Introversion and Royalty

Enough has been written about the Late Queen Elizabeth II in the last 48 hours. I was determined not to say anything unless I had something original to add.

I want, for a moment, to ask if we are really getting our empathy right.

Quite a few times I have read the critique of Johnson's Downing Street mob that they partied while the Queen was forced to grieve alone. Now I will stand aside for no-one in the queue to denigrate that ghastly government. It's part two of the sentence I want to get us to think about.

If you google 'Queen's personality type' you find many links to the idea that she was ISTJ:

I = introverted and therefore energised by her inner world

S = relied on the information provided by her senses rather than intuition

T = preferred to think things through rather than work off feelings

J = chose an ordered approach to life rather than a 'let's see what happens'

S, T and J make perfect sense and suggest a good match with her duties.

But in these sorts of profiles the words 'introvert' and 'extrovert' are used in a specialised way. Introverts make great actors. More than half the clergy are introverts. Introverts can do people skills and enjoy it. But they are not energised by it. Energy is recovered alone and in private later with reflection, space, peace and maybe a book as the maximum stimulation.

The opposite is true of extroverts who can sit quietly alone for a while but then recover their energy with company.

Introverts don't like small talk, crowds and parties. Take a moment to reflect on the dutiful service of a monarch who was an I and served for 70 years.

I am not ashamed to admit that as an I myself there was something extremely blessed about Covid 19. No meetings or parties. A daily hour long walk by myself. Time to sit alone and read, think or reflect.

Please feel free to be sad with everyone who has lost a loved one. But please do not assume that being forced to sit alone at a smaller-than-expected funeral was a burden. Being the chief mourner at a funeral is a tough business. You are on caring-for-everyone-else's-grief duty. However much I  hated having to do that job a couple of times it is surely amplified a hundredfold for a dignitary. May I dare to suggest that the pictures of a masked Queen, sitting alone in the choir stalls at Prince Philip's funeral, may be pictures of her doing something the way she would have chosen for perhaps the only time in her life. 

RIP.

Introversion and School Days

There was a history master at King Edward's School (KES) who took us at A level. He was called Charles Blount. Wore waistcoats. Bit of an upper crust accent. His teaching style was to lecture, with occasional pauses when he would question someone about something he had either covered before or reckoned should be part of the general knowledge of an Edwardian.

He went round the class in turn with his questions. Those of us who tended more to general ignorance than knowledge dreaded the moment our turn came. We could concentrate on little else as the geography of the enquiries reached our vicinity.

My first ever question in this context was 'What is anti-clericalism?' You may sense some deep prophetic undertone in this. You'd be right. Being poor at history but reasonable at vocabulary I took the phrase apart in my head and gave the answer 'A dislike of the clergy'. 'That's right' said Charles. I enjoyed the sense of relief that it would be a lesson or two before my turn came again and, furthermore, I had answered a question on a matter not yet covered. General knowledge demonstrated. Smugness.

Several weeks later, with no recollection of having answered a question correctly in the meantime and having achieved a mark of 5/20 for my first essay, there was a lesson in which the questions were getting nearer. If I was lucky I would be saved by the bell. I was not.

Then came my question. I couldn't believe my ears. 'What is anti-clericalism?' The very same, although this time it was a matter we had covered and I knew a bit more about it than could be achieved by parsing. Nevertheless I gave the same answer as it had worked before. I was shocked to hear 'No, it's more than just a dislike of the clergy, anyone else?'

Although I remained silent at such a brush off my inner monologue was raging. What is the point? Some of us are born to be wrong. I give up. I think I may have resolved that I would lose less face if I answered 'Don't know' to all further questions. Remarkably, history was my best A level and I enjoy reading history now.

There was an English master at KES called Tom Parry. He taught my class English, and history, at O level. Very Welsh. I got good grades in both subjects but he didn't seem to like me. Took every opportunity to belittle me in front of the class and was reluctant to admit I didn't need special measures.

One day he asked us, out of the blue, what we were reading for pleasure. I used to read all the time at home and had always got a novel on the go but the terror of how my personal taste would be received by my friends made my mind go blank. I ended up mentioning a couple of Ian Fleming's James Bond books and was told most people grow out of those in primary school. The Parry plaudits were saved for one who had been reading Dostoevski. KES had that sort of 15 year old.

These stories came back to mind as I read Susan Cain's book 'Quiet Power'. It is a follow-up to her best-selling 'Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking'.

Whilst not an extreme of the type I am introverted by personality. I didn't know that as a teenager although my parents observed I spent a lot of time alone and Mum thought it was odd. Dad didn't. He often took himself away to a quiet corner for a cigarette and a look at the newspaper.

Introverts find it hard to interact in class, are often listening when they don't look as if they are, and hate being jumped on with questions when they are unprepared. Susan Cain's follow up book is about people such as me, growing up. It is aimed at teenagers but has a chapter for parents and one for teachers too. I was the kid who needed time alone after school, or to visit a local, undemanding friend to play football or cricket in the garden, or a board game in winter. Thanks Steve. School was emotionally draining but I didn't know.

Susan Cain sees introversion as a super-power, thinking as desirable and quiet as normal. But if this quote represents you then, however late it is, you might find her two books helpful:

'Sometimes, by the time we think of the thing we truly want to say, the discussion is already over.'

Nobody is more surprised than me that I ended up with a career which involved much public-speaking. The secret, if it is a secret now I'm telling you, is this. We can do it if we're ready and prepared. I now challenge myself to do some talks unprepared without notes. It's still cheating because it is usually on a subject I've been discussing for over 40 years. Hardly unprepared. But straight after a new piece of input I won't know what I think and won't be able to discuss it. But I will be able to lead a discussion and, whilst listening to this, I will clarify my thoughts.

Fine book.

Pants on Fire

I am a liar. I have always been a liar.

That's better. Get it all out there.

Right. To business. You know those personality profile tests you can do? I always come out as highly intuitive. In Myers Briggs terms, if it is N or S I get 30-50 N every time.

My interest in statistics is because it is good for me; they are counter-intuitive and I have to stop and think (favouring T over F it is not all sacrifice). Daniel Kahneman's 'Thinking Fast and Slow' has been a helpful companion to me, reminding me to check my preconceived ideas regularly, challenge assumptions I have made and yet not lose the essential quick-wittedness that helps me get on and get stuff done.

But if you ask me a question - say cheese or ham in your sandwich - I will not think about it. There will be a day for ham and a day for cheese and a day for both and I'll just know. I may decide at the last possible minute, which scares some people. A colleague once asked me in a queue in a sandwich shop what I was going to have and was bothered that with my turn coming next, and before his, I still didn't know. I was almost tempted to ask the assistant to 'Make me a sandwich' on the basis that it was a sandwich shop and I like almost all sandwiches. I order food without over-contemplating and act as if the decision is correct from then on.

If you ask me which way a room should be set up for a meeting I will know and I will tell you. If you ask my why I chose that I will have to look at my decision and work out what reason there is and discover that, intuitively I went through a process of eliminating all the ways it would be wrong for the chairs to face and coming up with an answer. Sometimes all the ways the chairs could face will be wrong in some way so my answer, intuitively grabbed from the sub-conscious shelf, will turn out to be the direction that has the least wrong about it. I have set out rooms a lot. Only occasionally do I re-check the working.

Showing my working involves analysing how I got there.

As a child I used to tell the truth. This got me into trouble:

Parent: Why did you do ... (Insert wrong thing here)?
Me: I don't know.
Parent (or sometimes a teacher): You must know. Everyone knows why they do things.

And so I discovered that life is easier for others if you have a narrative structure. So I invent stories that explain why decisions are right, after I have made them. Since occasionally my decisions are wrong my stories may well be lies.

Never was this more challenging than in the obviously right decision to encourage one of my church's PCCs to spend over half a million pounds on the old rectory next door during a clergy vacancy rather than see it fall into private ownership.

Almost everyone wanted to know the thinking. What was the vision? Why should we do it?

