Harness Introvert Power No Matter Who You Are

Introvert.

What sort of images crossed you mind then? Did you see someone cowering, shy, stuttering? Did you see a shadow or an ant, that larger and louder people cannot stand, so they step on it? Did you see someone who is not successful? Someone who won't go anywhere in life but dead in a ditch from suicide?

Whatever the images were which crossed your mind. Or the thoughts which bounced under them like karoke captions, they were largely untrue. Why? Because all those things I listed are things that could describe anyone. Regardless of being defined as an Introvert ot Extrovert or those people who sit somewhere in between.

Being an Introvert simply means we draw energy and power from being alone. We are most creative and most alive in that state. However that does not mean we cannot speak in front of crowds, that we cannot be successful, that we cannot live a full and happy life.

Steve Jobs and Rosa Parks were Introverts, as is JK Rowling.

An entrepreneur that started one of the biggest companies in the world, a civil rights activist for African Americans in the 1960's and an author of one of the most read series in contemporary history.

But that is all actually quite beside the point of this post, which is to challenge you to spend some time alone, at least fifteen minutes day, for a week. And I mean completely alone. The sort of alone where you are not going to pass someone else walking on the street, or being surrounded by individuals in a coffee shop. If you have to, shut yourself in a closet. Though a better option would be to hike somewhere or somewhen, that would allow you to be completely alone. For at least fifteen minutes.

While you are there, close your eyes. Breathe. Identify sounds your hear. Identify smells. Identify the feel of whatever ground you are sitting on or the wind, the sun, the rain on your body and face.

If your mind wanders. Go back to using some of your senses to pick out the world around you. But keep your eyes closed.

When the fifteen minutes are open. Open your eyes. Breathe in deep.

Now, let your mind chatter away. Let all the worries; what you are making for dinner, whether you'll get an interview for a job, whether you'll pass an exam you just wrote, whether you'll have enough money for rent next month, or what a particularly stubborn character needs to do for your story to conclude. Let it all chatter through your brain.

You'll notice you'll suddenly have answers for some of those things. You'll notice you suddenly feel calmer about the things that don't have instant answers. You'll notice that really, having any solid answers doesn't matter because you are here. You are fortunate. You are alive.

You are alive.

As an Introvert, that is the best advice I can give you. Be quiet. Alone. And just listen to the world. Do a little every day. Regardless of how you identify yourself as an individual, everyone could all do with a little bit of Introvert time.

Illustration by Maurice Sendak from Open House for Butterflies by Ruth Krauss

Sitting on the Rock. Living.
Moony.

Why You Should Just Do That Certification

Today I wrote my last music theory exam; through the Royal Conservatory of Music (RCM). Though I should mention that by last, I mean the last level. Who knows whether I will have to write it again. It all depends on the mark I receive.

Either way, I realized today I've been studying music for over 17 years.

Being musical since the 17th century - circa 1997

Some would say all of that entirely pointless. It's another pile of papers. It's following the dogma of an old system about following rather than creating. Especially because I have yet to challenge the Accredited Royal Conservatory Teacher exam which allows me to officially teach as a RCM member. And that, at least in Canada, is how 90% of music students want to be taught, the other 10% are just causual adults players or beginning children who have parents who don't care about sticking their kid in that system yet.

A part of me agrees that all those years were utterly and entirely pointless. After all, the sad thing about society these days is you don't many prospective job offers, let alone recognition, without a piece of paper from a larger institutional body that declares you as sane, intelligent and generally fit to do whatever job it has said you can do. That bothers me as an individual who frankly would rather hang out in the back corner, as far from the center stage as possible, because it just perpetuates the negative image people have of Introverts.

In short, unless you can stand on a soap box or show off obvious fame (which "always" implies expertise, though I know just as many famous individuals got there on no intelligence, even as there are some famous people who got there through legitimate hard-work, dedication and talent), you are considered incompetent. Cue being passed over as another faceless, boring individual who a potential employer doesn't care a flip about.

So why should you bother doing any certifications period? Especially as an Introvert? Or perhaps you are an Extrovert who loves the trades, or IT work but you are terrible at taking multiple choice exams?
Are you bad at your job? Are you any less enthusiastic and motivated? Are you any less willing to learn and practice?

