The Introvert/Extrovert Dial in Our Noggin

What is your dial set at?

Have you ever been asked if you are an introvert or an extrovert? Have you ever asked anyone else that question? Our Western culture has been conditioned to divide everything into polarities. Everything comes down to either/or.

Whenever anyone asks me that question I reply with, “It depends.”

That throws a monkey wrench into the noggin of the one asking the question. It’s a yes or no question. There is no middle ground! You are either an introvert or an extrovert. You can’t be both or some combination thereof or something other than either of the two choices.

At least that is how we have been conditioned to think.

This may come as a surprise to those who did not know me when I was younger but I have been an extrovert for the better part of my life. There were times when I was an obnoxious extrovert and there were times when I was a successful, charismatic extrovert.

At the same time I was a very unsuccessful introvert.

You see, I eventually learned that inside our noggins there is a little dial. There are only two settings. You turn the dial in one direction and you are in introvert. Turn the dial in the other direction and you’re an extrovert. Not only are most of us unaware of this little dial but we are also mostly unaware of having turned and set this dial at some critical juncture in our early lives. We all subconsciously or unconsciously turned that dial to the setting we choose.

There are a million reasons why we chose what setting we turned our dial to. Seriously, there are way too many reasons for our choice than I could even begin to cover in this short diatribe. But at some point in our childhood we turned the dial either one way or the other.

And then we forgot about it. We did not realize that we could always go back in there and reset the dial. We resign ourselves to whatever we had chosen way back then and that is what we stick with — not knowing exactly what that dial is wired to.

Personally, I set my dial to ‘extrovert’ right around the time I was in kindergarten — or maybe the year before or the year after kindergarten. I became an obnoxious extrovert until I very slowly learned how to be a more pleasant and successful extrovert. It took a long time.

And the whole time I was a closet introvert.

The main consideration is that I was most definitely not shy — unless a few certain buttons were pushed. And those buttons were not pushed very often, although the older I got the more they started to get pushed.

I continued being an extrovert into adulthood, often times obnoxiously so but I was smart and I quickly learned how to be a good extrovert.

And it is a good thing because I had entered the corporate world. I wore a tie to work every day. I was in ‘management.’ I was a boss and always had numerous people ‘below’ me that I managed. You simply cannot be a successful boss if you are in introvert. To be a leader it was essential to master extroversion. It was also important to have many ties. You can’t be a powerful leader if you wear the same tie every day.

One cannot be a successful leader also if one has any fears of public speaking. I had no problem with that. I gave many talks to groups of people numbering anywhere from 10 to 100. And I got pretty good at it. My ego was so proud of itself.

But while my ego was happy, the so-called, ‘Real Me,” was not so happy. You see, I eventually learned that the introvert/extrovert dial in my noggin is not wired to the Real Me but rather to my personality, or the fake me known as my personality which I wore as a mask when facing and dealing with all the people in my life. It is the ego that runs the personality according to what dial settings we have chosen.

The Real Me felt that I was living a lie. It felt smothered and ignored and subservient to the fake me — my personality — which was running my life.

And then came that fateful day…

I was living in Santa Fe, New Mexico on that day. I had realized that I could go into my noggin and change the settings on my introvert/extrovert dial. (Anyone can do this.) But I did not turn the dial from extrovert to introvert. Instead, I turned off the dial. (I forgot to mention that there is also an ‘off’ setting.)

It was the day of the big bonfire. It was the day following my very last day at my corporate job. I had quit corporate culture and my corporate job in favor of being a mommy. When you are a mommy you are neither an introvert nor an extrovert. You become merely a willing slave to a tiny little human being. That little bundle of joy usurps any notions your ego may have of either introversion or extroversion. You must surrender your ego to that child.

And so I built a little bonfire in the back of our Santa Fe apartment. I slowly and very ceremoniously fed every single tie that I owned into that fire. God Almighty! It felt so good! As I did so I swore to the universe that I would never wear a tie again.

So far, I have only broken that promise to the universe one time and that was for my daughter’s wedding. Since I no longer owned any ties I had to borrow a tie from my wife’s boyfriend. (That was a little weird!) But I have never worn a tie since.

With the introvert/extrovert dial turned to the ‘Off’ position my life got infinitely better. I was no longer dealing with the world at large. I was mostly just dealing with the world of a little girl. I was totally immersed in that little world.

And I was never happier! It was just the Real Me and a Real Child. I had found my teacher, my guru and through this experience I became aware of the difference between my personality — my fake me — and the Real Me. I learned how to interact with another human being free of the egoic personality and free of notions of either introversion or extroversion. I became the naked Real Me.

Eventually, I learned that little kids grow up. They have their own path, their own journey, and their own dials to turn. Suddenly, I was thrown back out into the world of other people.

But the one thing I did not do is go out and buy any new ties. No way.

To be a successful businessman I needed to go back in the old noggin and reset the dial back to ‘extrovert,’ which I did. Soon there were many people in my life including my family and several close friends — as well as a dog and a cat.

As the years went by I started to really miss being an introvert. While I had experienced some scattered short periods of introversion in my life I had never been able to take introversion to its limit. I had never experienced the complete joy introversion has to offer. I began craving it and wanting to experience total isolation.

Soon people began dropping away from my life. Friends moved away or stopped coming by or calling. The family dispersed. I closed the business. I was getting closer to the isolation I dreamed of but needed a job to keep a roof over my head so I still had to interact with other humans for significant stretches of time five days a week. I had turned the dial back to ‘introvert’ but my life situation made it difficult to experience it fully.

Eventually I was blessed with a small windfall of money; enough to quit working for a couple of years. I was finally able to experience living in near-complete isolation and it was fantastic!

Conventional thinking says that isolation leads to loneliness and depression. Well, that never happened to me. For me, it led to profound euphoria as well as intense self-realization. It was the happiest two years of my life. I had become the hermit I had always dreamed of being.

For a little over two years I had almost no contact with other human beings. I would say hello to people I passed on the street and there would be a few words exchanged with the cashier at the grocery store and I did spend 3 or 4 hours a week playing with my granddaughters but that was the limit of my social interaction. And I never once experienced loneliness or depression.

Depending on the weather, I spent between 2 and 4 hours out in nature every single day. The rest of the time I spent writing. I averaged around 12 hours a day writing and over those couple of years I finished three novels. Not only was I very productive but I was deliriously happy.

Of course the money eventually ran out and I had to get a job. So now as I walk to work I go into the old noggin and turn the dial to ‘extrovert’ and then when I walk home from work I turn the dial back to ‘introvert.’ Oh, how I wish I could leave the dial permanently on ‘introvert.’ Or permanently off.

But I also realize that at least some connection with other humans is necessary and healthy. I would probably be okay with turning the dial to ‘extrovert’ for maybe a few hours a week or a day or two each month.

I have been living alone now for around 15 years and I love it. While I love being alone, loneliness is something that I never experience and cannot even understand. I think I may have finally mastered being a joyful introvert. Peace and happiness really can be found within. While the sharing of that peace and happiness intensify it, I’ve learned that it is possible to share it while still being an introvert. It is still best, though, to turn off that dial in the noggin and allow energy to flow naturally in whatever direction it wants to flow.

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