Agreed. While I maintain a balance of daily calls to folks to just kick back and talk, itās been a stark reminder of how much of our society is geared around extroversion. Iāve been focusing on my writing and playing Dark Souls.
OP, perhaps videogames (especially MMORPGs, where social systems are part of the design) might help? I canāt begin to describe the fun Iāve had or the friendships Iāve made over a World of War raft raid with the gang on TeamSpeak / Discord and a few beers at hand.
Thanks @matthias I found your comment right on point and in line with something that I read in a book called Sapiens (Yuval Noah Harari), their thesis is that Sapiens had a large brain, but also other humans had a large brain, we were able to develop a language that was better on sharing abstract thinking and concepts.
For them, and I guess in the back of my brain as an extrovert also for me, this ability to elaborate concepts was the key to be able to cooperate in a scale that was impossible for other groups, on the scale of thousand, instead of the hundreds that a tribe could reach at its maximum before breach out.
In their words:
āThe truly unique feature of our language is not its ability to transmit information about men and lions. Rather, itās the ability to transmit information about things that do not exist at all. [ā¦] Legends, myths, gods and religions appeared for the first time with the Cognitive Revolution.[ā¦]
You will never convince a monkey to give you a banana by promising him limitless bananas after death in monkey heaven. But why is it important? [ā¦] fiction enabled us not merely to imagine things, but to do so collectively. [ā¦] Myths give Sapiens the unprecedented ability to cooperate flexibly in large numbers.ā
Probably Harari is an extrovert and there are bias at work here, because I totally agree with your point that this ability of abstraction gave us also science that is doesnāt have to be social in order to evolve (or maybe yes? see the scientific method).
Another thought that your comment sparked is this: maybe I like to be with other people also because I found very helpful to ask questions as a shortcut to knowledge, point of view and stories. I can learn a lot from books as wellā¦if I read Madame Bovary I will learn a lot and probably very deeply, but the fact that with humans I can follow up and we can have an exchange, it is much faster but probably less deep. What do you think about it, are people the vector of something that if we donāt interact we are missing?
Thanks @johncoate, this year I got more involved with the school teachers community and I have to say that having a lot of Zoom was not a problem for me, most of the time is a way to supply for social interactions although always mediated by work.
Itās interesting that you talk about walks and chores, since they seem the opposite of being social, actually they are the definition of being alone, but maybe there is something on enjoying actively the lonely time that then create a better balance? Why is that you like about these alone time?
Thanks @nadia you made me think about this electronic bug that I got from an artist/friend of mine (Lucas Yasunaga - Electronic Entomology). Itās electronic so there is no demand of attention, but the fact that is doing strange sounds, always different (itās solar powered) created a relationship that is really soothing.
Also, you know you can always just pick up the phone and call and we can chat about all kinds of stuff, right? I think you have my number. If not tell me and Iāll pm it
First of all, I donāt have a choice and I need to exercise and as you know, I live in a place with beautiful walks. But, beyond that, I am going to be 70 years old in a month. I have already had, and survived, two kinds of lethal cancer. I am much closer to the end of my life than the mid-point. So, aware of that, I have felt for some years that I need to better develop my inner life so that I can better understand this life that I have been granted, and what it perhaps means. Over time I have found that I enjoy my own company.
In terms of the Meyers-Briggs typology I am an INTJ/eNTJ, these months likely INTJ. I miss the āeā; noticable, because I recognize much I talk when meeting people, in particular āstrangersā. Hence, my first hypothese that āintrovertsā cope better, at least more ānaturallyā with confinement.
More importent, however, for the questions that @matteo_uguzzoni asked, I notice that the mind is takeing over. Being deprived from habitual inputs the mental processing of the actually sensed environement gets enriched (= āwetware is enriching the virtual realityā).The internal talk/story in the/my mind (for example when writing) gets an additional āvisual supportā, that is, a kind of scene is depictured, more dreamed than even fuzzily āseenā). Hypothese: It is the intuitive bit (of INTJ) that plays its role more prominetly because its counterweight āsensingā is deprieved from input. Subsequently, along these lines of thought, the āthinking -judgingā part of an INTJ-profile seems to help in the given circustance: analyis what is to be done and rule-based operations. Subsequently, my ā[reserach] question(s)ā: If confined by the pandemic, does it help to be an INTJ. How do differnt Meyers-Briggs type cope with confinement?
Back to Matteoās question; I spend many ours working (alone!) at my desk on some drafting projects. Not many video sessions. Nobody else but my wife is calling for coffeeā¦ In that (lonely / peaceful) situation, sometime, I start a video session and send a link (by WhatsApp) for it to a friend or an acquaintance. Once while he/she comes āinto the officeā and we have a chat. Often nobody comes in, but it feels like having an open office door.If my work demands it, I close the door (= switch the room off).
I feel similarly. As an introvert, I must admit that the situation has been somewhat heavenly for the most part in terms of decreased strain. I never get the alone time that I need in the flow of normal life and feel exhausted at the end of every day from all the social interaction. Iāve gotten to do so much writing and reading because of the space, time and energy to think. I never get bored or lonely.
