emotions

Quotes: Online, I Can Be in My Head and with Interesting People

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In an older article about disclosure when writing online, author Roxane Gay includes the following explanation of what being an introvert online means for her:

“For me, one of the biggest draws of the Internet has always been how I can be alone and yet find connection with other people. I am an introvert. I can fake extroversion, but it is exhausting. I prefer quiet, even when I am happily around other people. I spend an inordinate amount of time in my head. Online, I can be in my head and with interesting people. I can be alone but feel less lonely.”

A fantastic explanation—which, of course, means that it lines up with my experience of the world, heh heh. 🙂

I’m sure if you’re reading this you know that in general introverts do not hate people—that would be misanthropy—nor do they fear social encounters—that’s shyness. (Well, of course they can, but it’s not baked into every introvert.) It seems there’s now more understanding in general that introversion is about social energy, and that introverts recharge by being alone.

I’ve come to realize that alone time is just a part of how my introversion manifests itself. I feel enormously better, for example, if my home is in a corner instead of the middle. Text-based communication is better than voice. Listening before leaping is a better strategy at meetings or gatherings. And sometimes, when I want to be around people but don’t have the energy to actually engage, it’s enough to hang out in a library or a less-busy corner of a mall, or go out to eat, or spend time browsing in a brick-and-mortar store.

Life is so much easier when you know what makes yourself tick. 🙂

Gay, Roxane. “The Danger of Disclosure.” Creative Nonfiction 49, https://creativenonfiction.org/writing/the-danger-of-disclosure/

Serving exactly what it sounds like, the Quotes feature excerpts other people’s thoughts.

Quotes: Find Joy, Every Kind … It’s What Time Was Made For

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In a Tumblr chain earlier this year, people were sharing what they learned each decade as they got older. The exchange included this gem from user atlinmerrick:

“Find joy, every kind, it’s always worth it

“I’m talking that massive, never-ending Discord chat with your bestie? The one that makes you giggle through the day? It’s not a ‘waste of time,’ it’s what time was made for“




– atlinmerrick on Tumblr

Hear, hear!

Flickr Oliver Schmidt Joy

As much as it might frighten us some days, change is permanent and the only absolutely realiable thing in life. (Apart from the sheer impossibility of taking anything with you when it’s time to go.) Why not find happiness while you can? Why not allow yourself to feel the joy you feel? Lots of adults would be happier, I think, if they allowed more of the delight they used to feel in their childhood to remain in their lives. (Mostly talking to my Protestant forebears here…!)

Image by Oliver Schmidt on Flickr (CC BY-ND 2.0)

Serving exactly what it sounds like, the Quotes feature excerpts other people’s thoughts.

Quotes: A Human Being with Hope Can Continue on Far Longer

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In The Light Brigade, what I consider her most mature work yet, Kameron Hurley gives her protagonist Dietz this monologue about hope’s role in shaping human behavior:

“There’s a huge mental release in knowing there is an end to pain. A human being with hope can continue on far longer than one without. Did you know those who are mildly depressed see the world more accurately? Yet they don’t live as long as optimists. Aren’t as successful. It turns out that being able to perceive actual reality has very little long-term benefit. It’s those who believe in something larger than themselves who thrive. We all seem to need a little bit of delusion to function in the world. That belief can be about anything, too. Could be a god, a corporation, a society, like our various militaries instill. A sense of belonging. Could be national pride. Or the desire to make the world a better place. Or see the world burn. Personal or political. But … something bigger. Something greater.”

– Dietz in Kameron Hurley’s The Light Brigade

We’re six to seven months into the covid-19 pandemic, depending on your definition of the epidemic start date in the western world. I could use some mental release right about now, and I know I’m not alone.

Alas, as far as we know, nothing specific is in the pipe to be released very soon. But there is hope!

Obi-Wan Patience

The good news is that by all accounts SARS-CoV-2 will respond to a vaccine. The bad news is that we need to wait and be patient, stay home as much as possible; and when we cannot, keep a safe distance, practice good sneezing hygiene, wear masks, and wash our hands.

Star Wars Stay on Target

Stay on target. Stay safe. We will prevail.

Hurley, Kameron. The Light Brigade. New York: Saga Press, 2019, p. 116.

