Tag: personal

  • Top 10 Myths About ‘Introverts’

    Top 10 Myths about Introverts

    Myth #1 – Introverts don’t like to talk. This is not true. Introverts just don’t talk unless they have something to say. They hate small talk. Get an introvert talking about something they are interested in, and they won’t shut up for days.

    Myth #2 – Introverts are shy. Shyness has nothing to do with being an Introvert. Introverts are not necessarily afraid of people. What they need is a reason to interact. They don’t interact for the sake of interacting. If you want to talk to an Introvert, just start talking. Don’t worry about being polite.

    Myth #3 – Introverts are rude. Introverts often don’t see a reason for beating around the bush with social pleasantries. They want everyone to just be real and honest. Unfortunately, this is not acceptable in most settings, so Introverts can feel a lot of pressure to fit in, which they find exhausting.

    Myth #4 – Introverts don’t like people. On the contrary, Introverts intensely value the few friends they have. They can count their close friends on one hand. If you are lucky enough for an introvert to consider you a friend, you probably have a loyal ally for life. Once you have earned their respect as being a person of substance, you’re in.

    Myth #5 – Introverts don’t like to go out in public. Nonsense. Introverts just don’t like to go out in public FOR AS LONG. They also like to avoid the complications that are involved in public activities. They take in data and experiences very quickly, and as a result, don’t need to be there for long to “get it.” They’re ready to go home, recharge, and process it all. In fact, recharging is absolutely crucial for Introverts.

    Myth #6 – Introverts always want to be alone. Introverts are perfectly comfortable with their own thoughts. They think a lot. They daydream. They like to have problems to work on, puzzles to solve. But they can also get incredibly lonely if they don’t have anyone to share their discoveries with. They crave an authentic and sincere connection with ONE PERSON at a time.

    Myth #7 – Introverts are weird. Introverts are often individualists. They don’t follow the crowd. They’d prefer to be valued for their novel ways of living. They think for themselves and because of that, they often challenge the norm. They don’t make most decisions based on what is popular or trendy.

    Myth #8 – Introverts are aloof nerds. Introverts are people who primarily look inward, paying close attention to their thoughts and emotions. It’s not that they are incapable of paying attention to what is going on around them, it’s just that their inner world is much more stimulating and rewarding to them.

    Myth #9 – Introverts don’t know how to relax and have fun. Introverts typically relax at home or in nature, not in busy public places. Introverts are not thrill seekers and adrenaline junkies. If there is too much talking and noise going on, they shut down. Their brains are too sensitive to the neurotransmitter called Dopamine. Introverts and Extroverts have different dominant neuro-pathways. Just look it up.

    Myth #10 – Introverts can fix themselves and become Extroverts. Introverts cannot “fix themselves” and deserve respect for their natural temperament and contributions to the human race. In fact, one study (Silverman, 1986) showed that the percentage of Introverts increases with IQ.

    Finally someone that understands me! This is me to the last detail! I’m not weird. I can be defined. There’s hope yet.Seriously, this is so damn accurate. Can’t disagree with a single point. In the original article the first comment is by someone that suggests that this guy (original writer) may have aspergers or autism. All I can say is, ‘Crap!’. Being an introvert is a natural disposition of someone that has less time for pointless banter and is more interested in understanding why things are the way they are and why people do the things they do. Seeking social acceptance is not the objective of the life of an introvert. As it states above, they’re more about substance than they are about image.

  • Just realised I’m a hopeless dreamer. And many would be forgiven for thinking that I dwell on the past or live in yesterdays. I don’t. I guess I reminisce often so that I am reminded of the similarities between what I have now, and what I may have taken for granted back then. The greatest challenge for me has always been my inability to focus on the present moment. In many ways, this constant reflection helps me to understand the importance of what is happening now, relative to the future, when I see it within the context of my past. I’m a complicated old soul. 

  • Sometimes I share details of personal struggles with strangers because I need the release, and other times I do so because I hope that they may avoid the pitfalls that I experienced. Nonetheless, the shedding of my veil of privacy is always sincere. More often than not I restrain myself because even I find it hard to swallow the volume of colourful experiences that I’ve had to endure. And when I place myself in the position of the recipient, I can only imagine how quickly they reach a point when they question the voracity of what I’m saying.

    I guess I have yet to figure out the human psyche, especially within the context of interpersonal relationships. I can sense the anguish or regret, hope or passion and even optimism in the words of strangers, but I can never foresee being discarded. That always takes me by surprise. Every single time. Perhaps it’s representative of an over-inflated ego or sense of self. That would be a contradiction of note, given my grave insecurities about my ability to contribute positively in a manner that may be well-received. 

    Hasn’t happened yet. Perhaps I’m plagued by both ingratitude and delusion. A fatal combination for one who desires to connect with others on a human level. I guess my latest experiences just reaffirms my hesitance to want to reduce the story of my life to a book. 

  • Life

    I feel somewhat weepy today. Strange though, because I have no real reason to feel this way. No, this is not my feminine side showing, it’s my human side. At times the accumulation of life’s struggles creeps up on me without warning, and it’s when things are going well that I realise how bad it was before. It’s a strange sort of weightiness that I feel. I don’t feel weighed down, but I don’t feel lightened of my burdens either. 

    My endeavours to simplify my life have been somewhat fruitful, but the emptiness of space alongside me in bed still leaves me reaching out for something that isn’t there more often than I should. That’s probably the cause of my self-imposed insomnia, especially on Sunday evenings. Despite knowing that I will fall asleep the moment I lay my head down, I resist it with everything in me until I’m literally ready to pass out at my laptop before I begrudgingly drag myself over to the bed.

    At times the exhaustion at that point is so bad that I find myself slithering into place trying to shrug the blanket over me, because I barely have the energy to move my arms. But it’s all not lost, I guess. Outside of these moments I still feel resolute in my naivety, and my optimism still persists. One thing I have resolved never to do is assume that it can’t get any worse. I’ve made that mistake too often before. It can always get worse. 

    If nothing else, the lessons of my life, thus far, have taught me that even when it seems like the darkness is going to overcome me completely, it always only ever took a single split second of light to change that. The trick now is to remember that the next split second could be the one when that light will pierce through the morbidity and pain. It reminds me of so many defining moments in my life. Moments when everything seemed consistently headed in one direction, and in a split second, it all changed. The moment I received that phone call when my first wife died. The moment I received that phone call that I got a job after being out of work for seven months and having made the last payment of my mortgage from my credit card. 

    There is no guarantee what the next split second brings, but because I’m often a creature of probability more than possibility, I easily forget those defining moments in my life, because innately I’m a statistician by nature. And the statistics prove that the trends of my life are mostly mediocre and blandly predictable, rather than unpredictably beautiful. But that’s because I tend to have a jaundiced memory that holds on to those experiences that caused me the most pain rather than those that caused the greatest elation. As ungrateful as that may seem, it makes perfect sense.

    By design, I seek to protect myself from harm and pain, not happiness and joyful laughter. So it’s inevitable that I would be cautioned before I am encouraged. Perhaps that’s why it requires courage and effort to make a life beautiful, because it requires fighting against the very nature that I despise within me. 

  • The Theme of My Life

    The theme of my life has been one of misunderstandings and assumptions about who I am and what I stand for, especially by those closest to me. So it’s little, or in fact no surprise that I am constantly misconstrued in my intentions or efforts to achieve positive outcomes in my engagements with many.

    I don’t subscribe to the stereotypical views of life or spirituality, and I question what most assume to be obvious. In this questioning I’m often seen as arrogant, difficult, uninformed, illiterate and even pompous. Regardless of extended efforts to establish understanding and context, the negative assumptions persist. And this, if nothing else, has been the core of my struggle in a hostile world. 

    I don’t refer to myself as anomalous because of any romantic notions that I harbour about my individuality. Being anomalous is not a pleasant place to be. It is often received harshly or responded to cruelly, simply because most don’t know how to deal with what is uncommon, or more commonly considered weird. That is me. And that has been the theme of my life. If current trends are anything to go by, then such shall remain the themes of my life for the rest of my days.

    I have ceased to live with expectations for a long time now. Expectations from others has been the cause of the greatest pain with the deepest wounds incurred by betrayal. Not always betrayals of trust, but most often betrayals of expectations. But I continue to live with hope, because hopelessness never appealed to me no matter how many feeble attempts I’ve made to embrace it. But this same hope causes me to believe in others more than they believe in themselves. I see potential where others see futility, and for this I have been scorned too often.

