"But I can only be close friends with a limited amount of people, and this disappoints me. I’d love to spend more time with my friends. I’d love to spend more time with my wife. I’d love to spend more time alone. I’d love to spend more time making things. I’d love to spend more time sleeping. (I should be sleeping.) I can’t do more of all these things. In fact, I’ve basically given up trying to make time to play guitar; I just can’t do it all. 

The only answer I’ve come up with is to make sure I get enough time to be in isolation. It’s the only thing I can truly control. Plus, I’m a terrible friend, husband, and employee if I don’t get enough time alone to sort out my thoughts. I’ll continue meeting new people, and I’m sure there will be meaningful friendships that emerge, but only of I take care and nurture myself."

"I certainly still lie awake some nights worrying that I am in denial, that Simon has some gross deficiency not yet identified, and I am did him great a disservice. I worry constantly that I should limit his reading and solitary time and push him into sports and classes and social activities. But just when I am about to write that check for ice hockey classes I touch base with my instinctive sense of my son, this imaginative, overly verbose happy creature, and decide not to risk ironing out his uniqueness.  Until we can figure out more creative ways to educate and encourage introspective boys who are neither high achievers nor troublemakers—boys “in the middle,” like Simon–I will keep holding my ground, my breath and my tongue, and shoo away the well-intentioned label makers who cross our path."

"Being a part of group is awesome (go team!) but so is individual effort. The uncritical embrace of collaboration above all else can lead, as a social scientist at the SPUR panel remarked, to the reverse of what was intended: group-think, conformity, consensus for the sake of peace-making. Further, the suburban corporate campus, even when it attempts, as Facebook and Google are, to approximate urban environment, can often serve to exacerbate the type of self-reinforcing behaviors Bill Bishop explored a few years ago in his book, The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America is Tearing Us Apart. Forest City’s Alexa Arena, another participant in the SPUR panel, says that her company’s anthropological research while working on the more iterative workspace model seen in its 5M Project revealed that employees working in these environments found that their best ideas came not while in that bustling, lively office but more likely when they were in their own neighborhoods hanging…"

"But even if the problems are different, human nature remains the same. And most humans have two contradictory impulses: we love and need one another, yet we crave privacy and autonomy.

To harness the energy that fuels both these drives, we need to move beyond the New Groupthink and embrace a more nuanced approach to creativity and learning. Our offices should encourage casual, cafe-style interactions, but allow people to disappear into personalized, private spaces when they want to be alone. Our schools should teach children to work with others, but also to work on their own for sustained periods of time. And we must recognize that introverts like Steve Wozniak need extra quiet and privacy to do their best work."

"Edward Harran shares his personal story into the knowmad movement: an emerging digital generation that has the capacity to work, learn, move and play - with anybody, anytime, and anywhere. In his energetic talk, Edward gives us a compelling insight into his story and highlights what the knowmads represent: the beginnings of the next renaissance."

[See also the video, the rest of the post, and http://www.educationfutures.com/2011/11/17/knowmads-and-the-next-renaissance/ ]

"In the end, the conversation moved away from “building traffic” and we ended up talking about how slowly you can grow a blog: avoiding ending up with a mass-produced audience, and instead taking the time to organically grow a smaller, perhaps more costly, but ultimately more satisfying bunch of readers."

"I often look bored or unengaged in meetings - going as far as being actually rude to people. I'll cop to this. It's a fair point and it's bad of me. I apologise.

My only possible excuse is that personal circumstances have been a bit shit recently and it's been hard to think that any meeting has been worth being in - in comparison with where I should be. But that's not the fault of anyone in the meeting and I shouldn't be taking it out on them.

It can't be just that though, I've had this before. I got this as w+k and I imagine I would have at Ogilvy. I have to accept it's probably true. I like to think it's a symptom of shyness rather than arrogance but that might be entirely self-serving, the line between the two is probably very thin."

"In addition to inspiring me to be a better writer and inadvertently killing my conference-presentation confidence for a year, this famous little 2009 SXSW session leveled my juvenile notion of celebrity. After the talk, since I wasn’t allowed to leave, I was introduced to many more great people famous for their blog, software, humor, or music,3 and it went similarly well with all of them.<br />
<br />
Among people who are well-known to subsets of internet geeks, nobody’s walking around with entourages or bodyguards…At the end of the day you still go outside and nobody knows who you are.”<br />
<br />
…It turns out that we’re all just regular people who like similar things and are in the same little circle of interest.<br />
<br />
So next time you’re at a geeky conference and have an opportunity to meet someone whose work you admire, just go up and introduce yourself, because they’re just a regular person, they never get “recognized” during the other 360 days each year, & they’ll probably really appreciate it."