Images: Obi-Wan Patience via Giphy. Stay on Target via Giphy.

Serving exactly what it sounds like, the Quotes feature excerpts other people’s thoughts.

Quotes: You Shall Not Follow a Majority in Wrongdoing

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As most of you probably know, there are currently multiple protests against racism and police brutality after the killing of George Floyd in the U.S. that have spread worldwide.

I have so many things to say, but I’ll spare your eyeballs because there would be a FUCKING INCONCEIVABLE ABUNDANCE OF EXPLETIVES. But if there’s a pared-down version I want to say to my fellow white folks, especially if you’re a Christian, it’s this:

“You shall not follow a majority in wrongdoing; […] you shall not side with the majority so as to pervert justice.”

– Exodus 23:2, after The New Revised Standard Version of The Bible

I was brought up Christian and my grandfather was a policeman, and I cannot fucking fathom how many white people are apparently fucking fine with police essentially executing BIPOC or attacking peaceful demonstrators without any consequences.

If you believe you are a Christian, especially a white one, especially one working as a police officer, there’s only one side in all of this that you can possibly take.

For example, if you think it’s acceptable to

then you are a part of the problem. No ifs or buts.

If you are a police officer and said yes to any of the above, you are, in actual fucking fact, a member of a violent cult and an oathbreaker, and belong in jail.

(No, rioting isn’t okay, but I do understand a little where all the anguish and rage is coming from.)

Comments are closed. This is not a subject that is even supposed to be under discussion.

Here there be opinions!

Quotes: People Will Fight for the Idea of Decency

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This quote from Kameron Hurley’s The Light Brigade seems pretty apt for the covid-19 pandemic in the west:

“[Companies] started losing when they forgot how to be decent. People will fight for the idea of decency. They will fight for someone who treats them like people. They fight for beliefs far longer and harder than out of fear.”

– Dietz in Kameron Hurley’s The Light Brigade

So let’s treat each other as people. Because we’re in this together; health care experts don’t talk about herd immunity without reason.

Because we’re only in the beginning of it; even the most optimistic models don’t predict the peak to occur very soon.

And because we’re social critters, descendants of people who liked other people despite their origin or color or dance moves or whatnot. We’re here because we like doing things together. (And I realize how funny that may sound coming from a huge introvert such as myself, but there it is.) At each individual’s preferred amount of togetherness, but together nevertheless.

Hurley, Kameron. The Light Brigade. New York: Saga Press, 2019, p. 141-142.

Serving exactly what it sounds like, the Quotes feature excerpts other people’s thoughts.

Quotes: You Can Be Warm and Vulnerable with People You Trust

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Some power reading on gender and power, especially at Anglo-American financial companies:

“My Kleiner colleagues said that I sucked the air out of the room, that I ‘wasn’t the warmest person.’ Now [after leaving] I’m told the opposite. I’ve thought a lot about how I was accused of being cold and unlikeable at Kleiner. Looking back, maybe I was. But it wasn’t because I’m a cold person. It was because I needed to have my guard up all the time. You can be warm and vulnerable with people you trust, not with those who you know are trying to keep you down.”

– Ellen Pao

Current Reading Reset

I can attest from personal experience, even if not in the same environment.

Pao, Ellen. Reset: My Fight for Inclusion and Lasting Change. New York: Spegel & Grau, 2017, p. 259.

Image by Eppu Jensen

Serving exactly what it sounds like, the Quotes feature excerpts other people’s thoughts.

Quotes: Hating Didn’t Change Things

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“Hating didn’t change things. The world went on regardless, far beyond the feeble lives of humankind. People could change only if they changed what lay in themselves.”

– Mai in Spirit Gate by Kate Elliott

I’ve been thinking of emotions this summer, especially negative ones. Partly it stemmed from having had to enforce my personal boundaries against an insistent violator and the outcomes from that, partly from the upsurge of racist and hateful behavior in the U.S.

I know hatred can feel like a driving force, but I also know how draining it is to live with such a strong emotion long term. I suppose in the end the universal “too much” rule of thumb applies: too much of one thing at the expense of others will lead to atrophy, both on small and large scale.

Elliott, Kate. Spirit Gate. New York, NY: Tor, 2006, p. 434.

Serving exactly what it sounds like, the Quotes feature excerpts other people’s thoughts.