Along with some 2,399 other bloggers, I attended the BlogHer conference in New York City over the weekend. I’m not going to do a traditional recap; that’s been done elsewhere and with far more detail than I can even remember at this point. I’m going to take a more self-centered me, me, me approach on this post, and then–worry not–I’ll be following up with a post about what I learned at BlogHer about you, you, you.
Okay, so me first.
1. I learned that some things really are worth waiting for.
Even if you wait decades. I first listened to the soundtrack of A Little Night Music when I was 13, and instantly fell in love with it, and with Stephen Sondheim, on whom I’ve had a musical-theatre-geek crush for 20 years now. I never saw the show performed until last week, when Arts Meets Commerce arranged for me and 11 of my closest bloggy friends–oh, who am I kidding, I’d never even met half of them before–to attend a performance of the Broadway revival. And in case you aren’t a huge musical geek like me, you might not know that the performance starred Bernadette Peters and Elaine Stritch.
ZOMG!
Bernadette Peters AND Elaine Stritch!
AHHHH!!!
Our seats were so close, I could see spit flying out of the actor’s mouths when they sang Sondheim’s brilliantly witty and complicated lyrics. And if you are not a huge theatre geek, Sondheim lover, or Stritch-slash-Peters fan like I am, you might not understand why that part was so very very thrilling to me, but that’s OK.
2. What do you think I am, an extrovert? No, really.
So I’ve been struggling–likely more than I ought to–with this question for a good long time. Am I an extrovert or an introvert? The ubiquitous “they” say that introverts are energized by being alone, while extroverts are energized by being around people. But what about people like me? I’m energized by being around people, until I’m not anymore and I just want to escape. I spend half of events like BlogHer hiding in my hotel room and the other half working a crowd in a tutu with a decorated McDonald’s bag on my head (photo courtesy of Dawn Meehan, a fellow author and GoodNites Nite Lite panelist, whom I ran into at least a half dozen times during the conference after never seeing her for more than a minute at a time before).
In the course of one day I went from literally hiding behind my laptop in the very lovely and generous Stacey’s hotel room (since I was rooming with Jennifer off-site), to dishing out hugs and squeals every three seconds in a crowded party, to hanging out in the room of a couple old friends. Suddenly I’d had enough of knowing people, and decided I needed to be anonymous for a while. I accepted a mysterious bedazzled spoon from a fellow blogger with instructions that I should head for the penthouse at a certain address on 54th street. I headed there alone, not knowing a soul once I got there, which was just fine by me. Then I started feeling the need for interaction again, and wound up heading back to the Hilton, where I spent the next hour or four chatting with friends.
Anyway, it got me to thinking, why do I care what type “they” say I am, and do I really need to know this about myself? Perhaps I’m an extrovert with introverted tendencies. Perhaps I’m an introvert with extroverted tendencies. Perhaps God broke the mold after He made me; the point is, what good does it do me to constantly try to analyze my personality type? Whether I’m an extroverted judger or an introverted perceiver or whatever all the rest of them are, do I need to take a test in order to learn what makes me happy, what energizes me, or what drains me?
What do you think? Are you an extrovert, an introvert, a feeler, a judger, a perceiver, an intuit? Do you think knowing helps you cope with your life from day to day? Or do you think your personality “type” is more fluid than that?
|
|
|
|
|
 |
{ 18 comments }
