There he goes, one of God's own prototypes

“There he goes, one of God’s own prototypes. A high-powered mutant of some kind never even considered for mass production. Too weird to live, but too rare to die.”


Ah yes, blogging at thirty-five thousand feet above sea level. This laptop is far too large for the average Airbus A319.

Do you zone out if too much is going on? Yes.
Are you energized by spending time alone? Yes.
In meetings, do you need to be asked for your opinions and ideas? Yes.
Is your ideal celebration a small get-together rather than a big party? Yes.
Do you fear being the center of attention? Yes.
Do you have difficulty decoding social cues? No such cues exist. What is there to read?
Do you often feel like a tortoise surrounded by stampeding gazelle? You can bet your candy ass.
It’s alright, you’re not a freak of nature, you just have an introverted temperament. Holy shit! What does that mean?
You’re a loner.

My eyes have been opened after reading about introverted loners and why we are not openly accepted nor understood by the contemporary public. I was planning on posting a blog persecuting Western Society of excessive superficiality. The fact of the matter is that the majority of the population is extroverted. Extroverts feed off of social energy. Social interaction refreshes them. This explains modern society’s underlying infrastructure. Extroverts are ‘social butterflies’; they value social breadth over deeply personal relationships. They use metrics such as quantities of friends to evaluate their social lives. The more friends they have, the more successful they are. They are the bumblebees floating from flower to flower while we introverted loners are the worms who burrow when we find a soft patch of soil. The brain-digging worms often appear aloof, awkward, timid, misunderstood, rude, or grouchy in communal circumstances.

This uncoils why I’ve always felt like a gasping beached whale slashed up by outboard motors. This explains the purpose behind, well, just about all recreational activities: overcrowded bars, mosh pits, sporting events, relentless dating, and chaotic keg parties all cater to the extroverts’ mandate for constant socializing.

Organized religions are just fraternities.

Did you notice how quickly the herd rallied after the VT campus shootings? Within two days, the majority of my friends had removed their faces from Facebook. They replaced their individual identities with a message of mourning, concern, recovery, and conformity.

Psychologically, I reside upon the opposite end of the spectrum. I tell people that all I need are three close friends and a girlfriend to constitute a fulfilling social life. And yet, the idea of chaining ourselves to a singular someone or a group (chain gang?) is terrorizing.

Marriage? Children? A loner craves not. The loner is content listening to his preferred singers lament over the joys and tribulations of love as opposed to proactively grabbing that slippery idealistic urban myth known as True Love.

Just because we’ve spent a couple of nights hanging at a bar does not categorize us as ‘friends’; this makes us mere acquaintances. Just as I won’t claim to be an expert in a field until I feel I’ve learned all lore available, I won’t label us as friends until I feel I know where you stand politically, economically, psychologically, artistically, technically, philosophically, and spiritually. To quote Otto Kroeger and Janet Thuesen, “With introverts, what you see is only a portion of their personality. The richest and most trusted parts of an introvert’s personality are not necessarily shared with the outside world. It takes time, trust, and special circumstances for them to open up.”

This results in a paradox where I don’t have the time to develop deep relations with every person I meet. A typical introduction usually includes the basics:
“Where do you work?”
“Where do you live?”
“Where did you go to school?”

This conversation is a chore and provides me with little to nothing about your personality, so I am then incapable of deciding to invest the time to dive deep to find your true self, no sense trying to personally reach any of you (so read a blog instead). Paradoxically, I don’t care for learning names in the social setting. I dive straight into conversation until the recipient stops me to ask my name. Perhaps I exclude the proper introduction since this person’s name is unimportant unless I routinely encounter that individual. Then, I’ll learn their name through repetition.

