Articles for Introverts

If you wish you had a place like this to retreat to,

you're an introvert, too

These are articles I've especially enjoyed reading and saved.  I agree with everything they say.  I'm quite sure I have one more saved somewhere and hope to find it soon.  When I find others as good, I'll add them to the list.

"Caring for Your Introvert: The habits and needs of a little-understood group" by Jonathan Rauch at Atlantic Magazine

"4 Ways Technology Can Enable Your Inner Introvert" by Philip Bump at Atlantic Magazine

by Philip Bump at Atlantic Magazine

 

"Islands for Introverts"

by Alyssa Pelish at 3 Quarks Daily

 

PLEASE, NO SPOTLIGHT FOR AN INTROVERT

Introverts do NOT want to be in the spotlight. They do not want what they do to be unappreciated, but they do not want to be "noticed" or "pointed out" in some any way that draws attention to THEM, personally. That is, they want the attention to be brought, if deserved, to what they have done, not to their "personal selves."  You may wonder, Well how can a dancer or other performer who is an introvert not want to draw attention to themselves? That sounds impossible, right? But it is not impossible. I am not a performer, but being an introvert is not the reason. And if I were talented, skilled, and interested enough to be a performer of some type, I do not think being an introvert would get in the way at all, no matter how many hundreds or thousands of people might watch me perform. This is because when you are performing you are not your "personal self." It is an act you are performing. It is not everyday life being lived. As soon as the performance is over, you go back to being your personal self and do not want to be noticed (you are not your act). So you may turn the spotlight onto the act being (or that has been) performed but not onto the person who enacts the performance, at least if that person is an introvert.  This goes not only for introverts in the performing arts, but for all of them, no matter what they do.

"Wanting to meet an author because you like his work is like wanting to meet a duck because you like paté." -- Margaret Atwood, novelist and poet (b. 1939)

It's just me here

My thoughts, ideas, opinions, etc. are not taken from elsewhere. What you read here in My Little Back Shop (other than in poems or quotations, etc. that are obviously by someone else) are my own views. I, an individual who happens to be an introvert, am the person who is thinking these things; I do not copy from what other introverts say and pretend that it is my thinking or that their experiences are mine. We are all unique, no one like another, and we are all over the scale from "slightly introvertish" to "full throttle introvert" and with our own personality quirks and experiences, so it can't be assumed that what I think is the same as what other introverts think, though I feel sure that many other introverts would agree with me about most things at least in general, if not in all the particulars or with the same exact amount of passion.

It's true I sometimes generalize about introverts, when I believe that something is true (to some degree) among all of us.  After all, how could we be identified as an introverts if we didn't have some things in common?  But I know that my particular opinions and ideas and experiences are my own and I realize that if you listen to another introvert their opinions and ideas and experiences will not be the same as mine, though there would certainly be some things we agree on because we are introverts.