Are you an introvert or an extrovert? For most of my life I’ve been an introvert, by which I mean crowds drain my energy instead of feeding it. An extrovert walks out of a crowded room recharged. I walk out empty.
For years I preferred my own space, my apartment, writing, hobbies, reading, movies. I wasn’t afraid of the outside world. I simply preferred my own. I skipped the parties in high school and college and avoided work events whenever I could. I never understood how extroverts could be so social.
How grief pushed me deeper into introversion
Within a year of getting married, my wife’s asthma took hold.
She wouldn’t stop smoking, developed COPD, and eventually needed daily IV treatments to stay alive. Caring for her while holding down a demanding job pushed me hard into isolation. Twelve and a half years into our marriage, she passed away, and her death drove me deeper still, into a painful shyness I’d never known before. I’d folded almost entirely inward. I didn’t like grief, and I didn’t want to be shy anymore. Most people don’t know that shyness and introversion are different. Shyness is a negative, and introversion isn’t.
How a camera pulled me back out
I decided to fix it. After photographing every national and state park in the southwestern United States, I started going to renaissance festivals with my camera. I took thousands of pictures of people, over a thousand a day, with a personal record of 5,430 in a single day. Without quite planning it, I began using the camera as a way to talk to people. I could face a camera when I couldn’t yet face a person, and the camera became the bridge between me and everyone else. (See also Darrell Stern on why everyone on camera is already acting)
The renaissance faire community accepted me as one of their own. That was exactly what I needed. I started photographing the belly dancers and, before long, became one of the best-known belly dance photographers in Southern California, shooting more than twelve hundred shows and events. What does that have to do with becoming a writer and ghostwriter? More than it seems. Composing a scene through a camera taught me to compose scenes in writing.
I learned about foreground and background, and about the small details that make or break an image, and every bit of it applies to writing both fiction and nonfiction. The camera did more than make me more social. It taught me to see.
I could face a camera when I couldn’t yet face a person, and the camera became the bridge between me and everyone else.
As one of the photographers, I got behind the scenes at places most people can’t get into. San Diego Comic-Con draws more than 130,000 attendees, and badges typically sell out within about an hour. I got in as a photographer. I was hired to shoot the Labyrinth of Jareth Masquerade Ball in Los Angeles too, a costume-only fantasy ball full of actors, actresses and makeup artists dressed to the nines, some in costumes costing thousands of dollars to make.
I was also the photographer for a mermaid pageant in Las Vegas, with 50 mermaids. I enjoy being the photographer, and the role got me out of being shy. Along the way I even crossed an item off my bucket list: lunch with a supermodel who was a big name years ago.
My take
Introvert and extrovert are labels, and I wouldn’t let either one decide what you’re allowed to do. A camera got me talking to people when I couldn’t face them on my own, and it taught me to see a scene before I ever wrote one. Find your own bridge. Pick up a tool that gives you a reason to walk into the room. You’ll still be an introvert. You’ll also be out in the world.
How can you understand yourself beyond introvert and extrovert labels?
I don’t think the introvert and extrovert labels explain much on their own, and I’m suspicious of anyone who treats them as a life sentence. Getting past them takes more than sitting and thinking. Look at your own reactions with curiosity instead of judgment, and over time your real inclinations and triggers come into view. Listen to friends and family, because they see things you can’t, and remember they’re looking through their own lens too.
You’re still the best judge of your own character. What I’d push hardest is stepping outside the familiar with a new hobby, a new place, or a shift in routine. Those situations show you how you adapt and what you like when the usual script is gone, and I think people who never test themselves that way end up living inside a label somebody else handed them.
The labels give you a basic frame. Curiosity, honest feedback, and a willingness to try new things fill in the rest. I went from a shut-in with a camera I hid behind to someone who talks to strangers for a living, and the change started the moment I decided the label didn’t have to be permanent.
| Approach | What to do | What it shows you |
|---|---|---|
| Watch your own reactions | Look at them with curiosity instead of judgment. | Your real inclinations and triggers come into view. |
| Listen to friends and family | Hear what they see that you can’t. | An outside view, through their own lens. |
| Step outside the familiar | Try a new hobby, a new place, or a shift in routine. | How you adapt and what you like without the usual script. |
| Find your own bridge | Pick up a tool that gives you a reason to walk into the room. | For me a camera made talking to people possible. |
I lost a job I wanted because I was too chicken to talk to people. Don’t Live in Fear is my book about the walls we build and how to get past them.
Frequently Asked Questions
- Comic-Con San Diego 2020 Badges Sell Out Within an Hour, Times of San Diego
