9 June 2013
Sunday
12:00 PM
Enjoying the
Ineffable
Remember:
The Experience is Personal
I think that I've
mentioned this before, but if you don't recall, I'm an introvert. If
you didn't know, I'm still an introvert. Every time I have completed
the Myers – Brigs Personality Inventory I always show to be
an introvert. * Not just part way into the introvert range of the
scale, but way to the side, nailed to the wall introvert. Many people
make the mistake equating introversion with shyness. Do not make that
mistake. Growing up with bright red hair and being the biggest kid in
my classroom, I was never allowed the chance to be shy, my phyical
presence took care of that.
Oh, there were
moments when we as students endured the teacher's misguided forms of
controlling a classroom of unruly youngsters just wanting to be who
they were and eager to interact with the world. Sitting still and
raising your hand to get recognition first in order to just to make a
comment about what was going on was nearly intolerable. The situation
was made worse when yon teacher (She was always yonder because often
the class seating was arranged alphabetically. Sometimes the teacher
would, at semester's change, reverse the seating in order to give
everyone a chance to sit in the front, as if that were some sort of
privilege. I never had the opportunity to discover if sitting up
front was what it was hyped up to be. I was so big that I got to sit
in the back of the room perennially because, I was told, the others
couldn't see the chalkboard around me. Thus the teacher was always at
a distance from me. Hence she took on the qualities of someone far
from me, or yonder.)
I was happy being
left alone. If things in the classroom got boring (as they often did)
there always was a large bank of windows through which I could always
cast my attention. This brought up two interesting situations. One)
if I wasn't wary and disguised were my eyes were the teacher would
call on you in front of class, this was a mild rebuke and an
underhanded way to use peer pressure and mild situational ridicule
to keep the attention of the class within the room. Everyone disliked
her for this. It was sneaky on her part, and showed that she was
willing to foment a form of divisiveness in the classroom in order to
maintain her dominant position as Dominatrix of the educational
process. Two) If I managed to become so enamored of what I was so
easily available just through those windows, I quite easily lost
track of monitoring the dullness happening in the classroom. My
attention was totally fixed on the squirrels hopping about on their
daily business, making erratic moves, punctuated with hesitant
start-stop movements, furtive committing to one direction then
reversing in another, they were the Don Knotts of the animal world,
just on the other side of that quarter inch glass. In just a flash
they could become as smooth and quick as a race horse, undulating
their way in one direction describing a smooth wave form just like on
an oscilloscope, their erratic movements and slinky nature was way
more entertaining than whatever Mrs. Fullofherself had going on.
The sad part of
this was that she had a bad habit of interrupting my wonderful
out-the-window-education. For some reason she thrived on everyone's
undivided attention. Its sad that she was so needy. In hindsight, I
would have thought that the school board would have hired more
understanding teachers, we were no there for her fulfillment of her
own issues, whatever they were. The other sad part was that she was
not as entertaining as she thought she was. Her entertainment ability
was nowhere close to what was happening just outside of the window.
Third grade, forth
grade and fifth grade followed this same pattern. Dull teachers
running a very dull show, and trying to make the mutineer, renegade,
rebels among us yield to their social deficiencies. Thank goodness
that particular school was in a wooded setting and there were plenty
of windows. By the time I got to the sixth grade I had learned what
to expect from the teachers, the natural world had taught me a lot.
It was a shame that school dominated so much of my time. I learned
that adults in positions of authority often had no idea what it was
like to try to interact with children. (Only years later when I was
deep into my studies of psychology and taking test and measures
courses did I get an opportunity to find out exactly how far beyond
most people my intellect was. No wonder I found standard school so
boring. They were aiming for a common level that I could see in my
rearview mirror, I had been there and gone a longtime ago.)
Looking back at
those very instructive years, I learned most of the academic stuff on
my own. Granted we had reading class, but it seemed more of an
impediment than a situation to learn.listening to others read aloud
while waiting to have my whack at it was intolerable. I often read to
myself racing many pages ahead. When suddenly it was my turn, the
teacher had to call my name gently to bring me back to the present,
where the class was. I would inquire as to what page we were on, upon
finding out, I would turn back to where everyone was waiting, read my
two paragraphs, then flip the pages back to where I had left off.
I remember one of
the girls in my class telling me in all honesty that she thought that
I was obnoxious, because I was never where the class was. Who did I
think I was? She was one of those students who hung on every word the
teacher said, sat still in her desk and when she wasn't doing
anything she put her hands, folded neatly, on top of the desk and sat
patiently, looking stright a head, waiting for the teacher's next
directive. The curious part of me had no time for that. If the
teacher thought that I was going to sit by quiet and compliant while
she might get around to the next item of business... well, I'm not
made that way. I can see through most situations and people like a
glass of water. It shows to me very easily if someone is going
through the motions “teaching” (read indoctrinating) me and if
they really want to make it possible for me to learn. There is a
difference.
Mostly for me
school was a tedious series of social learning opportunities about
how authority figures like for things to progress, interspaced with
moments of “aha”so this is how the universe works. I got glimpses
of the way to understand things using the linear way of seeing
things, and then I let the holistic understanding just dawn on me.
Not only was it effective, but it easily became my own, not something
I had assumed from some authority person who told me what I should
know.
So I am very used
to being by myself. Rather than feeling ignored I feel as if I have
been granted a reprieve from being held hostage to the acculturated
norm. It is so freeing, to not be held to the day to day behaviors
and expectations of others. That being said, I thrive on being met by
others where I am, not where other people want me to be. The times
when people can be with me as a human being with needs and wants
specific to who I am are wonderful. These opportunities are rare. I
am thrilled when that happens. The sad part is that it happens so
rarely.
Most of the
population are extroverts, approximately 75%. Most of our mass
communication mirrors the extrovert trend, which leaves most
introverts behind. In my practice I had noticed that most of the
people who seek therapy assume that something is wrong with them.
This is the unspoken message that they get from the rest of society.
Nobody is telling them overtly that there is something wrong, it more
subtle. The implied message is to be like everyone else. Get up get
out, party hearty, dance like nobody's watching. Well that may sound
good to others, but it certainly holds no flavor to most introverts.
A lot of my previous work was helping people see that there is
nothing wrong, they just are different from most other people, and
how to be comfortable with that. So most introverts naturally feel
estranged from the way nearly everyone else acts, the very foundation
behind the behaviors is so foreign to them.
Even though I was
comfortable with my nature, it took a while before I could put words
to it so that the thinking part of me could rest as easy. Our
thinking minds are bound to using words, thinking, linear thoughts
and arguments before it can rest easy. That thinking mind is
dependent on a narrative, and it has to make sense. In fact it wants
to have a final resolution that sometimes it will accept a tenuous
conclusion because it gives some semblance of finality to an
impossible problem. Often this can result in some strange beliefs,
like superstitions. As much as the linear mind wants surety and to be
in charge, is the most comfortable being dominant, the other part of
our mind is amazingly silent, recognizes nearly everything as soon as
first seen,is almost always correct, sees everything as a whole
without needing separation,and does not have to be competitive.
Everybody has these capabilities, but most people have lost the
ability to recognize this silent but thoroughly effective part of
them since near the end of childhood. During my early elementary
school years I managed to be able to maintain selective access to
this ability, thanks to the inadvertent help of my many teachers and
their total devotion to their favored adult-like way of doing just
about everything. Once I learned of the bicameral brain and the
specialities of each, I realized that in my own nonsensical way I
managed to keep my avenue to the right hemisphere intact.
The label on the
package calls them Jelly Bird Eggs. The name seems to fit
Nest of a different sort
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