No.

So again I ask, why should you bother getting certifications? Here are Four Reasons You Need to Agree to Before you Certify for a Certification Attempt:


1. You will learn a new skill


This is by far the most practical though valid of the points but unless you can say yes, to the folllowing four, keep in mind there is little reason to get that certification. After all, a skill is only as useful as one that will be used. Whether eventually for a job or in another aspect of your life. For example, bearing in mind I have no idea if I will ever be a fully RCM qualified teacher as I frankly have a million other things I wish to do, my music education has broaded my understanding of it and thus my pleasure and enjoyment of it. It comes up as an area that has taught me many life skills as well as being a point I can use for discussion through other skills, like right here in this blog.


2. You will have to practice your weaknesses.
3. You will meet new people doing the same thing.


Numbers 2 and 3 are also important because there will always be an aspect of weakness in whatever certification you are doing, whether it is a written portion full or memorizing or being quick on your feet in terms of reaction time, say for something like a National Lifeguard Certification. Plus, people. If the certification is getting you out of your comfort zone but is up the alley of your interests or job, then meeting people means making connections that could help you with anything from forming simple study groups to potentially having a connection through an employee to an employer.


4. You will be trying. Trying is better than doing Nothing.


Yes, this is perhaps the most airy faerie or cheesy reason, but honestly, 99% of times out of 100, to root of your reason to not do something will probably be a fear of failure. With certifications that is almost as bad as being told you're incompetent to your face because it's between you and an institution, not just you an an employer or teacher. (Then again, any teacher who says you are terrible should get their bottoms right out of that position immediately).

When faced with whether or not to do a certification, don't put it off. Just try. Give it a shot. Yes, you may fail. It happens. A lot. But whoever told a baby they fail when their learning to walk and they keep falling over?

Nonetheless, if you do find yourself coming against failure after failure after failure. Yes, perhaps then you do need to reassess why you are doing it and what it will actually mean for you in the long run, both practically and emotionally but I'll save that for a later post.

Do you think certifications are worth the effort, especially if you fail the first or second try

Moony.

How to Create Time: For Anyone Not a Time Lord

I know. Not a clock. But time flies no matter how you gauge it.

 I'd like to point you to this rather creepy but apt nursery rhyme from one of my favourite tv shows. You know, that one with the time-traveling alien who can regenerate and has a time machine stuck in the form of a 1960's police box from London. Not for nothing has it said to be a "hide-behind the sofa" sort of show:

Tick Tock Goes the Clock (From Doctor Who S6.9)


So time. It's scary. Even without peg dolls and whispery background music.

Then again, I'd say it rather scared of humans, seeing as it tends to run away from us, leaving a lot of shock and confusion when the sun is down and you're yawning and thinking back over what the flip you actually did that day.

I have one piece of advice for you which I found worked a million times better than even the best of lists; which if your curious, can be found here on another amazing twenty-something help site: Milk the Pigeon. For those of you who are not twenty-something, but another something-age, I believe advice aimed at one age (even advice for kids can be valuable, depending on the topic), is just as valuable for any age. After all, if you've hit a point where you believe you are too old or definitely old enough to not learn anything more, well, sorry, but you can. It might me it'll take you a bit longer and a bit more effort and motivation, but you'll get there, eventually. Eventually is the key. 

So all that said: My advice for those of you who want to create more time and don't have the fortune of being a secret Time Lord or owning a time travel machine like the TARDIS, well, use a clock.

Specifically, use the alarm function of whatever clock you choose.

Yes, alarms are loud, obnoxious and all around hateful objects but that's the point. They'll jog you out of your happy scrolling of Twitter, reading a book, re-runs of your favourite sit-com or hours releasing stress via a video game. They'll help you fit in everything you want to do in a single day. Everything.

So what if you don't read all fifty pages of a self-help book, or get that work project due next week entirely finished? Did you get a little bit of both in? Did you even keep up your contacts and connections with friends, collegues, potential business or creative partners?