It would never have happened if I, or any of the other intuitives on the team who also got it, had insisted it was because we knew it was right. So visions were cast, stories were told, possibilities were discussed but at the end of the day it was a no-brainer. Even if it turned out we had no use for the building whatsoever we could always sell it, probably for more than we paid for it.

Asking an intuitive to show working is asking them to tell you something that doesn't exist. It is asking them to lie. And we are very good at it. We tell stories to fill the gap between our grasp of reality and yours.

Our stories are excellent because we have much experience. 'Was that true?' No, but the narrative demanded it at that point.

It follows that some of the stories I have told over my life, to show working or explain things, were not true, but with repetition I almost believe them myself.

By the way I don't mind my decisions being challenged. As long as you can explain to me what is wrong with mine and better about yours. And if you're intuitive too? Well we probably won't disagree but if we do we will really enjoy the exploration of the truth, probably over beer.

How do you feel about that? Before you answer take a moment to ponder how much you hated, and continue to hate, the parental/ authority answer to the question 'Why?'

Because I say so.

You always wanted a reason, and always will.

Worship and Personality Type

Using Malcolm Goldsmith's little book Knowing Me Knowing God (in which there is a longer and more complex version of the opening quiz) I produced a short Bible Study on worship and personality type for my small group last night. One or two people have expressed interest so here it is:

Introduction
Get answers to the following questions. Discuss any interesting differences:

1. When listening to a sermon do you prefer:
a) Your heart to be warmed
b) Your head to be challenged

2. When there are periods of silence in services do you:
a) Wish they went on longer
b) Wish they were shorter

3. Do you think the church should proclaim:
a) The unchanging historic faith
b) A faith that requires a different expression in each generation

4. What do you prefer to get out of worship:
a) A variety of colours, shapes, smells and experiences
b) A variety of ideas

5. What do you look for in a minister:
a) Practicality and being down-to-earth
b) Vision and idealism

6. When conflict arises at church do you think:
a) This is an inevitable part of being human
b) This is a regrettable failure of Christian love

7. Are you mainly:
a) Appreciative of your church and its ministry
b) Critical of your church and its ministry

8. A good approach to spirituality is one which addresses the subject in:
a) Considerable depth
b) Considerable breadth

9. Which image of the church do you prefer:
a) A pastoral community
b) A prophetic community

10. Does your Christian faith offer you:
a) Assurance, security and structure
b) Adventure, unpredictability and insecurity

Bible study
Read two key passages:

Romans 12:1-2
Luke 10:38-42

Which one says more to you about worship?
Which do you instinctively prefer?
If Luke, are you more a Mary or a Martha?

Conclusion
Describe a perfect worship service for you.

Which would be better, for everyone to contribute to every service or for each of us to devise a whole one every now and again?

Pray first for our churches and those with responsibility (wardens, clergy, PCC, staff, treasurers, project managers and ministry leaders) before doing our own list.

Block

We have discussed here before the whole problem of writer's block. Some writers just put it down to a lack of discipline; others can only get the words flowing when they are 'in the zone'.

In my ten years producing Bible-teaching resources for CYFA (Church Youth Fellowships' Association) and four years as a part-time freelance writer, I had precious few days when the words didn't flow. I think the sheer joy I felt at finally doing a job where I could sit quietly and write was a great motivator. But it is also true that in both those periods of my life I had other jobs - at CYFA I was a trainer as well as editor and when freelance writing I was a minister at a local church four days a week as well.

Having other occupations for my time gave me a wealth of situations and characters to write about. Not that that sentence convinces.

Why do we restrict the 'blocked' idea to writers? I don't have very much writing to do at the moment. But I do have a number of things I really need to get on with and I'm finding it tough.

I think it might be one of those times where living in the introvert/extrovert borderland leaves me running out of ideas when I spend too much time internally.

This seems to be true because in a couple of sessions with small groups of people yesterday evening I was really extrovert - fired and strengthened by the presence of others in the room.

The best advice I can offer to anyone blocked by a particular task, writing or otherwise, is to spend some time doing something completely unrelated and trying not to think about the blocked thing. It often helps.

