Defying Categorization

I'm still reading Susan Cain's Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking, and I was somewhat confused about Cain's description of novelty-seekers. Cain describes this as a trait most often shown by extroverts, who require stronger stimulation to maintain their interest. She describes introverts as sensitive, easily over-stimulated people who minimize the risk of surprise in their daily lives, but then she goes on to say that many writers, artists, scientists, and other highly creative types are introverts. How can a person be devoted to creativity if he or she does not seek out the new and unexpected?

A few years ago, I did some research for a talk I was giving, and I delved into the scientific literature on circadian rhythms and their effect on various levels of dopamine, serotonin, and other chemicals that affect how we react to the world around us. I ran across the term "novelty-seeking behavior" and I thought, "hey, that describes me." I love new ideas, new ways of looking at things, exploring new places, eating all kinds of ethnic food. Doing the same thing day after day depresses me.

On further examination, though, I found that the psychologist's definition of novelty-seeking is more akin to what I would call thrill-seeking. I have no desire to parachute out of an airplane, dive off a high cliff, or drive a race car. In my mind, those behaviors go beyond novelty, focusing as they do on the immediate adrenaline rush, the very real presence of danger. Maybe the marketing term "variety-seeking behavior" describes me better.

There is such a person as the novelty-seeking introvert. I knew one such person. This person had been in an uninspiring job for more than ten years because it offered him stability and predictability. He didn't care for ethnic restaurants, and he would have been quite content to live exclusively on burgers and fries for the rest of his life. If you could get him to go to a party at all, he would spend the whole time sitting miserably at the edge of the crowd, completely at a loss for anything to say. However, he was fond of rigorous solo hikes that took him far from the nearest human contact. He described to me in near-rapturous terms a winter hike where he became hypothermic and suffered frostbite. A bungee jump off a high bridge was an ecstatic adventure for him, an almost spiritual experience.

Thrill-seeking introverts, sensitive extroverts, seeking the new and different without courting danger, seeking the safe and secure without being boring. I suppose what this all means is that no matter how you try to put people into little boxes, we will always come up with a way to defy categorization. Each one of us is a custom design, and the world needs all of us with our various quirks and talents.

Ground Training, Test Flights, and Flocks (or Not)

"The world is full of people who have stopped listening to themselves or have listened only to their neighbors to learn what they ought to do, how they ought to behave, and what the values are that they should be living for." -- Joseph Campbell

I have been calling this year of mindfulness a "sabbatical" or a "reboot break", but I'm not entirely satisfied with either of those terms. A sabbatical implies that my employer is giving me a leave of absence, after which I will return to my job, rested and refreshed, maybe having completed some preplanned project. A reboot break also implies a return to the same operating system, having flushed any unneeded bits of detritus out of my own personal cache. "Flying lessons" comes closer to it, implying an application of all I have learned up to now and an eventual launch into something (I'm not sure exactly what) for which I am well suited.

Like a bird learning to fly, I am doing something that many of my fellow creatures have done before. Watching other birds is helpful, but it's not going to get me off the ground. I have to actually flap my metaphorical wings and see what works for me and what doesn't. However, I can learn from the example of others -- my intentional and unintentional teachers.

Many of those teachers come to me by way of books. Karen Armstrong's books, A History of God in particular, have shown me just how much our concepts of what life is really all about are a mirror of our culture, our place in history, and our individual experiences. Knowing this has freed me to do my own refinements where the picture that has been handed down to me doesn't ring true. The Feminine Face of God by Sherry Ruth Anderson and Patricia Hopkins provides practical examples in the stories of several women who set out on their own search for what they hold most true. Julia Cameron's books (for example, The Artist's Way) provide even more specific "wing-strengthening" exercises, designed to break apart preconceived notions and bring forth what truly resonates for an individual.

I'm in the middle of reading Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Speaking by Susan Cain. Reading Cain's descriptions of the Harvard Business School (with its extreme emphasis on extroversion), the constant chatter of open office plans, and groups that go with the loudest voice rather than the best idea has reinforced my hunch that my own discomfort with these environments is not a shortcoming, but rather an integral part of my inborn temperament. Reading her sketches of highly successful introverts feels like stumbling upon a meeting of the elders of my native tribe.

