Check out this video from Second Life- I took part in this project last year as a reader, and hope to create a piece of dance for it this year
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTsNZU55Ypc&feature=youtu.be

I posted this on a Facebook group called introvert zone. The only response I got was from one of my relatives. So I'll try it here.  If anyone is reading this blog surely some of you must be introverts. Responses please.

Introverts as self- motivated.

I see lots of comments on this site about the need for introverts to spend time alone and how draining it is to be with other people. But what about the other major introvert characteristic – self-motivation? Has anyone found themselves in trouble because of that?

When I look back I seem to have had a pattern of falling foul of authority structures- School, line managers, even spiritual teachers. I’ve never been a rebel, never one of those who just have to buck authority for the sake of it. As an INFJ I actually like to please others and am deeply hurt by hostility and criticism.

But I do find that when I am in a situation where obedience and loyalty are the chief demands- even though usually unstated – I seem inexplicably to fall foul of the system. Line managers take against me, I become an object of suspicion and distrust which quickly turn to scapegoating and victimization. After reading about the introvert personality I have concluded these things happened to me because, as an introvert, I always do things for my own reasons, never solely because I’ve been told to. To me, rules are useful and informative guidelines, to be thought about carefully, then applied where appropriate, not things to be followed without deviation in any circumstance.  If someone instructs me to do a task, at work, then I will bust a gut to do it well and fulfill all requirements, but somehow I think too much while I’m doing that. All my motivation comes so much from within, that even when I am working to a high standard – in fact- often often exceeding what was required- people (extraverts) seem to feel I am not doing what they asked. They can’t put their finger on it, but they just don’t get where I’m coming from and feel they can’t completely trust me - I have actually had that said to me more than once.  As I place a huge importance on integrity and trustworthiness - this is especially hurtful.

In a totalitarian system like the boarding school I attended for 7 years, I would decide for myself what I wanted to do, rather than just obey. I was gifted and intelligent so studying and music practice were my main occupations, so I was hardly being a ‘bad’ girl. But because I had decided my own goals I wouldn’t allow any silly nonsense with pointless rules and demands to get in my way.  So I am probably the only kid in history to get punished in a school for studying too much!!!

I’ve noticed I often seem to earn a reputation for arrogance – I suspect this is a very common label for introverts. Our need to be alone can make us seem aloof, and I admit I can often feel contempt for the sheer silliness and superficiality of extraverts’ mindset.  I know my attitude to rules often strikes people as arrogant.  Paradoxically- the harder I try to ‘obey’ and fit in with ‘normal’ expectations, the more likely I am to stick out as non-compliant. Sullenness and sulkiness in teenagers is usually read as rebelliousness by teachers.  But I still fail utterly to understand how a studious and quiet student can end up being expelled for being this terrible rebel, and ringleader, which is what happened to me.

I have a huge problem with job interviews, even just the job-applications, because I say thoughtful (i.e weird and unexpected) things. I shoot myself in the foot by thinking out loud about some question they’ve asked me.

The books I’ve read say the INFJ personality is motivated by an overriding desire to be of service to others. This is so true of me.  Many times I’ve found myself in a situation where I am doing my utmost to help and support others, often sacrificing my real desires, and have found this totally misconstrued by people, especially those who are very power-oriented, (who can only understand other people as power motivated too.) I think I often come across as very strong because my thoughtfulness and ability to read complex situations (very INFJ) mean I can speak with clarity and weight. I have even- extraordinary thought!!! – been labelled as a power-crazy bitch in one situation. Can you imagine anything further from the nature of an INFJ? Why would I waste my time seeking power over others?

Now I live with my elderly mother as her carer – which means I can be of service without it being misunderstood. When I tell people I am doing it as much for myself as my mother they are just pleased, instead of suspicious. I can spend lots of time alone in my part of the house, quietly thinking and writing and being creative, without the financial pressure to go out and earn money which would distract me from my goals. And my social needs are fulfilled by taking part in activities with others that interest me, or by meeting friends on a one-to-one. INTROVERT HEAVEN!!!

My brother sent a CD of a concert he'd been to - Eternal Night  a requiem by Howard Goodall. He has taken poetry from all sorts of different people from different eras that have moved him and composed songs with them as lyrics for the whole requiem  
Here are three that particularly got to me. 

Track 3

Belief 

by Ann Thorp

I have to believe

That you still exist

Somewhere,

That you still watch me

Sometimes,

That you still love me

Somehow

I have to believe

That life has meaning

Somehow

That I am useful here

Sometimes

That I make small differences

Somewhere

I have to believe

That I need to stay here

For some time

That all this teaches me

Something

So that I can meet you again

Somewhere

Track 5

Lacrymosa dies ilia (that day will be a day of weeping)

Attributed to Mary Elizabeth Fry but adapted by Howard Goodall

Do not stand at my grave and weep

I am not there. I do not sleep.

I am a thousand winds that blow,

I am the softly falling snow,

I am the gentle showers of rain,

I am the fields of ripening grain,

I am in the morning hush,

I am the graceful rush

Of far-off birds in circling flight.

I am in every flower that blooms,

I am in still and empty rooms,

I am the child that yearns to sing

I am in each and every thing.

Do not stand at my grave and cry.

I am not there- I did not die.

Track 13

Spared

by Wendy Cope

(Quoting Emily Dickinson: That Love is all there is

                                                Is all we know of Love)  

    

It wasn’t you, it wasn’t me,

Up there, two thousand feet above

A New York street. We’re safe and free

A little while, to live and love.

Imagining what might have been –

The phone call from the blazing tower,

A last farewell on the machine,

While someone sleeps another hour

Or worse, perhaps, to say goodbye

And listen to each other’s pain,

Send helpless love across the sky

Knowing we’ll never meet again.

Or jump together, hand in hand,

To certain death. Spared all of this

For now, how well I understand

That love is all, is all there is.  

I was tidying up the study for a friend who was coming to stay, and found another couple of poems  

This too was read out at the beginning of a session by another movement teacher. 

Lost

Stand still.  The trees ahead and the bushes beside you

Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here. 

And you must treat it as a powerful Stranger.

Must ask permission to know it and be known.

The forest breathes. Listen. It answers -

I have made this place around you.

If you leave it you may come back again, saying - Here.

No two trees are the same to Raven.

No two branches are the same to Wren.

If what a tree or bush does is lost on you

you are surely lost. Stand still. the forest knows

Where you are. You must let it find you. 

David Wagoner

What an absolutely yummy poem!!!!!!!

Long time since I've had time to post anything.
I've been working hard on getting my next novel ready to publish on Amazon- still a bit of a way to go. It's called the Crossing Place and is around 11,500 words - so not a magnum opus, but people have said they enjoyed it when I read it out to a couple of groups in SL.  I sold over 200 copies of Mitchie on the free promo - thank you all for getting it.  I did put an advert for it up on an online magazine, that cost me £100, just to see if that is a useful way to promote it- so far there is no evidence that it has sold a single copy since the ad went up.  I will have a short story coming out in the same magazine soon and there will be a plug for the book with that- so let's see if any of that has any effect. 

As I was just finishing the work on that story my movement teacher read a poem to us that just seemed to be what the story was about.  I actually thought the poem contained the words 'Crossing Place' but it is only 'crossing'. The story is about an event that causes six people who are caught up in it to make decisions that change the way they have been living, changes that have been long overdue, but they were unable to take the necessary steps until they had a bit of supernatural help. This poem is about how each of us is a kind of secretion from the interaction between our thoughts and what happens to us.

Stigmata.

The womb is the world. The child is made from all sides.

Throughout months, years. It is not me.

It is at the crossing of my thinking body and the flux of tiny living events.

that the thing is secreted.

Helene Cixous