Mr Who?

I have never done drugs. OK, OK coffee, tea, alcohol, cigarettes, cigars and a pipe. I think that's it. Never done any of the ones that are illegal although I did start smoking tobacco at an age that would have been dodgy today.

It often surprises people but I never tried cannabis. Ecstasy wasn't around when I was a yoof. There was no temptation to experiment.

I have no tattoos. Vaguely pondered the idea from time to time but never saw any idea I liked the thought of displaying permanently. My body is more like a gallery to me with a regularly changing seasonal exhibition called clothes. So the same argument deals with why nothing is pierced either. That and the dislike, generally, of unnecessary pain.

Mr Nervous?

I get addicted though. To subjects in rotation. To new games. To authors and film directors. Sports.

I recall almost bursting at school when, the night before, a friend had introduced me to a new strategy game. I couldn't wait to get home and play again, and again, and again.

When I finally retire I may get the Subbuteo out once more and play through a league season (10 minute matches - strict rules to keep goals down when playing for both sides).

Or I may do a maths degree. I was good at it once and still love numbers.

Mr Bounce?

I often wonder if this state of affairs is a matter of personality type or simply luck. I read back into my teenage self some of the things I do and prefer today. Today I love solitude but in my teens that was boring. Or was it? I could spend hours in my room playing board games whilst listening to music. Not unhappily. Today is the same.

Mr Quiet?

But I did spend several hours staring out of the window wondering where a girlfriend might come from. Eventually sussed out that in some circumstances you absolutely have to go out and meet people. Now I meet people for a living and can work in a room full of strangers.

Mr Chatterbox?

A history essay used to take two and a half albums - about 100 minutes for 500 words. The music was the only way I could cope. I find it hard to believe that I worked for several years as a writer and turning music off helped me to do 4000 words a day. But I got a history A Level.

Mr Clever?

The thing that most terrified me at school was public speaking - a class presentation aged 17 kept me awake all night. I eliminated any line of work that involved that from my enquiries at an early stage. My teenage self is amazed that I can now stand on a platform and talk to anyone, about anything, without notice or nerves.

Mr Impossible?

I like reading but do it better when in company with one other person who likes reading. Just that brief break every couple of hours to talk about what you are reading or share a drink.

Yesterday morning I wanted to listen to the radio but sensed that Mrs T didn't. She said it was fine to turn it on but after a few minutes I got uncomfortable. I either like doing things alone or in the company of a fellow 'addict'. I hate the thought that I have conscripted someone else into my world; even someone I have been married to for 36 years. (Predictive text just changed 'married' to 'hatred'.)

Which may mean, despite the insensitivity that is the occasional tax the audience pays on wit, I am, to my surprise, quite sensitive. I want to make things better for those who want to be helped, or who don't yet know they are better off with me than without me. As soon as someone comes into the fold that is 'friendship' I, almost perversely, try to put them off by showing them what I am really like unplugged. It keeps the results down to a manageable level.

Mr Mischief?

Over the years fewer than a dozen people have opted to stay close enough for that to happen (family have lost the idea of 'opted'). In fact, helped by this thought from Ian Russell a long time ago, I transition my friends into the 'family' box. It means I make friends in the churches I lead and have no problem with this. I cannot understand those who believe distance should be kept.

Although the idea of specialist clergy has been given a lot of focus in recent years it is being a generalist - able to converse with a variety of people about many subjects - that stands you in good stead. It doesn't mean you need know anything about the subject; just enough to ask the second question and make the other person talk. My own specialism - growing missional Christian communities - is actually a generalism.

Mr Nosey?

Why am I telling you this? Well first and foremost I am telling me this, not you. I am thinking about the ingredients list and methodology that produced the dish that is me.

Secondly I was prompted by one of those twenty questions quizzes on Facebook which asked which Mr Men character you are. I know why I got my result. My answers did not make sense in relation to each other. People who like red as a colour should like garish hats and parties.

One of the strange conclusions of all this is that all the personality and team-type profiles in the world have never improved upon my horoscope. I fit 'Gemini' thoroughly.