I was especially moved by Cain's biographical sketch of The Woz (Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak to the uninitiated). Wozniak was a shy, nerdy kid, following a passion for electronics that dated back to his early childhood. His father encouraged this passion, telling him that engineers can change the world. He sought out like-minded company, which led him to that fateful 1975 meeting of the Homebrew Computer Club. What Wozniak learned at these meetings inspired him to devote many, many before- and after-work hours on what would become the prototype of the Apple computer. Wozniak built on his experience as a young tinkerer and as a calculator designer for Hewlett Packard. He built his confidence with the help of his father, his fellow engineers in the Homebrew Computer Club, and later, with his colleague Steve Jobs. These connections gave him the support and inspiration he needed, but his actual thinking and work was done alone, away from the chatter of the group, and that was the key to his success.

Other members of my tribe offer me their wisdom directly, without the mediation of a book. My yoga instructors offer weekly themes and meditations, ingrained into me by the stretching and bending that follows. The Sunday platform talks at the Washington Ethical Society take my mind in new directions, aided by the comments and conversations that follow. Friends of mine who are more experienced in blazing their own trails provide proof that it can be done, as well as practical advice and encouragement. They also provide a reminder that I'm not really blazing a completely new trail for myself.

Instead, I am turning off of the six-lane interstate highway, switching off the GPS with its constant instructions on when and where to turn. The trail I am following is narrow and barely discernible through the weeds at times, but just when I think I'm hopelessly lost, I see a blaze mark on a tree or a familiar landmark to let me know that all is well. As you see by my metaphors, I'm still hopping along on the ground. You will have to take my word that I am starting to flap my wings and test the breezes. When I start talking about thermals and updrafts, cyclones and gusts and soaring, you'll know that I'm airborne.

Thought for the Day

Believing that a "real" writer/artist/performer should work for the sheer love of creation, without regard to income, home, work space and supplies, or a circle of friends is a lot like believing that a "real" mountain climber should climb Everest without using shoes, a warm coat, tents, food supplies, or oxygen tanks.

The 15-Year Helix

Now that I'm outside the perpetual hurry of the daily commute to the cubicle farm, I'm amazed at how time has seemed to dilate. I have been at this for about a month and a half, but last December seems to be in the far distant past. On the other hand, I can start the day with the best of intentions for tackling my many projects, and then get lost in a sudoku puzzle or some other distraction and look up to find it's the middle of the afternoon. Where did the day go? I'm rather enjoying it, but a little voice in the back of my head keeps asking if it's bad to be having so much fun goofing off. Will I get used to this and spend most of my year off procrastinating, only to face a frantic rush to get things accomplished in the last few weeks before I have to return to the workforce? Will I get bored? Will I lose all my time management skills? Or will I gradually start venturing out, better off for not having succumbed to the compulsion to be "useful"?

This isn't the first time I have been in an in-between place, plotting my next move. Looking back, I realize that this seems to happen every 15 years or so. Just before I turned 25, I left a stable job as a lab tech (in the middle of the 1980 recession, but I was oblivious to that at the time) and I moved from Florida to Arizona to begin graduate school. My bachelor's degree in chemistry had gotten me a technician's job, but not much else. Over the course of a couple of years, I realized that doing the same old thing day in and day out was going to make me start climbing the walls. No matter what I did in my spare time, if my work wasn't challenging and full of novelty, then I wasn't going to be happy. If another diploma was what I needed to land a research job, then I would go get another diploma. And I did.

I loved the research, loved the friends I made, and even enjoyed the two postdoc positions I had to take before I landed a "real" job in industry. But the glory days of big corporate research had ended before I arrived. The focus had shifted to "what can we do to maximize this quarter's profits?" Too often, the answer seemed to be "cut the R&D staff". I celebrated my 40th birthday during a between-jobs period that was to last almost 2 years. It was 15 years since I had embarked on the journey to become a research scientist, and I knew that I was going to have to leave that career, with its boom and bust cycles, and find something else to do.

At the end of 1996, I landed a full-time job as a science writer/editor for the EPA. I followed that with a stint as a magazine and web editor for the American Chemical Society. I definitely felt that I was heading in the right direction. Then the dot-com bubble burst. Suddenly, people realized that it wasn't easy to make money on internet publications, but they couldn't go back to all print either. (They still haven't solved that conundrum.) So I made a slight shift and went into public affairs for the Office of Naval Research. That was (mostly) enjoyable work, and it paid much better than working for a not-for-profit. Leadership changed, the job became less enjoyable, and I found another job for a small science-oriented IT consulting company. Again, the focus of the company changed, the job became more technician-like, and I remembered all the reasons I hated doing technician work.