    I maintain the insane notion that I have something positive to contribute, and from this belief I derive hope that I may yet prove to be beneficial to a course greater than my own existence. I have very little that I hope to achieve on a personal front, for personal gain, but there’s much to be achieved on a human scale. Whether I will ever be accepted for the humanity that resides within me is yet to be seen. Right now, I see a waning moon and a setting sun, and while each offers its own serenity in the cycle of life, they both prove to be an unsettling reminder that the darkness will reach me soon, as it will us all. 

    The image of the pendulum’s arc swinging across the horizon of my life continues to grow stronger by the day. It’s brush against this ephemeral existence continues to provide perspective on my insignificance relative to the universe. Yet the ego will not be silenced into complacency. 

  • That Last Fateful Encounter

    I’m suddenly reminded of her again. The gentle ticking of her heart and her husky soft voice. Yes, the ticking of her heart. I knew it so well by then, and I missed it for a long time before that, the way I miss it now. Her infectious smile always remained infectious. Even through the pain of life and the heartache of my insensitivity.

    Our passionately tumultuous marriage ended because of an idealistic notion that I refused to let go of. Such is the curse of Hollywood. Even worse is the curse of a childhood that left me emotionally unavailable for the better part of my adult life. After falling in love and marrying according to the cultural traditions, we seemed like the couple most likely to succeed. We were often compared to Helen Hunt and Paul Reiser in Mad About You. We really got along that well.

    At some point, out of sheer paranoia and morbidity, I was convinced that if I didn’t end the marriage, I would lose not only my wife, but also the best friend I had up to that point in my life and the thought scared me. I behaved foolishly. But there was no turning back. Our friendship did survive, but it was always a stark reminder of my stupidity rather than the true comfort that it offered me before I lost my presence of mind.

    Years later, after a lengthy time apart, we made contact again. I just ended another insane chapter in my life, and she was as cheerful as always. She had her flaws, but I always loved her enough to only ever remember her romantically. And still do. Only this time, when we talked, there was a serious under tone that she tried hard to hide, and I knew better than to pry or make a fuss of it. She didn’t like people fussing about the seriousness of life. 

    I had been unemployed for a few months by that time and was still looking for work. We went for coffee a few times and eventually watched a movie together called John Q. It was a movie about a little kid that needed a heart transplant, and one of the final scenes was the graphic detail of the surgeon inserting the donor heart into the little boy’s chest cavity and tapping it to get it going. I could feel her heart sink at the sight of it. It was too close to home for her given her numerous open heart operations that left her with the artificial valve whose ticking I grew so fond of. 

    She just smiled as always and assured me that she was perfectly fine when we left the cinema that night. She was due for another blood test. Something she did at least every two weeks to monitor the thickness of her blood so that the valve wouldn’t clog up and cease. I could usually tell the thickness based on the sound of the valve. She insisted that I take her for the test, even though it was routine for her to get her family’s chauffeur to drive her to these fortnightly appointments. I was caught up in job interviews and she refused to go with anyone else. I told her that I was due for an interview the next day, to which she looked down and said that she knew I was going to get the job because I always got the job if I got the interview. I just laughed it off. 

    The next day I landed a job in Saudi Arabia for a one year contract, and I’ll never forget her response. For the first time since our divorce a few years before, she broke down in tears and pleaded with me not to go. She told me that she lost me once before and now that I was finally back, I was leaving her again. I couldn’t understand it, but I didn’t have much of a choice either. I needed the job. 

    She fell ill the following evening without me knowing. Due to a twist of fate, her regular doctor was not available, and some reckless bastard attended to her instead. He downplayed her symptoms of her chest infection and prescribed some medication without considering her heart condition which landed her in hospital, still unknown to me. 

    I needed to leave within days for the urgent assignment in Saudi, and had planned to fly out on the Thursday evening after the interview. On Thursday morning I delayed my flight plans at the last minute because I just didn’t feel comfortable making the trip that day. So I postponed my flight to Saturday instead. On Thursday evening at just after 19h00, around the time my original flight was scheduled to depart, I received a phone call. She had died. Her heart finally gave up, and just like that, she was gone. No long distance phone calls from Saudi as I had planned, or special trips to visit her. Everything was suddenly pointless. And I didn’t even see it coming.

