Quiet Time.

Seeing as I’m on stage a few times per week it may sound strange that I would consider myself an introvert, and yet that is how I would describe myself.

I have never felt at ease in a group, even when I played football I never felt ‘part’ of the team. In a group of people I have always felt as if I was on the outside looking in never knowing how to act or what to say, and usually over compensating and being a complete idiot or bore. 

Now I have resigned myself to my ‘introvert me’ and I must say it feels good. This doesn’t mean I’m a ‘loner’ or not up for meeting or working with others, it just means that I enjoy wholeheartedly the time I spend on my own and don’t feel bad about it. I try to avoid situations where I’ll we with large groups of people (except at football matches, but there is no ‘small talk’ in a buzzing stadium).

There will always be (of course) the feeling of not fitting in, seeing as we live in a more and more extrovert society, where everybody is judged on their ability to work as a team, to be a ‘people person’ and to be very outgoing and outspoken. 

Being an introvert I get loads of ‘me time’ also known to me as ‘quiet time’ , time on my own where I get to think things through, contemplate my ideas, read, write, work in the garden or just laying around daydreaming. I still post stuff on the so called ‘social network sites’ because as a performer I guess that is what is expected of me, but I don’t let it take control.

I often wonder how people formulate ideas and find rest and peace in their minds in this world where we are always switched on, on line, connected and hardly ever alone with our thoughts. It seems to me that more and more opinions are formed with less and less information. In the quest to be the first on-line with a critical voice or a funny comment on any news item we often just go by the headlines and forget to read the details.

Is this the spark that lights the ‘burn-outs‘ ? The physical and mental exhaustion that comes with always being switched on, even when we are relaxing we are constantly letting everybody know through our on-line postings and tweets that we are relaxing and taking it easy, even if that does mean getting nervous because there is no internet or wi-fi connection where we are ‘relaxing’. The internet has not so much become an addiction but more a dictator, it’s as if we fear what might happen if we stop posting photos, experiences, opinions or the way we feel. In that way internet and social media have become the ‘big brother’ television screens at everyones home in the book and film 1984 (G.Orwell) . 

Anyway, being an introvert I’ll be spared the burn-outs, and the urge to always be on-line, which doesn’t mean I won’t use the internet of course I will ,but I will use it as just one more entertainment source and a way to promote whatever it is I’m doing on the stand-up scene. 

Further I’ll be enjoying my own company without guilt, the ‘quiet time’ .