You did. You'll notice I refrained from mentioning "down-time." Why? Well, simply because we have deluded ourselves into thinking letting our brains go, as we watch a show or jump from cool link to cool link on the internet, we are just avoiding what we actually love doing and what will not only make us happy but make us productive and therefore successful.

That doesn't mean you have to forgo silly sitcoms or digging around the interwebs. Go and do it to your heart content. Just make sure you do it with a goal in mind.

I, for example, don't watch a single t.v. show, movie or read a single book without a pad of notepaper nearby where I actively scribble phrases, character traits, plot points and structures or random facts like what the International Phonetic Alphabet for Aviation is (from my beloved radio drama Cabin Pressure), which has since then found a spot in an airship adventure tale I'm drafting. I make my entertainment time active learning for my own writing.

So I challenge you. Set those alarms! Make those goals. You don't need to be a Time Lord to mould time to your desires.

Happy alarm-setting!
Moony.

The Death of Books: Why Stories Never Die

Books are aestetically pleasing at times. And $1. If found at Library Sales.

 I've had a bunch of people tell me books are dying. That I should write for ebooks rather than with traditional publishing in mind. I've had them ask me why I read on my tablet more than "real" books.

I've had a tablet for a year. It's a less back-breaking version of my laptop or carting around my one hundred-some hard copy library. Does it replace my laptop? Nope. So why should a tablet replace my hardcopy books?

Besides, books are not dead yet. That's all I am going to say. Nor are they going to die any time soon.

But frankly, I think people are caught up in the whole: "books are stories and so stories must only be books," frame of mind.

Slow down a moment now. Remember, books are made of paper bound together with a combination of glue and string that I don't have the expertise to explain. Stories, are words strung together by a theme, a lesson, a plot, a character, a setting, something which makes them interesting to listen to, something which tells, reminds us, opens our eyes to our world, our lives and who humans truly are.

In summary: Books are physical objects which recorded stories for many people. Stories are the spirit of humanity which filter throughout our consciousness whether or not they are repeated, passed on or developed.

So, why is there all this crying and moaning about how the world is going to get stupider just because stories might not come packaged in tidy rectanglar stacks of squished trees and ink?

Then there's the whole battle between non-fiction and fiction (which doesn't even tip toe near the snobbishness of the literary lauders versus the genre geeks).

A Story is A Story. It is telling you something. It is making you learn something. Whether the lesson is smacked on your forhead with the name of Aesop, or through the biography of Mandela, the life of a vegan or the trials of the Fellowship as they take a dangerous tool to its destruction or the rapid-fire deductions and haunted hound adventures of Sherlock Holmes, you are being confronted with humanity.

It might teach you to think before you act, it might inspire you to stand up for your beliefs, it might open your eyes on another persons perspective, it might teach you to never give up and always hold to hope or it might make you more observant of your surroundings and the effects they have on you and others.

In short. Stories. No matter what label you stick to them give you a way to learn and grow. All without having to go out and fall off a cliff to know why to be careful when you walk near one. That is not to say people might still go out and try crazy things because a story inspired them to do it, but hey, that's also part of being a listener of stories. You might need to recognize starting a revolution like the characters of Les Miserables is possibly not the best thing to do just because you had a disagreement with someone. In short, you need be a critical thinker. If you can do that. Well, you can do anything with stories. Even the crappy ones that have Mary-Sues dropped into the world of Middle Earth. You might just learn how to edit.

So there you have it. Are books dead? Maybe they will be. Maybe never.

What won't die, no matter what form it takes, (how about oral storytelling), are stories.

Well, okay. The day stories die humans probably be long dead too. Unless there are other sentient beings out there who tell stories. It's possible. But that's for another day.

Telling stories. Always.
Moony.

How to Not Fall Down Rabbit Holes

I've really dipped into the blogosphere lately and I think I've fallen down about fifty different Alice-esque rabbit holes.

High Rise Perspectives like this always feel like I'm falling up. Forever. And ever. And ever.

How do you figure out what exactly your goals are when you're in "soak up as much information as possible" mode? Especially because it's possible some of it won't stick. Or you'll read it. Be amazed by it and then have no coherent thought left by which to respond to it; literally, through a posted comment, or just metaphorically, through your own mind.