So here I am again, having completed another 15-year cycle. I left my job voluntarily, like I did when I was 25. (And once again, the economy is in a mess, only this time it's worse.) I have savings that will carry me for a while, like when I was 40. But I'm not focusing on the free fall like I did when I was 40. I have a sense of optimism that feels more like when I was 25.

Someone told me once that life is kind of like walking along a road that spirals around a mountain. You keep coming around to the same side of the mountain, but you're a little higher every time. The view is familiar, but it's never exactly the same. I don't know where the road leads, really. I know quite a bit about where I hope it will lead. Maybe there's another mountain, with a whole new helical road. Fifteen years from now, I'm going to be entering my 70s. When I look back at my current self, will I once again marvel at how far I've come? Will I be in this strange yet familiar in-between place once again? I suppose that all I can do right now is put one foot in front of the other.

Checking One's Wings

In an effort to keep my overstuffed file cabinet from exploding, I'm scanning file folders full of clippings, notes, and other snippets that I thought I might use sometime, but haven't seen the light of day for years. I don't know if I'm any more likely to use them now that they have metamorphosed from yellowing sheets of paper to electrons on my computer, but they do take up less room this way.

I found a wonderful quote that I clipped from a newspaper and taped to an index card. Pearl S. Buck said pretty much exactly what I have been thinking, but she said it first and she said it better:

"It is no simple matter to pause in the midst of one's maturity, when life is full of function, to examine what are the principles which control that functioning."

Updrafts

In my previous post, I mentioned making a list of things that make me happy. One of my goals for this reboot break is to make these things a more integral part of my life. These are the things that lift me up, keep me going, and make me feel that I am being who I was meant to be. (Meant by whom? That's a whole other blog posting.) Here's the list so far, in no particular order:
beautiful surroundings
variety
discovery
being influential
making sense of things
having time to figure things out
deep conversations with good friends
traveling with pleasant companions
shared laughter
inspiring music
stories where the little guy wins
fairness
seeing an answer after a long struggle
truly being heard / truly hearing someone else
seeing things in a new way
absurd humor
living my beliefs, defined by me

Clearing the Chatter

The chapter in Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way that introduces the "reading moratorium" always sparks a mini-rebellion. I have gone through this book with three different groups, and every time, someone declares, "I'm not going to do that!" The exercise for the week is to give up all reading (after you finish reading that week's chapter), radio, and television. For one week, you are to observe the world around you, talk with friends and family, write, take photos, listen to music, and anything else that does not involve putting someone else's pre-scripted words into your head. People who actually try it (including me) find it much better than they expected. It's kind of a relief to cut the chatter and just look at things with your own eyes. Once the cloud of commentary disperses, you find that your own voice starts making tentative statements inside your head. The little voice gets bolder the more you acknowledge and appreciate it.

This past month (and it has only been one month!) has been a time of clearing out the chatter and slowing the pace waaaaaay down. I still read the newspaper in the morning, and I watch a few TV shows at night. However, I'm not devouring stuff on the internet like I was before. I check in on FaceBook and email maybe once or twice a day. Some days, I don't check in at all. (This is a source of frustration to friends who want to schedule an impromptu lunch. I may not get their message until the next day.) Most of the time, in true introvert fashion, I'm thinking my own thoughts, working on my own projects around the house, staring off into space and thinking about nothing in particular. I do meet friends for lunch or a movie now and then. If I see you on the street while I'm taking my walk, I will stop and talk. I enjoy that. But I'm not signing up for courses, volunteering for committees, or even reading the books that I have stacked up by my bed.

Already, my inner voice is coming up with ideas, especially in the morning, before my logic-brain is fully awake and in control. Little snippets of thought, ideas of things to do, funny juxtapositions, lists of things that make me happy. I am getting back into the habit of jotting these things down and putting the notes where I can find them again. The ideas become more fully formed and creative when I open up the space for them to grow. And opening up the space for my own thoughts is pretty much why I'm on this little adventure in the first place.