The More Refined, More Sensitive, Etc.

A brilliant article by The Atlantic ‘s Jonathan Rauch: Caring for Your Introvert . Here, for example, is just one of his insights:

Are introverts arrogant?  Hardly. I suppose this common misconception has to do with our being more intelligent, more reflective, more independent, more level-headed, more refined, and more sensitive than extroverts. Also, it is probably due to our lack of small talk, a lack that extroverts often mistake for disdain. We tend to think before talking, whereas extroverts tend to think  by  talking, which is why their meetings never last less than six hours.

“Introverts,” writes a perceptive fellow named Thomas P. Crouser, in an online review of a recent book called  Why Should Extroverts Make All the Money?  (I’m not making  that  up, either), “are driven to distraction by the semi-internal dialogue extroverts tend to conduct. Introverts don’t outwardly complain, instead roll their eyes and silently curse the darkness.” Just so.

As I wrote in a book review years ago: Still waters run deep, while babbling brooks are shallow.