Take it from me. Right down the rabbit hole in the rabbit hole in the rabbit hole in the rabbit hole.

Also known as: I am learning about how to navigate life as 20-something who does not want to just procreate the same social norms which have been occuring over the last century and as such is working on overcoming that little thing called fear. Especially the type of fear related to communication.

Ironic? Yes, definitely. I mean, I'm writing this which all of you are now reading. Communication right there.

Anyway, in my rabbit hole of a weekend I realized the way to figure out out what exactly your goal with all this reading is to communicate with the other bloggers you are reading. Even if they're the rockstar elites of the blogosphere.


It's terrifying. It's the thing that sends me down the trail of fear and as far from the exciting rabbits hole of the blogosphere as possible.

On the other hand. That is exactly why you want to do it. And the best part? At least your comment is in writing. So you don't have to deal with choking on your own words, mumbling, speaking too fast, or having that voice in your head after the fact saying "why the flip did I say that?!"

Cheers to the delete button! Except, do not. And I repeat. Do. Not. Use that delete button to get rid of your whole comment as you scuttle off that blog of awesome, like that of Tim Ferriss . He has a post 8 Steps to Getting What You Want...Without Formal Credentials that I am telling about you right now so that if I fall off the wagon of one of those steps in the following months as I work on this blog, one of you can snark at me to get back on because you want clearer content aimed at your desires. (Though I will admit I have yet to comment on any of his awesome yet).


I have however commented on a few posts by the knowledgeable Adrienne Smith whose whole platform is based off how having connections with people is the way to go to get noticed. Of course, as with those simple things, it's actually more complex, particularly when you decide to take up a Corner of Ocean Net. It's a whole sea of little fishes in here, from teens tweeting about their lunches to businessmen fielding their products, to artists just trying to get noticed, to Tumblr...which is a very frightening rabbit hole you will never leave. (Said from an experienced Tumblr surfer, who did it so much very little happened on her blog there).

So anyway, once you start commenting, you will probably, eventually start getting comments back. I did from Adrienne. It was equal parts terrifying and amusing. I know on one level she does it for everyone who comments on her blog, retweets or favourites on Twitter; it's honestly flipping common courtesy to do so. Just as it is in real life.

The point is though, once I started commenting, I started seeing real people. Not just names with the occasional profile picture. Through this I realized my goals with blogging are not all about getting big and business-like as many of the large blogs out there are. I just want to reach out to people who are like-minded in hopes I might offer them some insight or a new perspective they hadn't thought of with a certain problem before. Just create a community. You might be surprised when you also come up with that same goal at the heart of all your business, fame and fashion goals. Once you have that goal however, make sure you don't forget those things likes strategy and a plan with an implementation of knowledge and skills.

But before you start implementing your carefully organized knowledge and skills, you still have to not go crazy. And what's the answer? Just make connections. Find the real people.

Savour those little moments when things stop because your phone just beeped an alert to something. (And don't tell me you don't get a little excited to see who's chatting, whether it's a close friend of many years or a new one through Twitter). Appreciate that human connection, stretched though it is through kilometers of physical geography and the pixels of your device's screen to the other person's screen.That human connection is why you are in the rabbit hole of social media in the first place. It is not to go big fast and furiously. Sure, that's an awesome side-effect and a good goal to perhaps aim for eventually. But even when you get big. Don't forget those connections. They'll probably be what got you there in the first place.

The Earth has been said to be a big, wide world out there, beyond your door but the Internet is even bigger. It's eternity. It's the Song That Never Ends. It is Time.

Now wave hello. Communicate with it. I've heard Time likes carrots. Maybe give it a few.

When you get into social media, whether it's Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Tumblr, YouTube, DeviantArt, Reddit, Delicious, Digg, Pinterest and all the bits of the blogosphere that go with them, communicate with people. It'll stop you from getting lost. From getting discouraged. And ultimately, from going stark, naked bonkers.

Once you've done that you might realize most things we do as humans all link back to a desire to find like-minds; to find a tribe (if you will) and support it, cherish it, live it.