I came out as Mr Topsy-Turvy.

I think I will charge myself twenty guineas for the consultation.

Thought for the Day 26th July 2013

Good morning,

 

I don't like people very much.

 

Well that could get a vicar into trouble. But, as with a lot of folk, I have a preference for the inner world over the outer. I am an introvert.

 

So let me explain my opening. I don't like people very much (beat) as a way of re-charging my batteries. I don't do that in company. I need to be alone with a book, a piece of writing paper or a film. I am the one you see happily by himself in the cinema, on a Friday afternoon.

 

The Bible has no concept of a church where people don't meet. There are at least four places where team-work is applauded. Suggestions are made of different gifts and skills that make up an effective working group. Jesus had a bunch of followers.

 

But note this. He had to get away from them, and is described as getting up early in the morning to pray alone in the hills.

 

Mark's gospel tells a story of Jesus coming back from such a quiet time to see huge crowds waiting for healing. In one of his more shocking statements, and he made many, he said 'Let's go somewhere else.'

 

Festivals are great. Be it Olympic crowds or all the Harbour-side stuff this weekend in Bristol. Great entertainment and the buzz of the masses. If we meet there I'm sure I'll like you. But after a while I'll need to escape.

 

So that's enough inter-action for a Friday morning. I'm off for a quiet coffee somewhere to get some energy back before I have to meet people again. How do you re-charge?

Introversion Two

A few days back I posted a link to this excellent post about introverted personality. It received quite a few comments, although if you don't have Twitter or Facebook accounts you may not have seen them all.

To cut a longish story shortish, a fair few of my acquaintances who I suspect have similarly introverted personalities praised the post and suggested that it helped them feel better about themselves.

Michael Stipe once said that his introverted personality made him highly creative but lousy company at dinner parties. Anyone else ever find that the conversation in their head is much better than the one actually happening? That's me in the corner.

Don van Vliet, known to many as the late Captain Beefheart said, 'The way I keep in touch with the world is very gingerly, because the world touches too hard.' I would hazard a guess, from what I know of the good Captain, that he too sought comfort from his inner world.

My new, additional thought is this. Social media has been a wonderful help to me in being in touch with others and touching gingerly. I send out a comment to my fellow introverts and some of them gently engage with it. It's quite a lovely thing. It is like telling the world what is in my head, knowing that most will ignore it but some will stop for a chat from time to time and then leave really quite early.

It's taken me a while to get to that point, realising that there was truth in Henri Nouwen's warning, 'Don't be afraid of the raw material of your lives.'

Evangelism

Evangelism. Do you like the word? At its root it means something like 'good-newsing.' So far so good, but ask anyone who is not a follower of Jesus and they will feel got at by it. It makes those who are being evangelised into a target audience, a potential customer-base and therefore to feel either the victims of advertising or over-zealous selling techniques. I reckon it is a mortally wounded word which can only be used effectively by Christian leaders talking about something they plan to do. It should not be allowed out in public any more. Yes, I am aware that this is public and therefore I am failing to follow my own advice. See this post as an obituary.

Who got it into trouble? Probably street-corner evangelists more than anyone else. Those who scatter-gun the gospel at passers-by in city centres. They hit any given individual only with theoshrapnel. Like telling someone about confectionery by throwing sugar-grains. They make me sad because I believe some of the same things as them.

Our Alpha Course at the pub finished this week. Again I have negotiated the minefield of running a genuine Alpha Course whilst holding back from its more conservative elements. On matters such as the nature of evil, answers to prayer and the work of the Holy Spirit I tend to present, 'Some Christians say this, others say that, what do you think?' I see the course as seeking after truth and allow the guests to seek. Our team consists of a range of theological views. We get on.

Again this week I had to listen to a comment about the clergy. I'm not bragging here although it will come across as such. A member of our course said, 'I didn't think that people like me could talk to vicars.'

Can we take a moment's silence to digest that please? Thank you.

