Introverts and Happiness



The term “introversion” was first coined in order to distinguish it from its counterpart, extroversion, or “extraversion” as it was then called. One of the founding fathers of this type of thought was Carl Jung, who described introverts as shy, contemplative, reserved, and tending to have difficulty in adjusting to social situations. Furthermore they were prone to excessive daydreaming and--the striking similar word--introspection. For Jung, an introvert focused mainly upon his or her own thoughts and feelings while an extravert focused outward, toward other people and the outside world. Naturally then, this personality trait was extrapolated into narcissism and melancholy. Russell went so far as to refer to it as a malady, saying introverts focused only upon “the emptiness within.” Furthermore, he said we must not take the introvert’s unhappiness to be anything grand. The clear implication then is that introverts must be unhappy. However, this is false.

Susan Cain, author of Quiet: the Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking, proposes a new kind of introvert. Rather than manufacturing introversion as the antithesis to the gregarious and cheerful extrovert, she presents two different models for processing stimulus. Whereas extroverts crave a lot of stimuli, their brains inherently wired to take in large amounts of it, an introvert’s mind stimulates itself. Because the thoughts are turned inward, whole worlds can be generated from within themselves as evidenced by famous introverts like Tolkien.

http://www.ted.com/talks/susan_cain_the_power_of_introverts

Therefore it is only natural for someone like Russell, an obvious extrovert who prefers zest and adventure, to perceive an introvert’s proclivity for seclusion as a malady. If he craves the outer world for new interests and adventures, he has no choice but to believe only emptiness resides within. To him, cultivating one’s inner world instead of exploring the outer one must seem like deprivation and denial. In this way, extroverts cannot be happy with large quantities of silence and solitude but introverts cannot be happy without it. This is not to speak in extremes, saying introverts must only exist in isolation and extroverts only in explosive environments but rather that each person, according to where he or she falls upon the introvert-extrovert spectrum, must strike his or her own healthy balance in order to achieve the different sorts of happiness available to all, whether it be found in the affluence of externality or the richness of internal galaxies.