Introversion is no excuse
"What's your ideal holiday, do you think?" asked my wife one day a few years ago. "Ooh," I said, looking up from a book (probably), "I think if I could go to a bothy in the Lake District for a few days on my own, with a piano and some books, and go for walks on my own - that'd be great."
This, apparently, was the wrong answer.
So you're an introvert. Now what?
I have always been something of an introvert. By popular understanding, this basically means that I recharge by being on my own - that social interaction drains me, and I need to have some time away from people in order to regain the emotional energy required to function.
Now, the helpfulness of that definition is certainly up for debate, as is the usefulness of giving oneself the label "introvert." In fact, the whole process of testing one's personality and assigning people a "type" is a debatable (and extremely profitable) business, but I won't go into all that now. (If you want to think further about personality tests from a Christian perspective, you could listen to this episode of the rather good podcast Cooper and Cary Have Words.)
For now, let's assume that my definition of an introvert is fairly accurate, and that I am one. What now?
One tack is to assume that because my desires run in a certain direction (I prefer time on my own to time with other people), that means I ought to "lean in" to those desires, as the kids say. Those desires form part of the core of my identity, and so in order to be truly myself I ought to throw myself into solo pursuits and actively avoid others. A sort-of permanent lockdown situation, when I can happily potter around my house reading books, and indulging my FOBI. (You'll have heard of FOMO, the Fear Of Missing Out. This is the Fear of Being Included.) And if anyone questions my behaviour, they will be told - firmly, by text message - that this is who I am, and to question my behaviour is to ask me to deny myself, and who would do that?
Of course, the answer is - Jesus Christ would. In fact, he tells all those would follow him that they must deny themselves (Mark 8:34). And this is not because he wants us to be less than ourselves, but because he wants to be, truly, who we are.
This is explored in depth in Matt Fuller's excellent new book Be True To Yourself, which I read today and thoroughly recommend. In it Fuller exposes the many fallacies in my thought experiment about using my desires to determine my identity and drive my happiness. Quite apart from the fact that my desires could be in conflict with other people's, and that if they run contrary to God's plans for me then they will make me miserable, Fuller makes the point (as I explored briefly on Tuesday) that my desires are constantly fluctuating anyway:
On January 1st it may be my overwhelming desire to get healthy. So I join a gym, buy a vegan cookbook and throw away boxes of chocolate I received for Christmas. Yet on January 2nd I can't be bothered to go out, and all I want is to order takeaway pizza. Which desire is my 'true' one? It's very hard to build an identity on feelings that can change on a whim.
Matt Fuller, Be True To Yourself, 18.
Certainly it's possible to hit the limits of introversion. I might say that I like and desire my own company, but I'm frankly quite an annoying person to live with, even for me. G. K. Chesterton called the self "the only companion that is never satisfied— and never satisfactory" (Manalive, 27). Or as a letter to the Spectator magazine recently put it:
Sir: Nick Newman quotes Jean-Paul Sartre’s view that ‘Hell is other people’. It strikes me in this time of National Emergency — as someone who is currently living on my own — that, quite to the contrary, Hell is myself.
Andrew McDonald, The Spectator, 4th April 2020
The web of relationships
At least a part of the reason why I find my own company so dissatisfying is that solitude is not what I am made for. When God made man in the beginning, after declaring that everything in his world was "good", he shockingly calls something "not good" - the fact that the man is alone (Gen 2:18). As Fuller explores, the interpersonal Triune God who makes mankind in his image designs us to be likewise interpersonal. Indeed, it is only in relationship with others that we can fulfil our purpose, find our meaning, and play our roles properly (see Be True To Yourself, 47-50). And so if my desire to spend time in my own company leads me to the selfishness of isolation, I have fundamentally denied something about how God has made me. I am not being true to myself at all. In attempting to be God and recreate myself in the image of a selfish, self-gratifying loner, I not only fail to be like God - I fail to be fully human.
But the truth of this has even greater implications than simply "don't be selfish." What if I want to use my isolation to do good to others? What if I rather like the idea of dispensing wisdom as from an ivory tower (say, by reading lots of books and writing a blog about them)? What if I fancy this to be actually rather selfless behaviour? After all, I'm expending lots of effort and I'm not asking for anything in return - aren't I being jolly altruistic? And altruism is the goal, isn't it - doing good without seeking a reward?
Not according to Oliver O'Donovan:
...love excludes the total indifference to self, the supposed 'pure love,' which would require us to occupy a position outside the communicative web of created good. An object is not loved if its good is not allowed to bear on us. Only God as Absolute, we might say, could love without self-interest; but even that statement must be balanced by the corresponding one, that only God can act solely for his own glory.
Oliver O'Donovan, Finding and Seeking, 106.
If I desperately want to be someone who is able to be good to others without any impact on myself, then I am desiring a love which is not only impossible for humans, but actually undesirable. God alone can love with pure benevolence, but even he gets glory by it. As for us - we are not God. We are humans, made in God's interpersonal image, created to inhabit a web of relationships which are designed to be for our good as well as the good of others. To try to detach myself from that, even in a way that seems selfless - to be an untouched dispenser of good things - is to strive once more to be like God, and to fail once more even to be human.
It's also a failure to be who I am in Christ. Jesus, the true image of God (Colossians 1:15), existed in a web of relationships himself. He obeyed his parents, gathered disciples, spent time with friends, ate with people. It might seem almost blasphemous to say it, but in those times Jesus the man received as well as gave. Yes, he spent time alone, but even that was to pursue communion with his heavenly Father in prayer (e.g. Luke 5:16), which he needed in order to continue his mission. Even as he wrestled in prayer in Gethsemane, before the greatest act of self-giving ever known, he wanted his friends to watch and pray with him (Matt 26:38).
And as those called into relationship with Jesus, we are called into relationship with his people, ideally expressed in real fellowship with a local church. As I wrote a week or so ago, this simply cannot be done at a physical or emotional remove from one another. I need other people, and I need to love other people, in order to be a human being created in the image of God, and in other to be a child of God recreated in the image of Christ.
Does that mean I need to forego times on my own? Should I always fight the desire to pick up a book, to go for a solitary walk, to put headphones on? Surely not. These things are given for my good and to be received with thanksgiving, and if I'm so wired that they help me recharge and re-energise, all for the good. But that re-energising must be in relationship with my Father, and for the purpose of re-engaging in relationship with others.
Being introverted in lockdown
One final implication for these strange times of quarantine and lockdown. I've read in several places that introverts have it easy in lockdown - that actually it's given us what we wanted all along: space away from other people. That is both false and dangerously true. It is false because introverts still get lonely. None of us are made for solitude, and I am very grateful I'm locked down with my family, and very aware of the pain and loneliness of those who are locked down alone. Let's pray for our brothers and sisters in that situation.
But this narrative is also dangerously true. It might be that us introverts enjoy lockdown just a little too much - that is enables us to indulge our selfish desires for our own company such that we resent the intrusion of "real life" - i.e. precious people whom God made and Christ died for - back into our lives when the crisis is all over. Let's pray that we flee from such self-indulgence.
Now, if you'll excuse me, my children are shouting at me to stop reading and writing and come and play with them. That sounds right, doesn't it?