What have we done, what have we done to the idea of ministry as service to the living God, God's hands on earth, intermediaries, helpers that someone, almost certainly representative of a goodly chunk of ordinary folk, might think they couldn't approach us, let alone talk to us?

So all I did over the last eleven weeks was be a bloke, in a pub sitting on a stool talking about Jesus to invited guests and then chatting over a drink in small groups. And it may well be that being accessible rather than clerical was more important than any of the talk content.

Four or five times in the last few years people have taken the trouble, either as I was walking down the street or after a public occasion, to congratulate me on being normal. Regular readers might recall me posting about this. It was what I set out to do twenty six years ago. I wanted to be a vicar without stopping being me. I wanted to stand up in church and say hello the way I normally say hello; to chat after church the way I chat in my lounge and to avoid feeling that an act of worship, after a lively conversation in a vestry, should be introduced in a pompous voice saying 'The hymn two hundred and forty five' or whatever and all personality should be left in the changing rooms.

This ministry lark could be the easiest job in the world. Before we have any chance of doing the complicated business of speaking of God we need to spend a few years demonstrating that those of us who speak of God are ordinary people.

A new style of invitation to church beckons, 'Come and meet our vicar; you'll be amazed how ordinary he is.'

Systematising

Next questionnaire, 'The Systematising Quotient.' Scored 30. This is an average score. Most men score about 30. Hooray. Normal again. No, on thinking about it this means I have an only averagely develped male brain but am virtually not in touch at all with the female side.

Final questionnaire is the test for Asperger Syndrome. Scored 31. This is right at the top of the 'above average' range. The next range up, 32-50 is 'very high'. People with Asperger Syndrome or high-functioning autism score about 35. I don't feel this is making me exceptionally vulnerable telling the world this. Probably because I have no empathy with myself or something. I do feel it explains a lot.

I shall return to my incessant list-making and routine. If anyone has a problem today I will try extra hard to care.

Empathy

I was frustrated at the pseudo-science in 'Men are from Mars; Women are from Venus' so resolved to read a more academic book on the subject. Found 'The Essential Difference' by Simon Baron-Cohen. He discusses and analyses the difference between typically male and typically female brains as the differences, in the main, between empathisers and systematisers. Women tend, with exceptions to empathise; men to systematise. The roots of sexism are in assuming that all men and all women will behave typically.

There are some questionnaires in the book so you can score and assess your own style.

The first questionnaire was about recognising people's feelings from just a photo of their eyes. I scored 28 out of 36 at this, a score that is high in the normal bracket. I am quite good (but not very good) at recognising people's feelings from their eyes. OK so far.

Second test was the Empathy Quotient, to assess how good you are at empathising with other people. The range of scores suggested was:

80 = maximum
64-80 = very high
53-63 = above average
33-52 = average (most women score about 47; most men 42)
0-32 = low (most people with Asperger Syndrome or high-functioning autism score about 20)

I scored 17.

I told Liz who suggested I had become a new sort of super-hero -'Anti-empathy man'. The trouble is that when I hear of danger (this is me taking a funny idea too far) I can't be arsed to do anything about it because I don't care.

Will report back when I have read more.

MBTI

Spent a useful day yesterday with the other members of our church staff team doing teamwork training using the Myers Briggs Type Indicator. It is a good way to get to work better when you have a grip on your colleagues' preferences. We were helped by Catherine Date who runs her own business called CD (Character Dynamics). She is very good at being gentle with those for whom the whole experience is very new. I'd done it twice before. Interesting to see that I have changed from being ENTJ (1989) to INTP (1991) and now INTJ. If you want CD to help your team contact her on catherine.date@btinternet.com.

INTJs tend to focus on the inner world of ideas and impressions and also the future with a view towards patterns and possibilities. We tend to base our decisions on logic and like a planned approach to life. This is mainly what I am like although my preference for J over P is so marginal that I like a flexible, spontaneous, balanced, ordered approach to life most of the time. Go on, make me jump.

This all sits with my personal preference to spend most of the day sitting in my mind-bogglingly untidy-looking yet amazingly ordered study tackling several complex tasks at the same time, enjoying them all but never finishing any.