Quote of the Week...from Patricia Highsmith

My imagination functions much better when I don't have to speak to people.    ---Patricia Highsmith

Patricia Highsmith (1921-95) was a renowned novelist whose most famous work was her 1950 Strangers on a Train, which Alfred Hitchcock made into a hit movie.  I haven't yet read any of her works...although I plan to...but the above quote of hers resonated with me.  It's not only my imagination that suffers in torturous social situations in which I'm expected to play an active role, but my entire thought processes as well...I'm tempted to simply shut myself down and passively sink into the background: not because I feel the slightest bit of inferiority among others but rather simply because this is how I'm wired...and always have been.  I'm not a recluse in that I want to avoid other people...this shutdown of social commerce because of COVID-19 has demonstrated that to me as I miss public places like the library and Starbucks.  I've been told recently that extroverts tend to do their thinking aloud, through talking to others...while introverts prefer solitude for theirs.  Highly interactive social situations energize extroverts...they thoroughly deplete me.  All throughout my school years extroverts were held up as the great achievers while introverts were at best ignored and at worst bullied and put down...I haven't seen much improvement with this picture in subsequent years.  If this all sounds like I have a chip of sorts on my shoulder, you're right...I do.  I tend to associate loud, big-talkers with heavy-handed aggression who stupidly assume that I am somehow weak and need to be submissive because I'm not inclined toward that style of behavior.  I took a mandatory public speaking class in the eleventh grade and was browbeaten to get up repeatedly in front of a classroom that contained many people I disliked and who disliked me and with whom I had absolutely nothing I felt like sharing anything with, although I had many diverse interests of my own.  The school's message was that speech is power...and if you're going to be a "successful" person you'd better get adept at the art of running your mouth off, the more aggressively the better.  But you know, if I have something I want to say to somebody, I'll say it...no problem. But being put in situations where I have to speak things that I don't want to speak to people that I don't want to speak to: forget it...