Quiet

Do people think I'm boring?  Why can't I think of things to say?  Really, small talk?  Can't we just be quiet?  Or, if we must talk, can we talk about things that are meaningful?  Do people think I am interesting and funny or just awkward? 

Who knew that all these anxieties and more, which have plagued me since adolescence, might actually be partially caused by the American social construct!  According to Susan Cain, author of QUIET: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking, it is within the past 100 or so years that the American Culture has made a shift from the Culture of Character to the Culture of Personality.

What does this mean exactly?

In the past Americans focused on character: attributes such as citizenship, duty, work, honor, morals, manners, integrity were admired and pursued.  Advice manuals talked of how to develop inner character and studied the lives of people like Abraham Lincoln.  However, with the rise of a new economy in the early 1900's,  people began to move into cities, leaving behind the communities that knew them.  Here arose a new breed of man who was supposed to "make a good first impression" in order to get a job among strangers.  He has to be able be to sell new products and sell himself.

New guides and books for business men encouraged them to work on being magnetic, attractive, dominant, forceful, energetic, and fascinating.  Dale Carnegie was in his prime teaching everyone everywhere how to win friends and influence people.  Interestingly, it was in the 1920's and 30's that America began to be obsessed with movie stars.

Extroversion was valued and rewarded, introversion was seen as a disease to be cured.   Extroversion and everything external- appearance, personality, clothing- became the measure of a man.

Consequently, it was also during the 1920's that psychology began to develop the idea of the "Inferiority Complex."  Parenting articles began giving suggestions of to help their children overcome shyness and develop "winning personalities."  Shy or quiet children were believed to to have a problem that needed to be solved.

It is not difficult to trace the trajectory of those early years into today.  Image is everything.  Personality, being bigger than life, fun, witty, interesting, and always having the right thing to say are valued over quiet, thoughtful, introversion.

Needless to say, this cultural preference for extroversion, personality, and attractiveness has led to anxiety for many causing us to constantly self-analyze and self-doubt.  Is it okay that I want to read a book at home instead of be out every night of the week?  Is it okay that sometimes I just don't want to talk?  Is something wrong with me because I like to be alone sometimes?  Am I a bad person because I don't want to make small talk?

Thus far, Cain's book has provided a bit of grace for my soul.  It has let me know that we have not always lived in an extroverted, appearance driven society.   

Within a day of reading the history of "The Rise of the Mighty Likeable Fellow" in Cain's book, a verse in Colossians seemed to offer an alternative to "dressing to impress" and it said nothing of the need to always have the witty thing to say or the perfect outfit:

Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony .  Colossians 3: 12-14

 There it is: Put on character, put on love and patience and kindness.  Put on Christ.

Do not let your adorning be external—the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry, or the clothing you wear— but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God's sight is very precious.  1 Peter 3:3-4

Charm is deceitful, and beauty is fleeting,
    but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised. Proverbs 31:30

I am not saying that small talk is never of value or that desiring to be quiet sometimes is an excuse to not be friendly or kind.  Not at all!  God's word calls us to kindness and outreach and service.

I am saying that our culture tends to value extroverted, flashy, impressive, beautiful personalities and people as the best and only valid mode of expression.  But it hasn't always.  And in this land of personality and the constant anxiety to impress, there is only One whom we should seek to please.

And as Andrew and I, two introverted, not very flashy people, wait for to hear from RUF,  I am trying to remind myself that the personalities we each have are the ones that God chose for us.  Or, as Andrew reminds me, " Jesus did not come to change our personalities, but to redeem them."

This gives my self-doubting heart a bit of rest.