    I broke down for the first time in my life, despite having lost other close family members before. I was always composed. But not this time. When I heard those words on the phone I felt weak and my knees almost gave way under me. I sat on the nearest thing I could find. She was gone and I didn’t know how to deal with it.

    Her funeral was held that same evening according to Islamic rites and customs. It was a cold winter night, and her family that had despised me since our divorce embraced me hesitantly when I saw them. I stood in the cemetery and watched in disbelief as they lowered her into her grave, and the most striking memory of that evening was the sight of tears dripping from the face of her nephew as he knelt over in the halo of the flood light that lit up the proceedings in the darkness of the graveyard. 

    Two days later I left for Saudi. Alone. And the months that followed saw one of the greatest depressions of my life set in. It was truly the winter of my discontent.

  • Looking for Inspiration

    I once walked into a yard that sold raw materials like natural stone and treated timber that I was looking at for a DIY project I had feeble intentions of building. When the owner approached me, I simply smiled and said, “I’m just looking for inspiration.” He laughed and walked away. I often set out wanting to do something, having an idea, or sometimes just a concept in my head, and then letting it dwell in the back of my mind waiting for inspiration to strike. Sometimes, it comes from nowhere, but recently, it hardly comes at all.

    I’ve enjoyed only bursts of energy and enthusiasm recently, with the days in between being real challenges. This afternoon I set back and wondered how many others become complacent about their misery by convincing themselves that if anyone else had been contending with what they have to deal with, they’d fall to pieces or kill themselves. I’m guilty of the same self-destructive smugness. I look at the problems of a teenager reeling from the betrayal of lustful love threatening never to love again, and wanting to destroy herself and everyone in the process, and I smile. That same smug smile that leads to me forgetting how relative everything is. Just because I’ve endured more in quantity doesn’t imply that the intensity of my agony was any greater than hers. 

    But I need this insensitive comparison to make myself feel better about my own self-loathing. I sway from being convinced that I deserve nothing better to knowing that I’m just too amazing to be discovered by mediocre meddlers. But that’s really what many people are. Meddlers. They meddle in various aspects of their lives, looking for inspiration, but never committing to anything because they’re waiting for someone to appreciate them first. The excess we commit in our natural disposition as social beings is in our penchant for wanting to feel loved before we love, being appreciated before we express gratitude, or receiving before we consider giving. 

    I heard someone say today that a veil exists between this world and heaven. I think that our struggles, our principled endeavours and our consistent striving towards our noble ambitions is what tears away at that veil. If you don’t believe in heaven, then consider that veil to be all that prevents you from achieving your utopian ideals, whatever they may be. My search for inspiration will never abate. But it will be more joyous if accompanied by one that cools my eyes, but warms my spirit. So I wait patiently, living with conviction, but no expectations, only hope that some day soon my garment will arrive in all her splendour to finally caress the dreams I so painstakingly nurture to keep the jaded me at bay.

  • seinedoll replied to your post: Personal Reflections

    Cheer up please! Everything is in your head.

    🙂 thanks…it is mostly in my head…except for the weight gain! That’s definitely not in my head! I decided tonight that I’ll write the story of me…if not for any reason other than the hope that it will lighten the burden of the realities that I hold inside that have yet to be shared with anyone around me. 

    Time will tell…the ghosts of lifetimes past never quite leave. They just saunter around in the shadows waiting for a moment of weakness or a lull in your spirits, before they surge straight through you, leaving you bewildered, without any trace of their presence, except the hints of remorse, regret, hope and most often, disbelief. Disbelief at how sincere naivety could be ridiculed as stupidity because I lacked the faculties to be suspicious. Bah!

    The greatest challenge has never been about moving forward. That’s easy. The difficulty lies in trusting that others will receive your efforts positively so that you can realise those goals that will provide the much needed comfort and companionship. But when most are inclined to judge without knowledge, the most noble of endeavours, or even the greatest of achievements fade into a heap of social worthlessness that threatens to disembowel you had it not been for the fact that such social appraisals are inconsequential to your sanity. 

    But sanity isn’t much to celebrate at times when it’s not able to be shared. And this is turning out to be far too morbid, so it’s time for me to shut it. 🙂