'd guess this is more along
the autism spectrum, but even that's an inflammatory statement said from
someone who doesn't have the proper background to speculate (probably like
most of us here).

------
kaoD
I seem to be at the opposite end of the spectrum. I'm pretty good at
smalltalk, sociable, do not dislike eye contact, etc. but most people seem...
boring.

So you went shopping? Huh, I don't care. But tell me something interesting
and, oh boy, I can chat for hours.

It's like I had already beaten the game and were patiently waiting for the
sequel. Fortunately DLCs are released once in a while ;)

~~~
angersock
Conversely, if you can't at least feign interest in the minor minutiae of my
life, why the fuck would I want to share anything I'm actually passionate
about with you? Would be a waste.

~~~
kaoD
I don't follow your logic. Why would it be a waste? Wouldn't it actually be a
waste of both your resources and mine if I feigned interest? You'll keep
talking, and my mind will keep drifting.

I understand smalltalk is necessary to break the ice. I'm perfectly fine with
the _" How you doin'? Fine. It's hot today, isn't it? Well last week was
worse!"_ exchange. I can even understand the _" I went shopping"_ comment.

What I don't really welcome is a walk through your shopping day.

------
arafalov
I love this one. I recognize myself in most of this (and linked) descriptions
(GTD notebook, lol). Except for the bits I don't.

But the thing is, the bits that do not reflect me are because I had life
experiences that taught me the value of skills to acquire those other habits.

For example, I am no longer afraid of small talk (most of the time) and random
people. But, I used to be. I know exactly when it changed. When dotcom bubble
burst, I chose to do a senior tech support job for three years. Going into the
job, I had no people skills. Leaving it, I had plenty and kept developing.
Turned out to be a super-useful skill in our "public communication shy"
general community. And by combining ability to communicate with geek's ability
to connect the dots and see the critical communication path, I can do things
that are hard for people with only one of those skills.

Of course, now I see pretty much all of my projects/activities as "Hero's
Journey". But that's another discussion.

------
pm
I dunno, I'm supposed to be an introvert but I'm chaos incarnate. What does
that make me?

~~~
precisioncoder
Some introverts are prone to rushes of sociability, what I heard that really
clicked with me was that it's how you relax or recharge. If you relax or
recharge best alone then you're basically introverted, if you relax or
recharge best by being social you're basically extroverted. I can be
incredibly social and am prone to frenzies of activity that cause many to
think of me as an extroverted person. Afterwards however I need to retreat to
my space and spend a lot of time alone to recharge, also if I don't get that
alone time for too long I end up run down and worn out. It's just part of the
fun. I would definitely say there are pros and cons to both sides the biggest
seem to be that introverted people lose out since we are such a socially
connected society while gaining in independent action. Extroverts seem to
effortlessly maintain social connections that they often can use as resources
however often suffer from loneliness or fear of being alone. These are purely
my own experiences of course, YMMV. In any case learning to relax and your own
particular way of doing it is important no matter what category you feel most
comfortable under.

~~~
pm
I get that. There are times I need to relax by being alone. Then I'm the Earth
flipping magnetic poles and being alone irks the shit out of me.

It is most annoying.

------
calinet6
I'm increasingly thinking that the E/I distinction is not useful and maybe
even harmful. It causes too many assumptions and generalizations that aren't
valid classifications or often even close to it. This is a good example.

Personalities are complex. People can be introverted or extroverted. They can
also have personality disorders and deficiencies independent of the two. I
think generalizing and pigeon holing either introverts or extroverts does them
a disservice.

Above all, people are incredibly malleable and adaptable. Most people are
somewhere in the middle, or go through several states of personality based on
their experience and stage of life. I know I have.

------
mattlondon
Not introverted, more like Aspergers or obsessive-complsive I would think.
This description covers some aspects of introversion, but most of it was not
typical introversion. You can be a messy, uninterested, boring and
unintelligent slob of an introvert - it doesn't matter.

Introversion/Extroversion is not a polar-thing like gender anyway. I dislike
it when you do tests/training/exercises or whatever and they declare "You are
Introverted" or "You are Extroverted" like it is a single binary option that
you can only ever be one of the other.

I've always thought of it as more shades of grey (in both directions).

------
JTon
In the article the author refers to his want to return to his cave. It made me
think, today's cave is connected to the web. Not only is there an endless
archive of knowledge in this cave, but it also can be a social place (via
online collaboration). I'm wondering, what fellow introverts did in their
caves before caves were connected to the web? Were caves filled with library
books? How did we satisfy the need for collaboration while being in the cave?

~~~
andyidsinga
fidonet and bbs's

before that pen-pals

before that ( help me out here...)

~~~
bcoates
There was (is?) a whole mail-relay postal service culture. In the mid-90s my
grandmother was a node in semi-formalized mailing list system that more than
anything resembled a mimeograph version of Reddit. you'd get packets of stuff
(jokes, photos, recipes, poems, stories, coupons, what-have-you) from people
and sort of mix and match them and send them on to other people in your
mailing list who'd like them, copying the good stuff and pruning the
uninteresting.

I remember seeing literally the same fw: fw: fw: jokes that were circulating
on BBSes at the time being circulated on hand-typed pages.

~~~
andyidsinga
thats really cool. as i was writing my comment above i was imagining that
there must have been something just like that. ..but would never have guessed
it existed in the 90s!

------
darkxanthos
I've been two different kinds of introverts over the course of my life. One is
as rands describes it: A person in their cave not wanting their life to be
disturbed. The other kind is the type who can and understands how to interact
with you, but usually would rather be deep in thought solving my latest
puzzle.

But those times when I make room for socializing... woof. Those are some good
times. :)

~~~
boredprogrammer
i just like quiet and solitude. people are so noisy and they are always
talking and asking so many questions. and some of them despise quiet so much
that they will fill any silent patches with artificial noise - radios or
talking to themselves or humming, or tapping or whatever. and i am fine with
this except when they feel that they must force their noise onto everybody
else which they so often do.

~~~
Cthulhu_
This is an annoying trait my family has, it's becoming more noticeable when
you're away from them for a while. Can't they just sit still for five minutes?

Not that I enjoy silence, mind; at home I usually have music or the TV on
shortly after I arrive.

------
kaoD
Completely off-topic but I'm very curious.

Why is wdewind's comment marked as [dead]? It's his first dead comment and
seems completely respectful. Did it trigger some kind of bot detection or
something?

Makes me think if any of my comments were marked as [dead] without me
realizing too. Including this one I guess :P

------
patrickmay
Definitely not accurate. My wife is one of the most extroverted introverts I
know. She loves spending time with other people and doesn't consider them
threatening in the slightest. She just needs her downtime to recover from the
energy she expends in being social.

------
gjvc
just another self-indulgent blogger (but I repeat myself)

~~~
angersock
You're just jealous because your website is down.

~~~
gjvc
well played, sir