Happy rabbit hole falling! If you really want to get lost. Start here, with Time Travel, at TVTropes, the one stop drop for all sources of literary tropes in your favourite entertainment.

Moony.

The Connectivity Revolution

I stumbled into Seth Godin today. Have you heard of him?


I had. Well, in the name-drop, flash across the screen or bookstore sort of way. I thought he was a comedian. The only comedians I follow aren't exactly active in the comedy business anymore (the comedians to which I refer, being Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry).


Anyway, so I stumbled into this fantastic post of his via another blog of a stuck-somewhere-in-the-middle twenty-something. Milk the Pidgeon. He mentioned this post by Seth Godin:

The forever recession (and the coming revolution)

 

 It Short-Circuited My Mind.  

 

(Note: *Few* things do this. It sits on the Hand with JRR Tolkien, an Old English poem "The Wanderer," the Philosophies of Alchemy a la Fullmetal Alchemist and recently, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead).

 

The gist of it was this:

 

The world is less about having stuff, showing it off in front of people, in order to be successful. 

 

The world is more about creating stuff, sharing it, discussing and recreating it, with people in order to be successful. 

 

Also: This is a revolution on the historic and drastic change scale that the Industrial Revolution was.

 

Not in the fire and brimstone and burning book sense. Sillies. We love knowledge. Let's share it together. This is the Temple of Apollo at Didyma, near modenr Didim in Turkey.

Awesome to realize right? Of course. Hence the short-circuit of my mind. I am living in a huge historical moment. Things matter. I matter. There are possibilities. I just have to get off my butt. Locate them. Do them. And most of all, appreciate them.

 

And then I think about this: The Problem of "Gen Screwed" (as a CBC reporter labelled us recently): Us twenty-somethings are ridiculously educated and massively in debt, broke and/or living back with our parents (and siblings) because we cannot find a job no matter how hard we look (or, at least, one that is going to actually get us somewhere more than trapped in retail or restaurants for life). In short, where do we go from the picket-fence picture our parents grew up on and have tried to foist on us, a generation so connected to the world, school is starting to be not just metaphorically a prison but Literally.

Okay, so perhaps, it's starting to sound like I'm bemoaning my position at home, rent free, two degrees in five years, with no debt but very broke, and all that. Maybe I'm just another one of those lazy, spoiled twenty-somethings which is another chunk of labels the older generations are dumping on us. 

 

It's possible. Sure. Feel free to dump all your hate on me. I am who I am in the life that I am in. But who isn't spoiled for something? (In all senses of the word?) On the other hand, I was only hanging at home because I have access to a grand piano by which I could have completed my ARCT. Things happened though and I don't think I'll be doing it any time soon as I would much rather cart off either England or Japan to teach as I am aiming to do. (I want to go to both eventually so I'm applying for both and then, waiting). So it's not like I don't have a direction that will get me some stability right? 

 

Wrong. Not really. I mean, who lives by hoping from job contract to job contract, country to country? 

 

Wrong. Again. Plenty of people. It's quite normal. Just not in backwards towns full of more retired baby boomers than actual babies. (Plus literal boats full of Albertans in the summer). See, in the town I grew up in, bless my parents for wanting to give me a carefully cultivated, four corners solid, white-picket fence life, with numerous siblings.

 

The only difference from the disgustingly sappy, fake black and white Pleasantville-esque creep world, is that I was raised with an ever growing pile of siblings. Three brothers until I was twelve, then finally a sister and by university, suddenly another brother and two sisters. So yes, for most of my life "growing up" I had three younger brothers, not that weird, but in Vernon, where the norm is one or two kids, it was certainly weird enough for people to consistantly express shock. Especially because "oh poor daughter, she's stuck with all those rowdy boys." 

 

Ha. I didn't care. I didn't like people much period. Loud. Messy sorts. I hide in my room. Eventually of course, I came to find people who were awesome. And like me. And that I could create my own creative messes with. But that didn't happen until I left the creepy life of Vernon. 

 

A life which warped me into thinking university was the only way to success. That suceess was only measured by your visible accomplishments like trophies, awards, scholarships, grades, certifications and the like. 