What I miss is the travel and daily non-intensive interactive motion, where I feel like Iām alone around people and feeling the changed vibe of new places ā getting coffee at a coffeeshop, people watching, experiencing live music, wandering around a museum or art exhibition-- where I donāt have to put effort into social interaction but I can experience the flow of the world. And I do miss my one-on-ones with close friends (no small talk necessary, more of the āsharing abstract ideas and conceptsā that @matteo_uguzzoni talks about. I find that I can do some of this by sharing a poem or song Iāve discovered that I know a friend would like) and more low-key or ambient sociality (playing games, both sports and board games, with people around, or playing music with friends). But itās a manageable form of missing, I donāt mind the quiet and could do this for another year if we had to.
I find that the flip of this, though, is that I have to work a lot harder to maintain social ties during the pandemic, since the zoom call is quite labour-intensive socially. So when I do want to talk or hang out with people, itās harder in this situation than just getting coffee and going for a walk with someone, going to listen to some music (really miss live shows), having a small group of friends over for dinner and games or kicking a football around. Those forms of sociality are hard in a pandemic.
@yudhanjaya, my partner has been getting back into WoW, something he loved as a kid, and itās been fun to watch since the world is so rich visually. I was a Neverwinter Nights kid myself and last time I had a lot of downtime I played through some of my old favourites from when I was younger ā Portal 1&2, Bioshock, Half Life 1&2. One of my friends and I love playing Towerfall together which is always super fun. Iām thinking about starting some newer ones now. I think video games are an awesome way of experiencing the feeling of being in a new world/space when you canāt travel (and even when you can). I hate the grind though so I need specific games to not get overwhelmed by frustration Iām more in it for the world and the story. I have a crew I play D&D with and thatās good imaginative fun as well ā definitely a form of collective storytelling.
Itās nice in this day and age that itās easy to connect with friends via text, so having a little check in via text is something I do fairly often, especially if Iām reminded of something one of them likes. Memes are always good form of communication
@matteo_uguzzoni, I am an introvert but I like random surprise chats, particularly from you lovely chatty extroverts, so also please feel free to call same goes to all of you. I always love talking to @johncoate for example because it feels totally effortless.
Here is California we are going into a pretty hard lockdown period right at the holiday season. Hoping we collectively get through it. The disfunction evident in the American political world plays out on the street with no consistent response to the virus. And money being withheld for political reasons from those who most need it to get through this.
Nice! I played NN, the Portals, and Bioshock. Iāve got a Steam library full of stuff that I really want to play and should play, but this year has been so much catch-up work that I havenāt been able to finish anything other than The Outer Worlds. Cyberpunk is downloading right now.
Before social distancing, I was an extremely active person in the local community, participating in many events and also organizing my own creative networking. That year was a rollercoaster of emotions, but more specifically at the beginning of December, I returned to play video-games as I didnāt in many years. Mainly classics that I have never finished like Bioshock (thanks HD Remaster version) and narrative ones like The Sinking City. I feel like donāt know how to re-approximate with my friends, itās a rusty sensation, the virtual environment seems to me very much like a work commitment, or a warning that we cannot organize ourselves together in the same environment. The thing I still miss the most is to hug the people that I love, but Iām positively looking forward it.
Thank you for the registration on edgeryders @ticon ! Hope our community will be useful for you for the networking and sharing your experience. What are you now working on personally? Can you give us an example of how the difficulty to organize manifests itself in your activities and how are you going about solving it?
I am exactly with you on this, @johncoate. The reason why I never feel bored or lonely is because my mind is constantly looking to make meaning of things, it is continuously in a reflective mode. So walking or small house distractions are good to allow for some activity thatās not static, but where your mind can wander (and relax as well).
What I miss is the travel and daily non-intensive interactive motion, where I feel like Iām alone around people and feeling the changed vibe of new places ā getting coffee at a coffeeshop, people watching, experiencing live music, wandering around a museum or art exhibition-- where I donāt have to put effort into social interaction but I can experience the flow of the world.
Then again, there are two things that never allow me to grow consciously lonely (perhaps loneliness does have some long arms and by the time you realise it, youāre already lonely or worse, depressedā¦ so letās stick to the conscious level). They could be āa solutionā to loneliness, but also maybe a cause to other afflictions down the lineā¦ so this is not advice, this is just personal experience.
keeping busy, in my case with a lot of work, but could also be the equivalent of introvertsā passions that @matthias is talking aboutā¦
having a significant other very close, so the brain gets its oxytocin and dopamine that support the feeling of being connected and staying hopeful.
and last time I had a lot of downtime I played through some of my old favourites from when I was younger ā Portal 1&2, Bioshock, Half Life 1&2. One of my friends and I love playing Towerfall together which is always super fun. Iām thinking about starting some newer ones now. I think video games are an awesome way of experiencing the feeling of being in a new world/space when you canāt travel (and even when you can). I hate the grind though so I need specific games to not get overwhelmed by frustration 
Iām more in it for the world and the story. I have a crew I play D&D with and thatās good imaginative fun as well ā definitely a form of collective storytelling.
same goes to all of you. I always love talking to 