verting

This week has been totally strange for me. Usually, I test on the borderline between introvert and extrovert. Most of the time, I seem to land on the extrovert side. This week, I’ve been feeling exceedingly intro.

Part of it is probably getting up in the morning. Then, spending time with a bunch of smart people makes me have to at least appear to be reasonably intelligent. That takes energy. At the end of the day, I’ve felt really drained and wishing that I could get back to my research. Just some time in my mossy cell to process all the stuff I’m picking up.

I have distinct hermit tendencies when it comes to actually thinking. In public, it always seems more like performing than thinking. In public, you want to fall back on a sort of social autopilot that can guide you through the stuff you know while picking up as much energy from other people as you can regarding the things that you don’t know.

I think that is one reason why heavily “community oriented” practices always seem to imply a sort of “dumbing down.” A person’s cognitive processes loose steam when they have to simultaneously express that thought in a social context. It becomes more rehearsed, more rote. At the same time though, as far as germinating ideas, it is really hard to beat interacting with your peers to get a new look at things from outside your own head. It’s such a weird dichotomy.

Apologies for the lapse in blogging—it’s been mostly due to the day-long meetings, and end of semester collapse. I need some reflective time, and then I’ll hopefully be able to get back to writing more thought provoking stuff. I’m not used to being so bleary, and not being able to snap out of it. I started to develop a theory that each hour of sleep between six am and noon is worth three hours of nighttime sleep. At least for me, anyhow. I’ll be able to get my schedule back to normal soon, I hope.