 

Thing is, to get back to Seth Godin, that's not the world anymore. The world is less about boxes and fences and more about climbing over them, making holes in them and shaking hands through them.

 

Nothing about how the world was in the past is ever going to get "better." It's just going to keep going on changing. A lot of people say it's going downhill, Seth Godin calls it the "forever recession" even but I like to call it the other term he uses: 

 

The Connectivity Revolution.

 

Nowadays it is honestly, purely down to utter laziness that someone says "I don't know," "I'm not sure," "I can't" etc. It's called the Internet. An endless pit of information and voices, constantly changing and constantly speaking. Loudly. Except in text. (So much kinder on the ears of an Introvert). 

 

Things is, all of that it shouldn't and generally isn't (if you're doing things right), staying in the form of pixels on the screen of your device. The people you talk to online. The places you see online. The knowledge you learn online. The things you discover online. 

 

It sits in your brain. It floats. It absorbs. It influences how you live. What you do, see, make, have and most of all, who you meet.

 

I can't say I am one of those people who made most of her friends online. But I can say I have quite a number who I have made online. A few, I have actually met in person. Most I have not. And then there are all of those friends I met in person first and keep in contact with online. 

 

Either way. I have connections with people that filter in and out of the online and physical worlds.

 

It is through these connections that I have started doing things with my life. Started being happy with it. Because of the people. Not the fences. Not the degrees. 

 

Because of the people. I have gone to Greece and Turkey. I have gone to many fandom conventions and embraced my geeky interests and the creative outlets it offers. I have become a better photographer and an amateur graphics designer. I have been involved in all sorts of communities of writers, like the amazing NaNoWriMo.  I have developed my debating skills through discussing meta in my favourite fandoms. I have inspired countless students (and my little sister) with creative activities inspired from the Steampunk movement, Indigenous values, world mythology, old-fashioned radio dramas and photography. I have shared this all in forums with other like-minded individuals and sometimes, just out there, in general, against those who think I'm unfit for my voice to influence the "futures" of society. 

 

I know I am missing much. Life is rich. Far richer than remodeling your kitchen to suit latest fashions, rather than your own taste, or building up a million credentials which you then find won't help you with squat because you would rather stand on your own merit and skill rather than that which some unidenfiable body with a single person or council at the head, deems suitable for society. 

 

No thanks. I'll take the world of the Internet any day. It's where things start. And I think we all need to go right back to the beginning. 

 

After all, were humans meant to live in boxes determined by someone, or some group, at some point in a past that can no longer stand strong in the face of what the world *actually* looks like when someone dials up the hue and saturation? 

 

The world is colourful. 

 

How about you start letting your life be like that too. 

 

What have you done Because of the People?

 

Moony.

   

A Photo Story

I had a whole number of genius, deep and thoughtful posts that have sat in drafts or in my head since my last entry but none of them felt like they were meant to be shared. Yet.

This may or may not bee seen as having been due to a certain idle procuration of a couple Digital Photography magazines at the library a week back while I was mournfully staring at the only avaliable Writers Digest, of which I all read (and some multiple times). It was also in part due to this blog encouraging me to look back through my reams of photos in order to find decent illustrations since I cannot abide blogs that have too much dialogue and too little imagery. Apologies if that seems a bit hypocritical (I recognize I write a lot, and often in a scatterbrained fashion that ends up being circular).

Whatever end you want to stick with, the pointy bit is stuck on the fact I have gotten back into photography, and by relation, Photoshop. It's rather nice telling stories with just images and actually being able to listen to podcasts an music with lyrics for once.

Today the story I am going to tell you is (in technicaly terms) called Photovoice, except I am using it here for any social activist movement or community, other than that of my own Imaginist Mind.

A Traveller's Guide

Colour seeps from land long forgotten.

Pinches the heart of the soldier who never stops.

Until. See it reach peak rush hour. Today's hamster habitation.

In these colours. We swim. We stand.

Desperate for the shades of fruit bowls.

Our wildness contained within. Call out...

Hark now. Heraldry waves.

Watch as the colour cast of two. Equals back to one.

Let fast lanes fade. Colours drain off. Back home.

Return to those distant shades of shores.

An Imaginist always.
Moony.