I have been redeemed

[altariel]

Got back from Redemption this afternoon (it's a Blake's 7 and Babylon 5 convention). Shattered, but very happy. The best one yet.

This article on introversion led to a few wry smiles of recognition, although it's strange to think how long I was able to keep on running over the whole weekend without crashing and burning.

Realized while I was at the con that it was my third consecutive weekend spent in a hotel. It will be good to sit still for a little while.

Comments

[glitterboy1.livejournal.com]

This article on introversion led to a few wry smiles of recognition

Hee. We should print this out and send it to, well, everyone. Recognition indeed, though I have to say that no one ever calls me "a strong and silent type". I first read the article very quickly while on the phone, and emerged with some reservations, plus a comment on your stamina at the weekend. I then re-read it properly and found that one of them was actually covered, which made the article even better...

The first couple of points concerned the ability to deal well with the interactions involved in giving presentations, training, consulting, leading (or even just participating in) group discussions etc. Obviously, you do this a lot, and no doubt even more than usual over the weekend! I seem to do similar things as well, and I often find the cost, in terms of energy, surprisingly low. Yet, if you put me into a group of the same people at a party, I'll say hardly anything, and wind up exhausted. The key, which I was pleased to see echoed in the article, is that, in the first case, I'm playing a role, or acting in some capacity or other. In the second, as just plain me, I'm hopeless. I just wondered whether your stamina had come from the fact that you were 'acting' as panellist, chair, interviewer etc.

My other reservation was that the article skirts round, and even perpetuates, another misunderstanding that I encounter among extraverts. That is, that the relevant meanings of 'other people' and 'alone' aren't necessarily the literal ones. I don't know, perhaps you're different, but I find that I will be recharged by time spent with good friends just as much as, if not more than, by time spent alone. That's regardless of the depth of the conversation, and of whether it's one or several such friends. The boundary, beyond which people become 'other', is somehow drawn so as to include them.