The Meaning of Life and Other Vegetables

Hello all!

Lately I’ve noticed an inflation in the use of “Introvert” (and “Extrovert” or “Extravert”). It might be a fashion, but I think it also indicates something deeper.

You could safely say that I am “an introvert”. I’m certainly not an extrovert, if you have to pick one or the other. But I dislike that dichotomy. I’m sure most would agree that it’s a continuum (or a scale, or “a spectrum” – the now-popular everyday speech expression). I’ve even come across statements like “I’m an extroverted introvert” or “I can be an extrovert at work but afterwards I’m an introvert”.

Other than my preference for a continuum mindset over an “either-or” one, I’ve come to dislike the approach that personality can be boiled down to a small number of parameters (even if those are perceived as scales rather than dichotomies). The Briggs Meyer classification system (distantly rooted in Jung’s ideas) is a prominent example. It has various versions and variants, but generally, it aims to classify all personality types based on 4, 5, maybe 6 such parameters. And whilst there are typically strong caveats in place, such as “these are continuums” and “everyone is unique” and “we can never fully capture the entire variation of human characters”, it still feels crude to me. Even simplistic; which might be why such methods have enduring popularity (no offence to anyone – for years I went around declaring “I’m an INTJ!”, haha).

I currently prefer to think of personality (or character) as a unique combination in an infinite-dimensional space. I’m using dimension and space here in the mathematical sense, which is likely to be unfamiliar to many. But it’s easy to clarify: The basic Briggs Meyer classification goes by 4 letters, each standing for… let’s call it “an attribute” (for lack of a better term) – each one is a dimension in a 4-dimensional space. If we take them as binomial (either-or-type attributes, for example “introverted” vs. “extroverted”), we get a space of 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 = 2⁴ = 16 possibilities. Indeed, one of the most popular / elaborate / serious proponents of that framework is an organisation called “16 Personalities”.

I’m very aware that “16 Personalities” is just a catchy name, and if we acknowledge that each such dimension is a continuum, such a seemingly-crude classification yields an infinite number of possible variations (which we all know is the case among human personalities). But I’m talking about an additional layer of variation, of complexity. I’m talking about an infinite number of dimensions, that are each an (infinite) continuum. As such, the gap, or difference, between each 2 neighbouring dimensions would be infinitely small… think about it like 2 very close shades of green, or 2 close shades of orange. The actual colour would have a certain amount of “green 1” and another of “green 2”, and it would be nearly impossible to analyse and separate the components. But also unnecessary. It suffices to think about the whole as being composed that way – a way that allows for infinite richness. To summarise: I’m talking about human personality as being made up of infinite attributes (not necessarily discernible from each other), each one a sliding scale.

I have in mind an interesting visual (or spatial) representation of that idea – I named it “The Personality Sphere”; but presenting it now would deviate too much from what I want to say today (and I barely started, haha), so I’ll keep it for another time.

Back to “Introvert”…

As above, I see it as a very crude, binomial-type thinking term (even when disclaimed “spectrum” etc.). Either way, what do people mean when they use it? It’s not always clear, because most people don’t tend to explicitly define or contextualise in normal speech (or writing), and indeed, I came across different answers where such were available.

One popular answer, or the gist of many responses, or – some might say – “the right one”, is “a person who needs time alone for recharging”. Okay, but what does “recharging” actually mean?… Running with it, I’d say it indicates that having people around (implied: interacting with them) – as the opposite of “being alone” – is taxing for that person; and that, if pressed, that person would say that they don’t Enjoy it, or to put it more plainly – generally speaking, they don’t like it. That person would still do it, for whatever reason (example: going to work to make a living); they’d put up with it, but after a number of hours, if they could, would prefer to disengage, de-socialise, be alone, “rest”, and simply stop being in that situation that they dislike, for a number of hours. Is that the meaning of “recharge”? Maybe. Then, they’d do it all over again…

Observation: Anita

Anita is my work colleague. If you’d spend 2 minutes (or 5, or 10) with her, you’d surely be comfortable with a statement that “she is an extrovert”. She comes across as what people call “bubbly” and “friendly”. She engages proactively with acquaintances and strangers alike. She speaks fast, and a lot. She “fills the room with her personality”. Her speech is usually loud, but it’s more than just volume – the words come out with force, even when she speaks more quietly.

However… Having spent many hours with Anita, I’ve seen another side. When there are no other people around (say, except me – the fly on the wall), she can go completely quiet for extended periods, and when asked a question, reply quietly and in brief. Typically, she would look mentally tired on those occasions. When asked explicitly, she claims she’s an introvert… and when challenged with “But hey, you…”, she replies “Yes, but that’s all just a show” (we provide customer service, but the above description applies equally to her manner with our internal team).

So – is Anita an introvert? The true answer (if there is one) doesn’t matter right now. I brought it up only to show how insufficient such terminology is to capture human complexity / richness.

The last topic for this post, and what I really wanted to say, is that I feel a strong societal pressure against “being an introvert”, and as a result – a tendency from people with that trait (and who doesn’t have it, to some degree?) to either be apologetic about it, or argue why “it’s okay to be like that”, or that they deserve their time off, or however you’d like to call it.

My point is that we don’t need permission. We don’t need anyone’s approval that “it’s okay”. It’s not a deficiency, or an inferiority, or something that needs to be justified or accounted for. Even talking about “It” is a little off, because I’m not referring to something clear, distinct, identifiable, distinguishable. It’s a continuum of continuums. An infinite of infinities.

There are…

Quiet vs. Loud

Fast-Paced vs. Slow

Deep Thought vs. Casual

Serious vs. Playful

Long-Term vs. Passing

Passionate/Caring vs. Indifferent

Invested vs. Neutral

Forceful vs. Gentle

Broadcasting vs. Attuned

“Strong” vs. “Vulnerable” (more popular terminology, ugh)

… and many, many more.

A person doesn’t even have to be on the same side on all those (and other) scales. For example, Casual and Playful don’t necessarily mean Loud and Fast-Paced.

I think that the present issue stems from society (at least the one I live in) highly prizing one side – being talkative, “fun”, fast-paced, “optimistic”, seeking company, all that jazz. Steer too far from that, and you risk being tagged “a loner”, “negative”, “depressed” (or depressing…), “a-social”, and generally “having something wrong with you”. Naturally, the knee-jerk reaction would be to try to explain or rationalise why “it’s still okay” to be that way. But my point is (a) again, it’s not a dichotomy, and what you see is not necessarily what really is (remember Anita?); and (b) we don’t have to buy into the convention that one is great and the other is not. I think it might be nothing more than an evolutionary leftover, from the time humans lived in small hunters-gatherers packs and indeed their survival and thriving depended on sticking together, acting together, communicating abundantly, continuously checking in and being checked in return.

Feels like a good point to wrap up this topic and wish: Peace to all.

Did you know…? There are more posts in this blog than are presented to you right now. It’s an attribute of the template which I can’t change.
How to see all of them?
Click on the header – the bold “The Meaning of Life and Other Vegetables” at the top. You’ll get a list (which is not complete either), with a button at the bottom to access the next list, and so on. Those go all the way back to my first post in this blog.
Enjoy Reading!