I've been reading "Solitude - A Return to the Self" by
Anthony Storr. It's sort of a strange book. He seems to very much
want to make a case for an introverted existance, but he ends
up talking a lot about how people were somehow or other damaged
as kids. He also spends a lot of time on the special people,
like philosophers and inventors.
It seems to me that the book largely misses the point that
introverts are normal people, not some damaged or special people.
It could be that the author was chasing an edge case to the
exclusion of more down-to-earth existance.
In any case, there are a lot of interesting little sidetracks
in the book. Many of them made me stop and think. Here's one
that seems to describe a strand of my existence.
[Kipling] also exhibited an extraordinary capacity for inspiring
confidence in others, who found themselves telling him their
troubles in the assurance that he would not betray them. This
particular trait seems to depend upon an unusual capacity to put
oneself in other people's shoes, to identify oneself with others.
It often originates in the kind of premature concern with the
feelings of others which Kipling describes himself as having had
developed as a child; a concern which we also observed in
Trollope. Kipling became watchful and wary; alert to the changing
moods of adults which might presage anger. This prescient
awareness of what others were feeling and of how they displayed
their emotions probably stood him in good stead when he came to
write.
Fear of punishment is not the only reason for this kind of
watchful anxiety. Children with depressed mothers, or with mothers
whose physical health is a matter for concern, develop the same
kind of over-anxious awareness. Such children keep their own
feelings to themselves, whilst at the same time taking special
note of the feelings of the other person. They are less able to
turn to the mother of other care-taker as a resource. In adult
life, the watchful, over-anxious child becomes a listener to whom
others turn, but who does not make reciprocal relationships on
equal terms of mutual self-revelation. The same temperament is
not infrequently found in psycho-analysts and doctors, who invite
confidences but who are not called upon to reveal themselves.
