Eric Mayer’s post on Serious Business made me think about how we’re perceived or misperceived by others, when we blog or when we’re face to face. The tangent I take on this has to do with introverts and extroverts. I don’t presume to know which Eric is. His post made me think about this because I’m an introvert, and I picked up a book again just yesterday on this topic.

Introverts tend not to be as outwardly expressive, or to let others deep into our worlds as readily as extroverts. We’re not bubbly, cheery people for the most part. We tend to ponder. We enjoy time alone and many of us don’t like noise or interruptions. Introversion is a natural personality trait, and though introverts are probably in the minority, there’s nothing wrong with being so. We don’t dislike people, but people are sometimes difficult for us to be with. I think this has a lot to do with energy exchange and personal boundaries. It doesn’t mean anyone’s done anything wrong. It usually means we have different styles of interacting. Different people respect varying personal thresholds.

Is either an introvert or an extrovert better than the other? Of course not, and a world of all one or the other wouldn’t work for me. I see this as a yin/yang kind of thing. I hesitate even to group people into broad classifications like this. Each person is unique, a blend of many elements, but most of us lean one way or the other toward extroversion or introversion, some more so, and I think it’s the “more so” people where introversion is concerned who wind up with others trying to change them, and feeling misunderstood. (more…)

The other day my husband came across a site I think is pretty special.

A poetic, illustrated tale titled
Violet Footprints by another Barbara. It’s one of the best things I’ve read on the Internet, and it left me feeling good. (Sorry, link no longer works, so it’s been removed.)

When I reached the end, I decided maybe the “Violet” who left the footprints in the story was a _________. (Fill in your choice.)

I predict this author has a bright future.

Once when I was seven years old, I wakened during the night for no apparent reason. I peered over the side of my bed, and I froze.

A hippopotamus loomed there in the dark, right between my bed and my sister’s. My heart nearly stopped, and I don’t think I breathed for a minute or so. I lay awake for a long time, afraid to move a muscle or make a sound, because surely if I made a noise the hippo would attack me or my sister. I was afraid to sleep, because then how could I warn anyone else, when they woke up or tried to enter our room, that the hippo was there? I was terrified. I didn’t know what to do. (more…)