I know I am , more often than not, an introvert.  I like doing things alone eversince I was a little girl. I am not really into big barkadas and mega-outings as far as I can remember. When I bar-hop, I like doing it in the company of a friend or two. I love to walk, read, eat, travel.... most of the time alone, that is.  A person within an arm's length is already invading my private space (if intentional, non-academe related and without my permission).  Notwithstanding these, I like doing community works, mingling with people from all walks of life, partying till dawn, etc.

Interestingly, I found a similar article just as I was simultaneously editing what I previously posted and surfing the net for various topics.

    "The definition of introvert is difficult to define when applied to the range of human personalities".

The author proceeded to state that the terms "shy" and "sensitive" are not included in her/his definition of introvert although the article he was referring to in his writing seems to assume. In addition, s/he wrote that:

    " Consider what recharges you - being alone or being in a group of people, and there's your answer. I consider myself an introvert even though I love going to parties, socializing, seeing friends. But for me, too much of it exhausts me. If I don't get some time alone with a book or my computer, I feel off. (But then again, too much time alone without social interaction makes me generally overly-excited when I get back to socializing, so go figure.) - www.grahamzon.com/2003/12/introvert-illness

SO GO FIGURE.......

My mind is
a big hunk of irrevocable nothing which touch and
taste and smell and hearing and sight keep hitting and
chipping with sharp fatal tools
in an agony of sensual chisels I perform squirms of
chrome and execute strides of cobalt
nevertheless I
feel that I cleverly am being altered that I slightly am
becoming something a little different, in fact
myself
Hereupon helpless I utter lilac shrieks and scarlet
bellowings.

XLI poems, portraits, VII

Life is not about keeping score.
It's not about how many friends you have or how accepted you are.
It's not about if you have plans this weekend or if you're alone.

It isn't about whom you're dating, who you used to date,
how many people you've dated, or if you haven't been with anyone at all.

It isn't about whom you have kissed; it's not about sex.
It isn't about who your family is or how much money you have,
or what kind of car you drive, or where you are sent to school.

It's not about how beautiful or ugly you are,
or what clothes you wear, what shoes you have on,
or what kind of music you listen to.

It's not about if your hair is blonde, red, black or brown.
Or if your skin is too light or too dark.
It's not about what grades you get, how smart you are,
how smart everybody else thinks you are,
or how smart standardized tests say you are.

It's not about what clubs you're in
or how good you are in  your sport.
It's not about representing your whole being on a piece of paper
and seeing who will accept the "written you".

But, life is about whom you love and whom you hurt.
It's about keeping or betraying trust.
It's about friendship.
It's about what you say or mean.
It's about what judgments you pass and why.
It's about carrying inner love, letting it grow and spreading it.

But most of all, it's about using your life to touch other people's hearts
in such a way that could have never occurred alone.
Only you will choose the way those hearts are affected,
and those choices are what life is all about.
 

It was said to me that today:

Some unusual types are about to enter your life, and they could be just what the doctor ordered (gasp! not illness I hope). Be open to new friendships that could catapult you into some changes that you have been secretly dreaming of (tom cruise? since high school days lol)

When Thinking Too Much Is Not Enough*

Thinking is the spice of life. Without thoughts, we might be
reduced to spending our days mechanically accomplishing things without taking time to obsess about the roses.

While it is true that focused, educated thinking has been known

    - to help people solve complicated mathematical equations,
    - invent useful appliances, and
    - decide what to wear

... aimless, unfocused thoughts are integral to our quality of life. 

Left to ricochet freely between cranial walls, thoughts tend to go haywire, providing an excellent way to add emotional conflict to an otherwise monotonous existence.



*an excerpt from a cute (but with a tendency towards female chauvinism) book I read two years ago

These are the forgeries of jealousy;
And never, since the middle summer's spring,
Met we on hill, in dale, forest, or mead,
By paved fountain or by rushy brook,
Or in the beached margent of the sea,
To dance our ringlets to the whistling wind,
But with thy brawls thou hast disturbed our sport.

Therefore the winds, piping to us in vain,
As in revenge, have sucked up from the sea
Contagious fogs; which, falling in the land,
Hath every pelting river made so proud
That they have overborne their continents.

The ox hath therefore stretched his yoke in vain,
The plowman lost his sweat, and the green corn
Hath rotted ere his youth attained a beard;
The fold stands empty in the drowned field,
And crows are fatted with the murrain flock;
The nine-men's-morris is filled up with mud,
And the quaint mazes in the wanton green
For lack of tread are undistinguishable.

The human mortals want their winter here;
No night is now with hymn or carol blessed.
Therefore the moon, governess of floods,
Pale in her anger, washes all the air,
The rheumatic diseases do abound.
And thorough this distemperature we see
The season alter; hoary-headed frosts
Fall in the fresh lap of the crimson rose,
And on Old Hiem's thin and icy crown
An odorous chaplet of sweet summer buds
Is, as in mockery, set. The spring, the summer,
The childing autumn, angry winter, change
Their wonted liveries, and the mazed world
By their increase now knows not which is which.

And this same progeny of evil comes
From our debate, from our dissension;
We are their parents and original.

-Titania on Oberon, Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream