This is just to say...

In fact, I have no confessions to make about raiding the icebox, whatever William Carlos Williams may expect; and "this" is not really "just to say" because this article on introverts says everything on it's own. The "science" he mentions may or may not be valid, but either way the symptoms described are right on.

Or perhaps, since I can never really resist saying something, no matter how stringently I insist upon my right to remain silent... I have to admit that despite my enjoyment of the article, I laugh when the writer concludes:

 It can be terribly destructive for an Introvert to deny themselves in order to get along in an Extrovert-Dominant World. Like other minorities, Introverts can end up hating themselves and others because of the differences. If you think you are an Introvert, I recommend you research the topic and seek out other Introverts to compare notes. The burden is not entirely on Introverts to try and become "normal." Extroverts need to recognize and respect us, and we also need to respect ourselves.

Oh the pain and tragedy! Another misunderstood minority group! Let me ally myself with them since I, like all white people with sufficient resources to even think about this sort of thing really feel bad about what happened to the Native Americans and also blame myself for all racism. So if now I get to be part of a minority group, yay! Oh the joy! Oh happy fault that can bring so much joy and peace...

Um, yes. Either way, much as it would be nice to have not spent my teenage years being known as "the smart one who's too good to talk to the rest of us", it's also been nice to be inadvertently compelled by people who don't understand introverts (as in, most people) to just do what's uncomfortable at times and spend a little more social time. Fatigue is not actually a lethal affliction; at least not more than water is a Dangerous Substance to Ingest.

Incidentally, as much as this article and another recent one I saw on the BBC news website were written in good humor, one reads things like "minorities", "difficulty", and "chemical in brain/body" and one is struck by dark premonitions of a time when introversion too might be treated as a medicable affliction. Which would be yet another step down the insidious road of making everyone truly "equal" by making them identical (thank you Madeleine L'Engle for having dramatized that distinction so many years ago): "Your condition is unusual from our perspective and difficult from yours. Here. Take a pill." I jest, of course, but if you take the contemporary logic of medication to its conclusion, it makes sense.