Your cart is currently empty!
In this post:
Jack Jaeckle: So we’ve been talking a lot about perception, visual perception, who was seeing, what is seeing, and today we’re going to talk a little bit more about the identities and personalities of the seers, and we’re starting with introverts and introversion. Not everyone knows what those terms mean, so I thought we could start by having you explain, as you understand it or as you experience, what is to be introverted or to be an introvert?
Seamus Berkeley: Yeah, I guess the first thing I want to say is there’s, you know, introvert versus extrovert that’s kind of like the spectrum. And one, anybody may be tending towards one or the other, but it doesn’t mean like an introvert is always introverted or an extrovert is always extroverted, so there’s some overlap there.
But generally, I would describe, a simple way to describe it as, let’s say for an introvert, describe an introvert’s experience, and this is my experience: I go to an art opening, right, tons of people (and there was one just in town this past week which was totally fabulous in Taos) and a huge number of people, so the introvert, like me, will go and see two or three people that they know, talk to them for a few minutes, right, and then leave. Like, that’s it. That’s it, that’s the capacity of an introvert, okay, I’m on overload already because there’s so much conversation, people, faces, that are—I’d almost call it—it kind of makes my brain go into chaos mode. It’s just like, it’s too much. So, then it’s like, okay, go home and go relax, right? That is the very typical experience of an introvert. It could be a party, it could be a work environment where there’s a ton of people around, so that’s one of the characteristics of an introvert.
Another one would be, liking to work, to be in solitude, liking to be alone, liking to, you know, sit with their thoughts or being engaged or whatever they’re doing or whatever, and that’s actually a more enjoyable experience than being in a crowd, in a party, and excitement and action.
JJ: Right, right. How would you say that maybe that reality, those experiences or the number of people that identify this way, is that overlooked at all or is that less discussed than the extroverted personality?
SB: Yeah. So about, I think it was 10 or so years ago, Susan Cain did a TED talk and it was called the Power of Introverts, and this to me was like revelatory.It was like, oh, wow, listen to what this person’s saying because she talked about her own experience of being an introvert and what it was like, and she identified that about a third to the half of the population is, tends towards introversion. And just hearing that was like, well, it was news to me, let me just say it that way. So all my life I’ve kind of thought of, oh, I’m just some sort of an an odd. an oddity or a little bit of an outsider because that’s how how I function best, but listening to her was like, oh, oh, this is really something new of learning that, that information. So, maybe I’ll stop there and you could ask me another question to repeat because there’s a lot more about that piece.
JJ: I guess it would all just be, it sounds like in listening to that TED Talk, you felt less alone, you felt that you were part of a community that maybe you didn’t even realize it existed. And I guess, I suppose, I’d want to know how that changed your perceptions or how you move through the world.
SB: Yeah, I definitely found ease. It was almost like for the first time my my life, I wouldn’t, you know, that’s maybe a little bit of an exaggeration, but somewhat of, oh, I could accept this as this is not abnormal, it’s actually normal, knowing that population at large has this similar experience. And just to just to add, the reason I wanted to make this recording, because it’s not necessarily directly related to artwork, is because even now when I talk about this, like when I mention to somebody who I might think, it’s like they’re a little bit on that, seem to be a little bit introverted, they haven’t heard about this. So they haven’t heard that, you know, being introverted, the way that they may experience the world, is actually totally okay, and, in fact, according to Susan Cain, something really worthwhile to be celebrated.
Listen to Susan Cain’s TEDTalk on introversion: The Power of Introverts
Jeff Jaeckle is a writing and film studies professor who has published extensively on Hollywood cinema, including Film Dialogue (2013), Refocus: The Films of Preston Sturges (2015), and Refocus: The Films of Barbara Kopple (2020). He also serves as a writing consultant for the UNM-Taos HIVE, helping local entrepreneurs and nonprofits to make their visions a reality. You can learn more about his work at Taos HIVE.
Your thoughts?