INTROVERTED OR THOUGHTFUL-A meditation on being alone
All sorrow has its root in man’s inability to sit quiet in a room by himself. (Blaise Pascal)
I must try to be alone for part of each year, even a week or a few days; and for part of each day, even an hour or a few minutes, in order to keep my core, my centre, my island quality. Unless I keep the island quality intact somewhere within me, I will have little to give my husband, my children, my friends or the world at large.
Anne Morrow Lindbergh, “Gifts From the Sea”
A dear friend recently confessed that she had overindulged in entertaining friends. While loving the time of companionship, she somewhat apologetically declared, “I guess I’m an introvert. I need time alone.” I have known this friend for over thirty years and my first response was to declare the title of introvert preposterous. But after some further consideration of the word, introvert, I believe my friend would be quite correct had we been discussing the proper conduct of a thoughtful Christian and usage of the verb, introvert.
The modern usage of introvert is a noun suggesting, as a first meaning,
a shy, reticent, and typically self-centered person.
a person predominantly concerned with their own thoughts and feelings rather than with external things.
This definition stems from the twentieth century use of introvert, a sense derived purely from a psychological perspective. Introverts, according to current psychological thinking, tend to be low-key, deliberate, and relatively less engaged in social situations. They often take pleasure in solitary activities such as reading, writing, drawing, watching movies, and using computers. The archetypal artist, writer, sculptor, composer and inventor are all considered highly introverted. An introverted person is likely to enjoy time spent alone and find less reward in time spent with large groups of people (although they tend to enjoy interactions with close friends). They prefer to concentrate on a single activity at a time and like to observe situations before they participate. (Introversion Gale Encyclopedia of Childhood & Adolescence. Gale Research, 1998.) Many current psychological testing measures, (see Myers/Briggs or other similar instruments), utilize the paradigms of extroversion/introversion as convenient ways to separate various personality types. While the inventors of these tests often try to emphasize the value of all personality types, (See Myers, Gifts Differing: Understanding Personality Type ) our culture places high status on extroverts and these “labels,” although often helpful in an attempt to describe the nuanced and myriad varieties of human personality, facilitate stereotyping. Introversion is often seen as a trait to be avoided. Americans find introversion a particularly unsavory trait with our emphasis upon “getting things done” and mythical action heroes like Indiana Jones, Harry Potter, and Ironman. These folks don’t just sit around, they act. I have often heard book-readers, nature lovers, and academics derided for their lack of real productivity: “Too much navel-gazing for their own good!”
The word introvert has its origins from the mid seventeenth century and was used as a verb. From the Latin introvertere, intro-‘to the inside’ plus vertere ‘to turn,’ the word was used in the general sense to, “turn one’s thoughts inward in spiritual contemplation.” Of course, the concept that a modern person might reasonably and appropriately move away from the self’s concerns and thoughtfully consider one’s position visa-a-via God, makes little sense. Modern man’s concerns turn exclusively on self and exclude the possibility of an actual Creator God, or further from consideration, a relationship with God. Our modern usage of introvert as a noun often suggests some flawed excess in self-examination. Mass murderers, suicide victims, and the mentally challenged are often described as, “tragically flawed, reclusive and introverted individuals.” Who, it is to be supposed from this description, would have been saved from committing these atrocities had greater attention been paid to the, proper “socialization.” To be fair, modern psychology decries such stereotyping and its proponents would claim “moral neutrality” for what would be asserted is an objectively observed set of morphological differences between introverts and extroverts. However, the notion in contemporary psychological theory that an individual derives “power” or “energy” from self or others, either from looking within (an introvert) or from others (an extrovert), has a distinct moral dimensions. For instance, who is to be responsible for malevolent acquisitions: the giver or the receiver? Those pesky non-disclosed presuppositions for this modern argument determine what it is, exactly, that one derives from these “power” sources. The difficulty with honestly looking within and without is the jarring dissonance of our being both made in the “image of God” and our alarming human failings. We can and do find unimagined strength from within and without; however, if we are honest, we also see abject moral failure and frank evil in the best of our companions and, what is more frightening, in ourselves. Pascal was pointing out that the neurosis of the modern introvert and extrovert have in common, the unwillingness to face God with the reality of what and who we are. Modern psychology is based upon the presupposition of naturalism. This modern hypothesis simply ignores the possibility of God and then is free to walk away from the word noted by Karl Menninger; Nietzsche; and the apostle Paul, sin. This complete reversal in the usage and meaning of introvert over the last one hundred and fifty years provides us with insight into both our impoverished use of language and our dwarfed concept of what it means to be human.
The original usage of to introvert calls both modern “introverts and extroverts” to consider their spiritual condition. To look inward and see clearly: we are not actually the personas we so carefully present to our watching world. We are a unique mixture of the beautiful and obscene. This difficult “introvert’s” journey toward “ultimate reality” looks backward at our checkered history and also bumps into a world that is not our own. We stumble provisionally into what Philip Yancey calls, “Rumors of another World,” or C.S. Lewis refers to as a world, “Beyond the Door.” Saint Augustine noted famously, “Thou hast created us for Thyself, and our heart is not quiet until it rests in Thee.
The modern extrovert understands that life cannot be understood by withdrawing from it-our history and future are tied irrevocably to our embodied and lived present. The modern introvert recognizes that the richness, immediacy, color, and action of our contemporary life while productive and exciting, often stifles the quiet call for a necessary spiritual life. It was St. Ignatius who said, “The human being was created for this end: to praise, reverence and serve the Lord… I come from God. I belong to God. I am destined for God.” (The Ways of the Spirit)
My friend uses introvert in both a modern and older sense. She often prefers her own company to mine and she is called by her Creator to be constantly introverting. The Psalmist notes the righteous find, “delight is in the law of the Lord, and on His law he meditates both night and day.” (Ps. 1:2) Let us be people who bring back the “old words”, for in the proper “turning in” to consider one’s spiritual condition, one will find life.
Blessings
David