It is extremely difficult to discuss introversion. That is because the people around us are either extraverts or introverts. The former couldn't care less what "vert" one or another person might be. Even when they get interested, they lose their interest half an hour later. Two weeks later, they can't remember the very fact of ever having discussed that topic with someone. That's how extraverts are.
The introverts in turn tend to be deeply troubled persons dedicated to convincing themselves that they are normal and in no way worse than the extraverts and don't have to be ashamed of being what they are. They get hostile when suggested that maybe introversion as such, not the unfair world and other people's prejudices, is their problem. I used to be like that for most of my life. However, I have reached the insight that it's manifestly absurd to suggest introversion is not a serious problem. Can you imagine an article or video titled "I am an extravert. What to do about it?" Yet almost every article or video that has the word "introvert" in its title contains advice on how to cope with being an introvert.
Now, I don't give a rat's ass about who is "good" or "bad", "normal" or "abnormal". All I care about is being as efficient in my life as possible. I want to know the truth in order to be able to make optimal choices, rather than be deluded to assume something that is not true and waste my energy on fighting the forces of nature. Should the truth be that introversion is a mental disease that can be cured, I want to know about it.
As I said, I used to be a proud introvert for most of my life. "Don't you dare tell me that one ought to try and be more extraverted. Introversion is my nature. Even if I could, I would never want to become like those joyful empty-headed jerks."
For the record, I still hold that we are better than those joyful empty-headed jerks. By my deeply subjective standard, that is. The sad news is, those joyful empty-headed jerks rule the world. For some reason, practically all life in society is tailored to suit the extraverts.
There's another sad news: we need to interact with that hostile world, because we need food, clothes and shelter to physically exist, and sex to have at least one reason to want to exist – and practically everyone of us has also other things he'd hate to have to live without that can only be acquired from the external world.
Telling ourselves "I am normal, I don't have to change, I don't have to be ashamed, I am normal, I don't have to change, I don't have to be ashamed, I am normal..." day in, day out, does nothing to get our needs satisfied. In order to satisfy our needs, we need to either:
a) change the outer world;
b) get to know the outer world and learn to use it as well as we can.
Feel free to try the first. I am certain that focusing on the second option yields far higher returns on your energy spent.
(For the slow of understanding: "c) convince ourselves that we are just as good as the extraverts" is not an option. It's self-tranquilization that is actually counterproductive, because it deflects our energy from getting what we want onto forcing ourselves to believe that the grapes are sour. "I LIKE sitting home alone instead of going out and doing things. There's nothing wrong with that!" No, there isn't – until the next utility bill arrives and you have no money.)
But what is introversion and extraversion? Years ago, I came up with the hypothesis that interpersonal interaction causes, by and large, the extraverts to absorb energy from the introverts. It's a kind of energy which no scientific devices known today can measure, but which we can still all feel. That's why the extraverts want to be among people and hate being alone, while introverts get exhausted by social interactions and need to be alone to recharge their batteries.
It seems that the law of conservation of energy doesn't apply to that unresearched bioenergy. This means a group of extraverts can spend time together and become more energetic each, without anyone losing anything, whereas a group of introverts can still get tired from being together even when there are no extraverts present. The fact that introverts gain energy from solitude (without anyone present to take that energy from) while extraverts start feeling awful when they have to be alone for a considerable time (remember how the COVID restrictions were driving them insane?) seems to support that hypothesis. So we can rephrase the above definition more accurately like this: the extraverts gain bioenergy in the presence of other humans and lose it in solitude, and the opposite is true for the introverts.
It seems to make sense to presume that the reason why the extravert dreads the return to an empty apartment after a day at work while the introvert yearns for the same is because their brain remembers numerous past experiences when the presence of other people has made them more energetic or less energetic, respectively, and being alone has had the opposite effect.
The open question is: is introversion inborn or acquired? In other words: is every human being born with the inclination to extraversion or introversion, or do we become introverted because our brain acquires great many experiences suggesting we can't handle being around people?
In yet other words: are there really two diametrically opposite ways of exchanging bioenergy with our environment, or does that thing that appears to be bioenergy essentially boil down to growing to shun human contacts because of great many painful experiences with the same (such as a child being constantly being condemned by his parents for expressing honestly his thoughts and feelings until his child brain grows afraid to say anything to another person)? When we are alone, do we really get some scientifically unstudied form of energy from the environment, or are we simply resting from the tiringness of the outside world we are unable to handle? When an extravert is alone, is he really losing said energy, or is he simply unable to endure his own thoughts and has nothing to deafen them with – possibly because he is incapable of lasting attention and unable to take anything seriously, and therefore has no serious interests?
I don't have an answer to that question, but until convinced otherwise, I have chosen acquired introversion as my working hypothesis. That is because it gives one something positive to strive for. We are not doomed to getting crazy when among people for too long. We feel the need to be alone because we lack social skills, and that is something we can improve. Step by step, we can figure the world out and learn not to go crazy when among people for too long. The hypothesis of inherent (and therefore incurable) introversion is a hypothesis of damnation. The hypothesis of acquired (and therefore curable) introversion is a hypothesis of hope.
