I have vivid memories of my childhood when I used to shy away and bury my face into my mother's Saree upon seeing some strangely known uncles and aunties. My parents would pester me for uttering a courteous Namaste to welcome the guests. But my uncompromising self never relented to their repeated pleas. I chose to be the person I was. At that tender age I could hardly decipher anything about my behaviour. But as I grew up, it dawned upon me that I was inflicted with a phenomenon called Introversion.
Speaking in terms of psychology Introversion is a central dimension of human personality where the person tends to restrict himself into his own existence. Simply put, Introversion manifests itself in quiet, reserved and shy behaviour. Also, there exists a very fine line between shy and introvert personalities. Whereas shyness arises from the fear of facing people, introversion springs from an inclination to guard one's own space with a certain degree of stringency. Anyways, I'm not here to discuss the technicalities of the matter. Fortunately or unfortunately I always made friends who were extroverts to a fair degree. Consequently, I grew up with a sense of inferiority, for my friends were always the life of the party though my presence hardly got noticed. While people admired me for the calm and suttle creature that I was, they loved spending time with my extrovert counterparts.
Eventually, I started feeling handicapped, socially handicapped. I had to hunt for people who shared the same introvert traits as I did. The harder I tried to embrace the extroversion that was so coveted and valued, the greater the sense of self negation engulfed me. I consistently kept trying to broker a truce between the person I was and the person the society would vouch for. The society has always been blinded by its biases. One one hand, it claims to worship those who never compromise with their individuality and on the contrary, it breeds circumstances that force you into doing so. I encountered the bias everywhere. From my school to every social institution that I became a part of. When I decided to join a course in Broadcast Journalism I was ridiculed by a good number of people. They mocked at me saying that a person who distances himself from petty social gatherings could never be a part of a community that was all about being loud mouthed. I denied to surrender to their criticism but I forgot that the place I was going to is no different from the society that we live in. People who spoke quantities were always preferred over people who spoke quality.
Researches prove that introverts find refuge in creative engagements. Composers, writers, painters are more likely to be introverts. Perhaps, my love for writing can also be credited to my introversion. Some of the finest contributors of the human history were introverts. Steve Wozniak of Apple is an outstanding example. Even Mahatma Gandhi, the flag-bearer of the Indian freedom struggle saw himself as a part of that introversion spectrum.
I am not against extroversion. It is an equally important shade of the variegated, puzzling human personality. After all, life is all about balancing between the odds. But the sort of rejection that introverts are subjected to in our society, is deeply disturbing. They are forced into a relentless battle of distancing themselves from their essence. The societal skeleton rewards extroverts and outrightly ignores introverts. If an introvert could be subjected to such a degree of aloofness, imagine the humiliation that a physically challenged person may have endured in each and every moment of his life. Introversion is not a sick state of mind. It does not imply by any means a sense of self obsession. It is the power that reunites you with your spirit, binds you with your strengths, confronts you with your weaknesses and rewards you with meaningful introspection. Caring for the external is important but segregating the internal can be disastrous.
