Quiet

I spent most of last weekend reading Susan Cain's book on the magic of introversion, 'Quiet'. (It's not the first time that reading a book was my main weekend entertainment, see below.)

I've always known that on the introvert/extrovert scale I'd be on the introvert side, but I would have thought I wasn't too far from the half-way point. I'm not particularly shy. I'm calm rather than anxious and pretty emotionally stable. I have good friends. My job has involved talking for most of the working day for the last 30 years. I can do public speaking. 

But 'Quiet' was a revelation to me in terms of how I understood the true meaning of introversion, of Susan Cain's presentation of the strengths and benefits of this personality type, and of just how many introverted boxes I could in fact tick. It's not shyness, or anxiety, or solitariness. It's a different angle of thinking and feeling, and I recognised myself on every page. If this is you, or your partner, or your child, or your students - half the world - you won't regret reading it too.

Some of the bells that rang for me were my dislikes, such as events which demand audience participation, group problem-solving tasks, brainstorming, the section in some church services where you have to greet, or, horrifyingly, hug everybody, being in the middle of a large crowd of people, small talk.

And the things I enjoy, like connecting with people online, creating things independently (I don't want lots of feedback or suggestions on what I'm making), a space of my own, being on my own after spending time with other people, proper conversations, silence after a day of sound.

I'm very wary of conflict and of upsetting people.

I know I'm over-sensitive to all sorts of things, in both positive and negative ways, easily hurt, very observant, cautious, imaginative, persistent and loyal.

I can drive for four hours without turning the radio on, just thinking.

I can also behave like an extrovert if it's for the sake of something I really believe in - but I'll need space to recharge afterwards.

My best New Year's Eves have involved midnight walks on the beach with one person. A New Year's Eve party? Nightmare.

One of the things I found interesting was the way she linked the qualities of sensitivity, empathy and being highly reactive to aspects of introversion - this was definitely something I'd identify with. My own devastating first day at nursery school fitted neatly into the highly reactive category. I'd been used to just playing as a pair with my lovely and imaginative best friend until this point, and the sheer number and noise of the nursery children upset me terribly. The fact that the toilet flushing and the Hoover vacuuming at home also upset me terribly should probably have alerted my parents to the fact that nursery school wasn't likely to be a big success for me. 

It made me smile to come to my blog after reading Cain's book and realise what I'd called it... I'd named it after the somewhat corny but true saying, "The quieter you become, the more you can hear". I'd found this to be true in many contexts, but it seemed to me to have special implications for a photographer.

The virtues of patience, observation, persistence, listening, thinking, planning, taking time and space - they all have their contribution to make in photography. Obviously there's room for spontaneity, boldness and risk-taking too - but sometimes those work better once the other things are already in place.

When I was a child, I didn't really think about what I was like as a person. I just knew that there were quite a few places in my world where I was very uncomfortable - and others where I was totally at home. As an adolescent, I assumed I was weird and different from everybody else and wrong. I didn't realise that most of my friends were probably feeling the same in their various ways. As an adult, I'm pretty comfortable with what I'm like. I'm used to myself and what works for me. But it was still a very uplifting experience to read Susan Cain's book and see the qualities of an introverted person - which are so often presented as problems, or challenges to be overcome, or aspects of oneself that must be worked on - as positive, things to be celebrated, the valuable contribution of half of the world.

Postscript: my mum has just told me that there were about five children at the dreadful nursery school I was sent to, and that it was specially chosen for its small size and quiet atmosphere, since I was such a sensitive little thing. I remember hordes of children, probably 30, and chaotic scenes of apocalyptic terror. I was obviously even more sensitive and reactive than I remember...