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Wednesday, December 16, 2020

Being an Introvert

Yet another failed attempt at socializing and trying to behave as what’s known to be a “normal” person made me realize that I’m really not cut out for this. And i ended up thinking to myself how the thing that human race perfected though thousands of years and in return became the foundation of our global civilization is the thing that’s making my life miserable.

We are in a world that demands and rewards better communicators with little regards to their personal value system or any other skills  for that matter. In other words, it doesn’t really matter what you know or believe, you just need to “talk the talk”. Most people will not think twice before buying whatever premium-grade crap they're being sold to, by yet another rotten-souled smooth talker. While it’s obvious that an open communication brings better understanding to the table, lot of people including myself are literary impaired when it comes to correctly expressing whatever that needs to be expressed. For us, a simple face to face conversation can be just as consuming as a cross-town marathon. And the effort that goes to avoid the thing in the fist place is just as painful. In an “understanding” society where we pay extra care to people with special needs, Introverts are simply misunderstood all the time and labeled as anti-social by said expert communicators.

I used to think that depression and anxiety were reasons for my social life bing almost nonexistence, but now I’m realizing that it's actually a chicken or egg situation and really is hard to tell which came first or what caused the other. Maybe trying to function in a socially acceptable manner and pushing too hard against my born “introvertism”, if that’s a word, triggered a mental blow back that cost me my good years or it could be the other way around. But in this stage of life, I’m long past fighting with myself and learning to love the beast instead of fighting it endlessly. To be honest, I truly believe that people who are better at seeing reality of life for what it truly is, are generally depressed. And that’s really okay because life isn’t full of marshmallows and rainbows. What it is, is ridiculously terrifying. No one has any clue on why we are here or what it is that we are supposed to do here. (Fairy tales and imaginary friends aside.) But we are quite familiar with all kinds of pain like loss, heartbreak, poverty, hunger and many others. Pain is  an imminent fact of life that all beings at some point must experience. In short, we are here living out a life that we didn’t ask for, with things that most of us desire but find out of reach. Including more time. Despite what most believe, we are just victims of circumstance and it's a fact that life sucks for most people.

Jumping off of that train of thought, Internet was the best thing in my opinion, that came out of the last century. Specially for people like us because it acts like a gate between introverts and everyone else in the world. On the internet, you can control the amount of social exposure as you please. And you won’t have to put up with stupid social guru crap like eye contact or firm hand shakes to talk to people. These so-called gurus makes a living out of tearing down people to animalistic behaviors that our ancestors worked so hard to ged rid of. While creating unnatural social norms in the process. In my book, personality should be measured by things like understanding, intuition and intelligence and not by palm grip or ability to keep up eye-contact like a crazy person. Life would be much easier if behavioral difference can be accepted (as long as nobody is hurt) in a broader sense, as a fact of life rather than a gap or a mean of separation. Forcing people through the same mold only creates more anomalies. 

I lost the point of this article half-way through the second paragraph. And there’s a good chance that I’ might be confused between being an introvert and generally disliking everything in existence. Including myself. But whatever..