Hello Beautiful Souls,

Identify as introverted? What if you’re not introverted, you’ve just outgrown the social malaise: societies general state of poor emotional health and lack of development?

Sure, some of us are truly introverts, we really do prefer to be by ourselves, but I would argue that if we really are a social species, essentially herd animals that are wired to need each other then introversion will be very rare… and it isn’t. I know quite a few introverts. In fact, most of my friends identify on the introvert end of the social scale, no matter what age.

Maybe humans not actually as socially inclined as we like to think, or maybe our society is so sick that it’s just not comfortable to be in.

I started thinking about this the other day when it occurred to me that I actually like being with people, I just can only take so much of it. And that that wasn’t always true. As a kid, teenager and young adult I liked being around people more than I liked being alone.

That is definitely not true now.
What changed?

It could be a lot of things. Maybe as we slowly grow out of physical dependence on others, from absolutely dependent infant to mostly autonomous adult, we also grow out of our emotional attraction to others. Possible.

But then, that should be true for most humans, and I don’t see this globally. I imagine it contributes, but I don’t think it answers my question.

And, of course, we could blame our devices, that we’re replacing the challenges of social interactions with the ease of scrolling for whatever kind of entertainment we want at any given moment.

But while this certainly isn’t helping, I don’t think that this is the answer either.

The answer, in my case at least, is a bit darker, a bit more sinister… I’ve actually gotten to a weird place where I’m healthy enough that most people that I meet are actually painful to be around. It used to be that I was also in so much pain that it didn’t matter. Swimming in everyone else’s pain was just like swimming in my own. Being around other people’s pain didn’t make much difference, because mine was just as loud.

Now, I’ve calmed mine down, released so much of the charge that my pain is much quieter. Now, when I’m around other people, it’s like being with people who are screaming in agony – only NO ONE is admitting it. Smiles on faces, agony underneath. I can handle this for a while, and then I just want to go home and be alone, where there’s internal and external integrity.

Part of what helped me see all of this is that I am now working to expand my ability to be around the agony and not be so affected by it. This seems like an obvious next step, but it has taken me a long time just to get here. And I thought that only saints and masters would be able to expand enough to be comfortable around the agony of others – I wasn’t even shooting for this one… until it started happening… now, I’m seeing that us ordinary bears can travel down this path, too.

How?
Well, I’m starting to understand that it’s really just a matter of continuing the work of self-development, whatever that is for you. For me, it’s creating safety for myself, welcoming my emotions with love and acceptance, letting myself feel  them to the point that any charge that’s held can release, centering in myself over and over, and these days doing practices where I move my body with my emotions – literally dancing with my anger, shame and sadness.

“It’s no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”
– Mark Vonnegut reportedly quoting Krishnamurti in The Eden Express (1975)