"Cloudworker lifestyles…create a psychological transformation that is very similar to what happens when animals go feral. In animals, it takes a couple of generations of breeding for the true wild nature to re-emerge…But in humans it can happen faster, since most of our domestication is through education & socialization rather than breeding.

You might think that the true tabby-mutt human must live outside the financial system…that’s actually a mistaken notion, because that sort of officially checked-out  or actively nihilistic person is defined & motivated by the structure of human civilization. To rebel is to be defined by what you rebel against. Criminals & anarchists are civilized creatures. Feral populations are agnostic, rather than either dependent on, or self-consciously independent of, codified social structures. Feral cloudworkers use social structures where it accidentally works for them…and improvise ad-hoc self-support structures for the rest of their needs."

"rep.licants.org allows people to install a bot on their Facebook and/or Twitter account. The bot will combine the activity the user is already having on other channels such as youtube or flickr with a set of keywords selected by the user to attempt and simulate that person's activity, feeding their account with more frequent updates, engaging in discussions with other users and adding new people to their list of contacts."

"Fellow introvert Joanne McNeil on Jonathan Rauch's classic article on introverts and what introversion might mean on the internet.<br />
"Social media drains me like a large party might. I just deactivated Facebook. And I don't @ much on Twitter. Too often it feels like the "fog of [an extrovert's] 98-percent-content-free talk," as Rauch put it.""<br />
<br />
[The post contains a broken link…will need to hunt down an archive.]

"It might surprise you that introverts travel differently than extroverts, particularly because most travel magazines, guidebooks, and TV shows are produced by and for extroverts.<br />
<br />
"I don't seek people out, I am terrible at striking up conversations with strangers and I am happy exploring a strange city alone. I don't seek out political discourse with opinionated cab drivers or boozy bonding with locals over beers into the wee hours. By the time the hours get wee, I'm usually in bed in my hotel room, appreciating local color TV. (So sue me, but I contend that television is a valid reflection of a society.)"<br />
<br />
I almost broke my neck extensively nodding in agreement while reading this article. The author also has some tips for the introverted traveler. And if you haven't read it, Jonathan Rauch's Caring for Your Introvert remains one of my favorite things that I've ever featured on kottke.org."

"I’m an extravert, married to the Queen of introverts, and I too approve this message!"

"The habits and needs of a little-understood group"<br />
<br />
[Predates Delicious, so was not already bookmarked.]

"A conversation with Jonathan Rauch, the author who—thanks to an astonishingly popular essay in the March 2003 Atlantic—may have unwittingly touched off an Introverts' Rights revolution"<br />
<br />
[Should have been bookmarked back in 2006]

"I am an introvert, meaning I am at my best when I have solitary time to reflect, appreciate, plan. I usually prefer being alone, or with my immediate family. When at school, I am very outgoing and friendly, yet, sometimes the nonstop contact (with students, parents, colleagues, administration…) seems to just wear me out. I was aware of this possibility going into teaching, but still felt it was my calling, and was inspired by the fact that Ghandi, MLK, Jr. and Oprah have the same personality type I have--and they obviously contributed great things in callings with extensive human contact.<br />
<br />
…wondering if it's possible to be truly happy & effective as a teacher & be an introvert at the same time…thought of attending a faculty meeting is also often a downer…<br />
<br />
What are your thoughts on this? Better yet, any happy teacher introverts out there? Any unhappy ones feeling out of place? Any insight/honesty would be greatly appreciated."

"The structure of the City encourages exactly this sort of interaction, but culturally it feels weird to just drop in on folks. Maybe it feels like that because people are not my native medium—so in order to fake being good at people I have some rules. For instance, I try to have questions. I ask, How are your kids? Who are you suing? What are you up to with the iPad? I assume that everyone's time is worth more than my own, because they are in their office and what the hell am I doing. So far no one seems unhappy I stopped by, and I'm pretty good at telling when people are unhappy with me, because I am a very anxious person. Usually they just put me to work, like at the office in midtown, or show me a PowerPoint. People always have PowerPoints they would like to share. I also make sure to leave."

"Unfortunately, according to the book, only about 25% of people are Introverts. There are even fewer that are as extreme as I am. This leads to a lot of misunderstandings, since society doesn’t have very much experience with my people. (I love being able to say that.)<br />
<br />
So here are a few common misconceptions about Introverts (I put this list together myself, some of them are things I actually believed):"

"1. If you must drag us to a party, please don’t abandon us…

2. If they actually call and wants to talk, listen!…

3. Realize that they do want to be alone sometimes. They may have gone to that party, and even enjoyed it, but they burn out faster than you and need time to recharge alone. The assumption that all introverts are shy really bugs me. This is not always the case. They can be charming, tell jokes, and generally be the life of the party…but for a limited time only.

