25 ms·
Too many of them boil down to just that one thing: We care more about ourselves than about the needs of others. That’s not about introversion. It’s just an ordi
by icanhackit 10y ago
Too many of them boil down to just that one thing: We care more about ourselves than about the needs of others. That’s not about introversion. It’s just an ordinary version of selfishness.
The whole article was trying desperately to shoehorn the quote above as the ultimate truth, but it neglects important nuances and makes me wonder what the author's agenda is. Is the inverse statement true, that extraverts care more about others? That their behaviour is less selfish? Or could it be that both extraverts and introverts can be both selfish and generous, depending ultimately on the individual. That extroversion can be a tool to network with others for no other reason than to gain social mind-share for personal profit, as well as be used to build meaningful relationships depending on how it's wielded and the intention of the user? Or that introversion can be an excuse to snub ones peers as well as a tool to focus their efforts on what they find important, including helping others, rather than spreading themselves thin on many (often meaningless) endeavours?
The author's perspective betrays the unspoken expectations of their culture (as does the name of the publisher). In North Western Europe it's not unusual to keep to yourself and avoid small talk. My partner and I can go for hours without talking to each other while sitting in the same room, often next to each other. You don't have to discuss every idea or observation that pops into your head. You can let an idea brew in your mind, digest it so that when you do discuss it, you can start at a more sophisticated level rather than babbling half formed thoughts and filling the verbal voids with "...like, you know..."
This odd anxiety where if you're not doing or saying something, that you can't just stare out the window and watch the world pass by - that the proper thing to do is to pick up your phone, call a friend, and perform a post-mortem on the little thoughts buzzing around in your head gives me the fucking shits. Sit down quietly and form a cogent thought for one minute PLEASE. Then you'll have something worth talking about.
- marmot777 10y agoI don't think it's that bad for introverts here. We're not treated like dirt. We just tend to over think things a bit. Most of the extroverts are too busy socializing to worry about whether someone talks enough. I think everyone puts more weight on their own presence and how much thought others put into to how quiet someone is and so on. Most people focus on their own thing and aren't all that concerned if yours isn't the exact copy. In other words, I don't think people are really looking and judging MOST of the time that someone thinks they are. Chances are they look disapproving because they have a headache, are tired, and have too much shit to get done to be there and happen to be looking one direction or another, it could be yours.
- dannylandau 10y agowell written comment. Found it quite enjoyable.
- DigitalJack 10y agoUltimately everything that everyone does is out of satisfying their needs. Whether you need to help other people recover from addiction, or you need a bag of cheetos, both are about your own personal needs. Therefore we are all continually acting out of selfishness. Introversion and extroversion are a gross and simplified categorization of our personal needs. One or the other may be more socially acceptable, but both are selfish.
- icanhackit 10y ago[...] everything that everyone does is out of satisfying their needs [...] we are all continually acting out of selfishness. If you want to posit feeding the homeless at a soup kitchen as satisfying a desire to feel helpful or fulfilling the wishes of a deity you wish to please in order to secure your place in the afterlife which is ultimately selfish then sure. Let's go one step further and admit we're in a deterministic universe and we have no free will. That takes care of everything. It helps the next beer go down knowing that, despite saying I wasn't going to drink today, it was always going to happen and was determined nearly 14 billion years ago :-)
- DigitalJack 10y agoNon sequitur.
- icanhackit 10y agoI actually agree with you, everything is driven by individual desire i.e. selfishness - even helping others, but it's a bit of a grim way of looking at things. The point I was making is that if we reduce everything to the simplest underlying principal we miss what makes life interesting and we may as well not even be having a discussion. You could, quite correctly, classify my responses as selfish acts of showing off to gain meaningless kudos in an online forum...or more charitably classify them as thoughtful discourse between people interested in esoteric topics.
- 10y ago
- 127 10y agoIf introversion and being a social outcast is their own fault, the society in general and people in functional human relationship networks don't have to feel guilty about it and do anything about it.