Sunday Night Video – Susan Cain on The Power of Introversion
June 24, 2012 3 Comments
In response to the comicsmashup I posted this morning, a friend sent me this link to Susan Cain talking about the power of introversion. It’s a TED Talk in which the writer, lecturer, and former negotiations specialist speaks about her own experiences with being an introvert, the biases against it, and its lengthy history. Cain’s opening anecdote reminds me of how a great aunt of mine was shocked when she visited my family when I was growing up, and discovered us all reading at the dinner table. Whenever she mentioned it in later years, I agreed with her that it was unusual, but internally I would recall how that was one of my favorite childhood moments, a space in which I could feel comfortable for a short while. I could definitely connect with Cain’s perspectives on introversion and extroversion, including her calls for action at the end.
About Matthew
21st of June: the longest day. Favorable to see more? This is tricky! Really tricky! If you look upside down you would be able to see the longest night in the South Hemisphere… Or does Buddha live only in the North? I wanna think that you don’t believe in it and you are writing honestly and deeply on your blog, I can “look” it: but vision is tricky itself, senses are tricky, we cannot see no infra-red nor ultra-violet, we can not heard elephants long waves sounds nor woolves short waves sounds, whether it is too cold or too hot we don’t feel temperature, we feel pain both ways! Of course, I’m being analytical as expected in Western Indo-
European philosophy, such as you are posting synthetic thoughts as expected in Easten Indo-European culture. Eastern Indo-European? Yes, both the so called Mongolian and Caucasian originally departures from some place close to where is now the Northwestern India, and, then, the big cisma between the also so called East and West. Oh, but native Americans are older than this cisma! No! They are Mongolians, too! And they did the genocide (as shown by archeological evidences) of the first people to live in Americas that came from the very first African exodus and that looked like the African people of today! There are lots of North American fossils showing evidences that the nowadays called Native Americans are descents of Mongolian warriors that killed their antecessors the same way Caucasians did with their antecessor in Europe. The oldest fossil of an American human is a female of which the face reconstruction showed up a African face! So, c’m on! Let’s not have the blind eye of the East nor of the West, we need both, and maybe we should search it back in our common ancient African roots! I would say that we must be as tricky as Devil to see God, or as tricky as the artificial to be the natural, or only pretending we are able to be truthful: that’s what primitive African religions do! It’s silly to deny that the closer we get to the light, the bigger is our shadow! Religion is often a good way to increase shadow by searching for light! West is as fascinated for Buddha as East is for Christ! And, who guarantees that the North is up and the South is down? Let’s face relativeness! Is there anyone ready to face the uncertainty?
I found her lisp oddly comforting.
I definitely feel a bias towards my introversion. People misinterpret my silence as smugness or disinterest. I can be perfectly engaging in groups of two or three, but in larger groups I only talk when I’m perfectly confident in what I’m saying. I suppose that’s why a lot of people start blogs.
Blogs are definitely a good way of connecting with others for introverts. In my classes, I try to offer students a variety of ways to participate, so that it’s not just the extroverts who dominate, and so I include an online option as well.