4. Skip the small talk. Introverts are reflective beings and enjoy conversations about feelings and debating things like the ontological argument, and whatever interests they have. They can only tolerate chitchat with people they just met or haven’t seen for awhile…

5. Introverts don’t hate people. They just find them tiring.

6. Introverts are socially aware. Yes, we are well-versed in social nuances, customs, and mannerisms; we just don’t implement them as frequently as extroverts do."

"My friend schooled me on the best running path. And we talked about architecture, Austin, and the horror and beauty of the South. (Everything is a problem.) In large measure, I'm missing out on the whole festival. I did a panel on distraction and the internet. I went to a party where Diplodocus was spinning (I decline to abbreviate, because "Diplodocus" is too awesome of a word. I insist on taking every opportunity to employ it.) But there's a gang-bang element here, one you tend to find at all festivals, but one I generally dislike all the same. So I revel in the small moments, margherita pizza and red wine. A chance to greet a fellow Commie."

"Shyness and social phobia do not have to interfere with achieving professional and interpersonal goals. The pain of shyness can be relieved by challenging automatic thoughts and beliefs, and learning new behaviors.<br />
<br />
This is The Shyness Home Page, a gathering of network resources for people seeking information and services for shyness. It is sponsored by The Shyness Institute, Palo Alto, California (an institute for research in shyness and social fitness). The Institute is also closely associated with The Social Fitness Center (for coaching) and The Shyness Clinic (for therapy).<br />
<br />
(Note: This page is to encourage networking. The Shyness Institute cannot, and does not, necessarily evaluate or certify the quality of the services mentioned here.)"

"I started writing at the kitchen table after midnight. It took ten months to finish that first book…<br />
<br />
When I was 29, I just started to write a novel out of the blue. I wanted to write something, but I didn’t know how. I didn’t know how to write in Japanese—I’d read almost nothing of the works of Japanese writers—so I borrowed the style, structure, everything, from the books I had read—American books or Western books. As a result, I made my own original style. So it was a beginning."<br />
<br />
"I’m a loner. I don’t like groups, schools, literary circles. At Princeton, there was a luncheonette, or something like that, and I was invited to eat there. Joyce Carol Oates was there and Toni Morrison was there and I was so afraid, I couldn’t eat anything at all! Mary Morris was there and she’s a very nice person, almost the same age as I am, and we became friends, I would say. But in Japan I don’t have any writer friends, because I just want to have . . . distance."

"In severe cases it manifests itself as a paralyzing fear that results in the sufferer avoiding anxiety-raising situations (running from the situation), having tantrums, crying, excessive sweating, freezing, excessive blushing, or stammering continuously. Sufferers may offer various rationalizations of the phobia, such as the fear being trampled in a crowd, getting a deadly disease from people w/in the crowd, getting lost in crowd, or feeling insignificant when surrounded by crowd.<br />
<br />
People who are shy & introverted are most likely to experience ochlophobia. But not all introverted people have anxiety problems. Most people with the phobia feel unsafe around a lot of strangers, are just naturally very shy individuals, are afraid of being hunted by the news media, or feel the emotions of the people around them. Ochlophobic people are usually unable to handle situations involving 2+ other people, dating, parties, going to theaters, movie theaters, sports games, or the mall."

"Frank Chimero came up with the idea for a Text Playlist. I like this idea a lot. I’m a little late to the game, but here’s mine."

"physically healthy but emotionally fragile & easily dejected...may not be clinically depressed, but suffer from...dysthymia, mild, low-level, pervasive depression that saps life of beauty, even as one continues to function.

“@BFchirpy “The killer learning management system is the Web – silly” [in case anyone is still wondering]” ... "Are we too professional: has professionalism gone too far?" ... "Great slide presentation by @sachac on how to be a shy connector – Shows that it’s not necessary to behave like arrogant self-aggrandizing jerks"

"The main problem is that brainstorms must have been invented by extroverts. They are a source of at least dismay and at worst downright fear amongst introverts.

"At some point, you, the nerd’s companion, were the project...showered with the fire hose of attention...he’ll move on, and, when that happens, you’ll be wondering what happened to all the attention. This handbook might help."

"began apologising for agreeing to do a keynote, because he's shy and doesn't do well in public...followed by putting on gentle sounds of water and birds tweeting, "to calm us".,.Edgies and Desktastic...took us through a number of stories"

"After many years of focused self-loathing I have reversed the flow of hatred and entered into a lengthy phase of purifying misanthropy. I fear and hate other humans"

"Also England is a good country for introverts; they have a place in society for the introvert, which the United States does not. In fact there is a place in London for everything"