One element of introvert communities is their predisposition to focus on isolation, social anxiety, and a very negative view of our fellow human beings. Even going as far as to use phrases like introverts existing on an island of misfit toys. As if being an introvert and having a propensity for deep thinking is their kryptonite.
I don't want to suggest that other people’s experiences are wrong, or tell people to pull their boots up and sort themselves out, but to offer another experience of introversion that rarely gets talked about when introverts assemble online.
The Video Alternative
This is the video of the essay.
Thanks, Eileen Gu
It’s taken me a while to put together my counterargument to the prevalent narrative in introvert community spaces because none of my attempts felt sufficient. That changed when I saw a video of Eileen Gu answering a question from a puzzled reporter.
Eileen answers in a way that provides a perfect foundation for a completely different view of what it means to be an introvert, and it sits in direct opposition to the usual misery narrative. I find I can translate Eileen’s experience to my own, though it has little to do with the mindset of competitive sport.
My head is a good place
“I’m an introspective young woman... I spend a lot of time in my head... and it’s not a bad place to be.”
- Eileen Gu
If you dare to peer into introvert communities on the internet, you are met with a very specific, almost tragic aesthetic. It’s what I call ‘introvert misery porn’. The idea that existing within your head means you are fragile. The implication being that existing within your head is a defensive mechanism, a way to build a bunker because the outside world is just too loud, our fellow human beings are awful or too exhausting, and overall, the world today is just too scary to handle.
Like Eileen, I have no apology for existing in my head. It’s not a social deficit or a coping mechanism. Why does spending quite a bit of time existing within your own head have to have that narrative of it leading to misery? I don’t agree with it. Like Eileen, I spend a lot of time in my head, and it’s a good place to be. In fact, it could be said that a lot of stuff has to compete with it, and it’s pretty strong competition.
Existing within your head doesn’t mean you are trapped behind a locked door. Instead, it’s a perfectly fine, vibrant space that simply has the door politely shut from the inside until something more interesting knocks.
But a closed room can still become a stagnant place if you fall into the established narrative that thinking leads to negativity. That doesn’t have to be the narrative in your head, but it requires a very specific kind of internal tool.
Thinking is a superpower
“I journal a lot, I break down all of my thought processes. I think I apply a very analytical lens to my own thinking... it’s in like a tinkering like a scientist kind of way.”
- Eileen Gu
Imagine if you could be someone like Reed Richards. A genius scientist of such ability that he always has to consider whether he should, rather than whether he could. I’m not saying you’re a genius because Reed Richards isn’t just smart; his other superpower is elasticity. He can stretch, reshape, and mould his physical form to fit any situation.
This is what a metacognitive person does with their thoughts. While we all have our mental hang-ups, a metacognitive mind thinks about thinking like Reed Richards, viewing them with elasticity and the ability to tinker.
The standard introvert narrative focuses on ruminating in negative loops, ensuring their thinking becomes their own kryptonite. The metacognitive introvert uses thinking about thinking to tinker like Reed Richards: breaking loops, considering how one thinks, forging a different narrative, and seeing the world differently.
While Eileen uses this thinking-about-thinking to tinker with her thoughts and her relationship to sport, it doesn’t have to be about such extreme success. It can be about a creative mind focused on exploration and curiosity.
From audience to author
“Because it’s so interesting... you can control how you think and therefore you can control who you are... with neuroplasticity on my side, I can literally become exactly who I want to be.”
- Eileen Gu
When you encounter the misery porn narratives, I can’t help but imagine it as a bunch of introverts trapped in their own heads, like they’re strapped into a chair, forced to look at their thoughts like an old projector that constantly runs in front of their internal self, and they are subjected to the experience of these thoughts like an audience.
I guess I tend to think of it differently. I’m more a director or an author. I get to shape, frame, and establish what I think about these thoughts. Since I’m looking at it this way, I am trying to shape a story out of my thoughts and observations that feels substantially more positive than what's put forward on the internet.
An introvert in this metacognitive mode with few social anxieties can appear quite different.
You literally talk to yourself for hours. It’s why I can be on a cruise and define my own mental isolation, feel comfortable branching out and exploring when travelling or enjoy random, serendipitous conversations that I get to help shape and can leave at any time. All of these things then become a veritable feast in my head, along with things like role-playing games, reading, watching TV shows, and thinking about these videos.
Eileen is often seen as not an introvert because of her media presence. These things can be learned or even enjoyed in controlled circumstances. Introversion is about how you recharge, not necessarily social skills, talent or public confidence.
Breaking the narrative
“I get to become every day the kind of person that me at age eight would revere... I think that’s the biggest flex of all time, that you can have little younger you be proud of you today.”
- Eileen Gu
What traditionally happens at this point is a proclamation that Eileen Gu is not an introvert, as only introverts hiding from the world and wracked with social anxieties count, therefore proving a sort of circular truth.
You can be an introvert who feels like the traditional introvert narrative you find in communities is very alien to your life experience. You’re not shy, though I used to be. You don’t have social anxieties, though I had a few minor ones in the past. Your high locus of control and metacognitive nature may mean that how you think isn’t your kryptonite, but your superpower; like Reed Richards, you tinker, author, and direct it into the shape you want, backed by the neuroplasticity to make it a reality.
When I was younger, I’d send my brother to the store to buy the sweets I wanted. While there are many reasons I am different now than I was when I was younger, one is thinking about thinking: to be, like Eileen Gu suggests, a version of myself my younger, more anxious, driven self can be proud of today.