On the other hand, I met this guy at a party once. In no conversational context whatsoever, he casually asked me the deepest question one can ask, “What are your thoughts?” I was taken aback. No one has ever openly and sincerely asked me that before. It was an honor, a Goddamned dignified fucking honor to receive that question. This simple query put me in control of the conversation; I could steer it into whatever direction I felt. And to put it in perspective, I threw out my thesis that all people are inherently lazy and selfish, then rambled about how George Dubya invaded Iraq not to save the oppressed citizens from Saddam’s dictatorship. We invaded for us, the US, for the oil. Dubya charged forth with guns blazing to finish what his father started, to bring pride to the Bush family. What a fuckup.

Furthermore, I participated at a workshop at the office on the topic of synergistic planning. The purpose of the workshop was to prove that people are more successful when they work in groups as opposed to solitude. However, my personal score outranked the team’s score. Group work makes me less productive, which is why I only occasionally joined study groups at school. The other students just slowed me down, and I didn’t need Group Think or their encouragement to keep me focused.

Many extroverts live under the belief that all experiences are worthless if you don’t have someone to share them with. Incorrect, my most profound adventures were executed in solitude; tethering myself to someone else would have either slowed me down or inhibited me from entirely drinking in a spiritual revelation. I spent twelve long days driving in solitude averaging eighty miles per hour across the country from DC to Seattle, down to Los Angeles, up to Vegas, and back across the country to DC. Those were twelve of the most exhilarating days of my life, yet accompaniment would have shrouded my meditative condition with social preoccupation. Sure, I spent some time on the cell with friends, but moreso for swanking my accomplishment.

I’m gonna take trips like that more often: just passing through, no time to stop at any tourist trap, gotta keep moving, keep the landscape flying by, keep running from life, look at Gaia’s green earth.

“I’m more comfortable by myself.”
“Is that the case, or are you uncomfortable when around others?” What’s the difference?

It’s not that loners hate other people; we just favor the company of… ourselves. British therapist Doctor Raj Persuad has concluded “the capacity to enjoy your own company is a sign of personal maturity and perhaps the acid test of mental health. Practically all creative people, and certainly most geniuses, have preferred to be alone for long periods, especially when producing their best work.” Georgia O’Keefe, Isaac Newton, Emily Dickinson, Andy Warhol, Franz Kafka, Michelangelo, Margaret Mead, John Lennon, Paul Westerburg, Curt Cobain, Nick Drake, Syd Barrett; the list of reclusive artists goes on and on. Loner characters have played a major role in pop culture as well: Batman, Hyde in That 70’s Show, the Marlboro Man, Doctor Cox in Scrubs, Willy Wonka; the list rambles infinitely. On the other hand, it would make sense to keep the protagonist a loner to minimize character development. The more characters, the more development is needed.

Underneath the dreadlocks and eyeliner, Captain Jack Sparrow is the epitome of a loner. He cares not for his crew, friends, family, nor romance (although he occasionally lusts similar to any horny male). The Sparrow character is not portrayed as a homicidal monster like the other pirates. Within that intimate scene in the first chapter, Jack drunkenly confesses that a ship is freedom. “My first and only love is the sea.” His sole purpose is sailing the Earth, running from humanity, for eternity.
Any depressed detective or trailblazing cowboy is highly respected on the screen or in the ink, but the paradox lies in reality when we meet that character in person: That guy’s a weird freak, and I don’t trust him.

Doctor Marti Olsen Laney states that extroverts tend to burn out at middle age. There’s something to look forward to: sitting upon chilled aluminum bleachers before the quarter-mile track of Life, watching you all sprint headfirst into a brick wall of fatigue.

Courageous loners are the trendsetters. These passionate free spirits are the iconoclastic pioneers of fresh fads in art, music, fashion, and general innovation. Proudly strut your stuff, the flopping myrmidons will conform and follow us.

After studying eccentric individualists, Doctor David Weeks discovered a trait amongst his interviewees. Most of them were either an only child or the eldest sibling raised by strict parents. BWA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA! That settles that. I am a rock. I am an island. I am the walrus, goo goo g’joob.