Introversion – fourteen

Leave some you,
for you.
-W.E.

Unlike extroverts and this is not to generalise and bucket everyone to groups, but introverts need their space, they need their time alone they need to be able to recluse inside themselves to feel alive again.

If they are deprived this, they can feel drained and there are plenty of outside influences, mostly people who aptly hold the title of drainer. They demand to know your every detail. Fine for some people, for extroverts who may like flaunting, but we’re mostly reserved.

The paradox is, both introverts and extroverts gain the most personal gratification by going outside themselves and being of servitude to others.

For extroverts, it causes them to internalise and focus on the finer things putting them in touch with a side of themselves they don’t visit often.

For introverts, they see far more worth in meaningful exchanges but in contradiction, they have to be a little extroverted to perform tasks of servitude to others. Give them a room full of excited and happy people, rich and famous who want to be around them and they will probably shy away. Give them a meaningful conversation with an unknown, full of depth and sensitivity and they bathe in satisfaction.

It’s a win win situation. Get more YOU time, the secret is to be of servitude in a meaningful way. The internal dividends are the YOU time, immeasurable.

At the same time, one has to be wary of people who just leech on you for their own personal gain without reciprocation or an imbalanced and abnormal demand to be involved in your every affair.

Khalil Gibran said it best:

On Marriage

“You were born together, and together you shall be forevermore.
You shall be together when the white wings of death scatter your days.
Ay, you shall be together even in the silent memory of God.
But let there be spaces in your togetherness,
And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.

Love one another, but make not a bond of love:
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
Fill each other’s cup but drink not from one cup.
Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf
Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone,
Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.

Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping.
For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.
And stand together yet not too near together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.”