Friday Jumble

Katie Davies asked her readers what their all-time favorite television theme song was.  Mine is the theme from The Courtship of Eddies' Father.  Are any of you old enough to remember that show?  I'm barely old enough.  I remember watching re-runs of it as a kid.

Yesterday I was thinking about this song.  I wonder how it is that I can remember the tunes and lyrics perfectly to songs I haven't heard in thirty years or more, but I can't remember things that happened a week ago. 

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I read in the paper this morning that there is a lazuli bunting in Wellfleet on Cape Cod.  I would like to go and see it, but it is a long drive from here.  However, a person drove in from Pennsylvania to see it, which is a much longer drive.  I wonder if it was worth it; I bet it was.  

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A book that I requested a few weeks ago was waiting for me at the library today. It's called, Quiet:  The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking, by Susan Cain   I read this in the introduction:

...The single most important aspect of personality--the "north and south of temperament," as one scientist put it--is where we fall on the introvert-extrovert spectrum.  Our place on this continuum influences our choice of friends and mates, and how we make conversation, resolve differences, and show love.  It affects the careers we choose and whether or not we succeed in them.  It governs how likely we are to exercise, commit adultery, function well without sleep, learn from our mistakes, place big bets in the stock market, delay gratification, be a good leader, and ask "what if".*  

...Yet today we make room for a remarkably narrow range of personality styles.  We're told that to be great is to be bold, to be happy is to be sociable.  We see ourselves as a nation of extroverts--which means that we've lost sight of who we really are.  Depending on which study you consult, one third to one half of Americans are introverts--in other words, one out of every two to three people you know.

...If these statistics surprise you, that's probably because so many people pretend to be extroverts.  

...It makes sense that so many introverts hide even from themselves.  We live with a value system that I call the Extrovert Ideal--the omnipresent belief that the ideal self is gregarious, alpha, and comfortable in the spotlight...We like to think that we value individuality, but all too often we admire one type of individual--the kind who's comfortable "putting himself out there."  

...Introversion--along with its cousins sensitivity, seriousness, and shyness--is now a second-class personality trait, somewhere between a disappointment and a pathology.  

...But we make a grave mistake to embrace the Extrovert Ideal so unthinkingly.  Some of our greatest ideas, art and innovation...came from quiet people.

*Answer key:  exercise: extroverts; commit adultery: extroverts;  function well without sleep: introverts; learn from our mistakes: introverts; place big bets: extroverts; delay gratification: introverts; be a good leader: in some cases introverts, in other cases extroverts, depending on the type of leadership called for; ask "what if" introverts.  

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Besides going to the library, this day was filled with other odd errands like getting my blood drawn to check my iron levels,  taking my car to the shop to fix a tire, and stopping by the mall to buy chocolate hearts for next week.  It was great to be out and about today; it felt like spring.  But, tomorrow--tomorrow we're expecting some snow.