Introverts

Teambuilding for introverts

Paddy K Life , ,

About twenty years ago I walked on fire. This was part of a weekend away with work, doing teambuilding or icebreaking or whatever. We didn’t think the fire-walking would happen, but it did. Burning coals were laid out in a shallow trench by a trained professional (I mean, I assume he was, nobody really checked), shoes came off, and across the burning coals we stumbled. And along with that came a weekend of socialising, all with the intention of making us all feel like a company.

Did it? I guess. I got a great anecdote out of it, at least. However, all teambuilding has an inbuilt bias: it’s based on the extrovert view of the world being the normal one, and that quiet people (introverts) just need a little fire-walking and a good injection of extrovert mojo to “bring them out of their shells”, the poor bastards. Allowing us all to mingle, brainstorm and smalltalk together, forever.

An AI’s terrifying interpretation of “Happy introverts”

Being an introvert, especially in a company setting, is often viewed as a problem, as something that needs to be fixed. Which is evident in official company events, all of which are geared towards the extroverts. Music! Noise! Things happening! Partying! And talking and talking and talking…

It would be nice if, for a change, a company event was aimed at introverts. Some suggestions:

The read-in: Instead of going to a loud, alcohol fuelled location where we have to mingle all night, how about we hire a library and have a nice book-reading evening? Tea is provided.

The silent retreat: A weekend where we walk around in silence, in some nice old monastery, and nod serenely to each other in the corridors and silently examine the flowers.

The long-distance ramble: A hearty walk across some wild location, the wind in our faces, with a good podcast playing, where the chances of bumping into another workmate are small.

The individual workshop: Instead of having to work in a messy group where the loudest person gets their way, you complete a task by yourself and get an AI with a calm voice to present it for you.

Those are my suggestions. Do you think they sound terrible and basically infringe on your human rights? Then you know how introverts feel when faced with another loud mingle. You’re welcome.

/ Paddy

*Clearly, I’m mostly joking here. Mostly…

Context in cave art

Paddy K Culture, Obscura , ,

Cave painting are pretty amazing: art made by humans who were basically the same as us, but living in what is essentially a totally different world. In the last few years, a new — and when you think about it, pretty obvious — way of seeing them has emerged. And it’s all to do with fire.

For years, researchers have been clambering into these deeps caves to catalog cave art, blazing bright lamps at them to capture every detail. Some of the drawings were odd — bison with eight legs or several tails, drawings of the same animal overlapping. But hey, these were cave people, maybe they were just shite at drawing. And then, not very long ago, someone had an idea.

These deep-cave drawings were always made in flickering light, either from torches or small fires. So what happens if they were viewed in the same way? Since open flame couldn’t be used, in case the ancient art was damaged, special lamps were developed to simulate the light and flicker of flame. And then — wow! For the first time in thousands of years, these drawings came to life. Literally.

In turned out that many of the drawings had been made so that the uneven flicker of open flame would cause them to “animate”. The light, flickering across the uneven stone, highlights different parts of the images at different times, giving an effect of motion. Tails swish, animals run. It wasn’t, in fact, that stone-age people painted bison with eight legs because they were idiots, it’s that these extra legs, in flicking firelight, making it seem like the animal is running, and alive. Overlapping outlines became a charging beast. By taking the art of its context, we had missed the most interesting thing about it.

Regarding cave art, another question always comes up (in fact it comes up in this article): why did they paint them far, far inside a cave, in a place where a substantial effort would be needed to even see them? As an introvert, it’s obvious to me — because they wanted to get the fuck away from the noise and activity of a busy clan and to a place where nobody could disturb them. Where they could focus on what they were doing without having to listen to some arsehole going on and on about the latest berries, or admiring someone’s carved stone, or enduring endless smalltalk about the bloody weather.

When you want to see cave art in the proper way, use a flame. And when you want a question answered about silent, hidden places and why people would bother to go there, ask an introvert.

/ Paddy