Last week at Maverick Philosopher, Bill V. put up a post comparing the introvert with the extrovert:
The extrovert is like a mirror: being nothing in himself, he is only what he reflects. A caricature, no doubt, but useful in delineation of an ideal type. This is why the extrovert needs others. Without them, he lacks inner substance. This is also why he is not drained by others, but drains them — like a vampire. By contrast, the introvert, who has inner substance, loses it by social intercourse. He is drained not merely of physical energy, but of spiritual integrity, inner focus, his very self. The problem with socializing is not so much energy loss as self loss. But one cannot lose what one does not have.
The introvert cannot be himself in society but must sacrifice himself on the altar of Heidegger’s das Man, the ‘they self,’ or social self. The extrovert can only be himself and come to himself in society. Whereas the introvert loses himself in society, the extrovert finds himself there.
If you infer the superiority of the introvert, I won’t disagree with you.
The post linked to an earlier entry, Are You An Introvert?, which offers a twenty-question test. The more ‘yes’ answers, the more of an introvert you are. I answered ‘yes’ to every one.
What’s strange is that none of my friends think of me as an introvert. This, I suppose, is because when I socialize I engage cheerily and convivially, am good at joke-telling, and so on; I’m generally the ‘life of the party’. But the test is revealing: I do cherish solitude, and am always looking forward to my next quiet time alone; I prefer unstructured time to scheduled activities, I prefer to express myself in writing; I’m terrible at multitasking; and so on. As I get older I also find myself less and less at ease in the city, despite having lived (and thrived) in New York for 36 years; although I still love the place for its incomparable assets and opportunities, the constant impingement of its teeming crowds chafes and squeezes me almost unbearably these days, and every time I go back for more than a few days I find myself longing for the long horizons, fragrant woodlands, lambent beauty, starry nights, ancient watery rhythms, and profound stillness of the Outer Cape.
It is, perhaps, that stillness that is most important of all. For the introvert, the constant agitation of the outer world roils and muddies the waters within; it’s only when we can disconnect ourselves from that constant tossing and churning that the sediment can settle out, and give way to clarity. (It should be possible, as Gurdjieff insisted, to achieve this even within the hurly-burly of the madding crowd, but most of us are not saints, or even saints-in-the-making.)
Bill’s assessment of the extrovert is a bit harsh, perhaps, but I can’t comment authoritatively on what it’s like to be one. He may be right.