1% Smarter Newsletter No. 12
What I'm reading, listening to, and learning from the week ending 2/20/22
Last summer, on a visit seeing friends in Colorado, I read Susan Cain’s book Quiet. At a remote cabin in the Rockies, I came to a realization that had eluded me ever since childhood: there is nothing wrong with being an introvert.
I had striven to effect a gregarious personality for most of my life up until then. To me, the labels “introvert” and “extrovert” were not neutral. I equated the former with being anti-social, friendless, socially inept. An outcast. A loner. A loser. Extroverts, on the other hand, seemed to have the most fun (and the most friends). A middle school teacher provoked mild panic in me when he told me humans are social beings who are meant to surround themselves with friends and family. “But what if I prefer spending most of my time alone?” I thought. Later in adulthood, I would use alcohol to mask my inherent introversion, which was not conducive with the adventure-seeking social life I assumed a successful twentysomething should have. Clearly, this was not a recipe for a healthy relationship with alcohol, so I quit drinking in 2018.
The following chart has floated around social media and Reddit, typically accompanied by a comment to the effect of, “Isn’t it sad we spend so much time alone as we age?”
What was so novel about Cain’s book is that it shattered this illusion. Introversion is no better or worse a trait than having brown hair or being a night owl. Introverts tend to be better listeners, deeper thinkers and conversers, more capable of forming lasting relationships, and more detail-oriented than extroverts. They are capable of great achievements without needing to bask in the spotlight. Cain used the example of Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr. as an introvert/extrovert tandem whose respective strengths enabled them to achieve more than either could have on their own.
So I was dismayed when I read this week’s featured content, an article in The Atlantic by Olga Khazan, in which she attempts to change her personality to make herself “happier.” One of the key traits she aims to correct is her tendency towards introversion. Rather than embrace this side of personality, she picks up improv classes and attempts to chat up strangers at a bar. By the end of the three-month experiment, she scores marginally higher on the “extroversion” scale of her personality test, but seems to accept herself for who she is. To which I say, good! I am all for self-improvement, but introversion is not something that needs to be improved upon.
💡 Featured Content
My top picks this week
📄 I Gave Myself Three Months to Change My Personality by Olga Khazan
👨💻 Tech
📄 Peloton’s New C.E.O. on the Tough Road Ahead by Andrew Ross Sorkin and Lauren Hirsch
🖥 Web3
📄 Founding vs. Inheriting by Balaji Srinivasan
💰 Money & Investing
📄 How Do Investors Fail? by Nick Maggiulli
📄 Is Housing a Good Investment? by Ben Carlson
🏛 Government and Policy
🎧 The Future of American Democracy by Sam Harris, Anne Applebaum, David Frum, Barton Gellman, and George Packer
🎨 The Arts
📺 Succession on HBO
🌐 Miscellaneous
📄 Putting Ideas into Words by Paul Graham