My name is Lauren, and I’m an introvert.

Saying those words has an AA-like confessional quality to it – people who get the whole introvert/extrovert thing respect the self-knowledge and boundary-drawing required. Others eye me with suspicion or pity, associating the label with social awkwardness, unfriendliness, or Unabomber-like antisocial tendencies. Still others, who have noticed that I like people, possess social skills, and tend to talk a mile a minute about things that interest me, simply don’t believe me.

It’s not surprising that introverts are misunderstood – they’re outnumbered by extroverts 4 to 1.  Research suggests that the introvert/extrovert tendency is inborn, and that the ratio holds true throughout the world and even into the animal kingdom (a survival trait for the species, perhaps – or even the planet). In humans, extroverts traditionally have been the warriors, hunters, empire-builders, and entrepreneurs. Introverts have been the sages, scholars, historians, inventors, artists, mystics – and writers. They’re the Merlins rather than the King Arthurs, the memory-keepers, the contemplatives, the advisors. The ones who say “hold back” when the conquerors say “go forward.” The ones who say, “Look what happened last time,” or “Look what might happen, if we’re not careful,” or “Let’s take a minute to think this through.”

Extroverts go through life casting their nets wide – seeking out many experiences, activities and relationships. They operate primarily through the sympathetic (active, throttle-up) function of the nervous system, and thrive on noise and hubbub and Things Going On. Multiple activities, conversations, and sensory experiences charge up their batteries and give their brains happy hits of dopamine. Lock them in a room alone, and they grow depressed and drained.

Introverts approach life more vertically than horizontally. Our relationships may be fewer and deeper, our approach to life more contemplative. We’re susceptible to sensory overload. (Introvert test: How long can you stay at a crowded nightclub or wander through IKEA without getting exhausted and glassy-eyed?) Our predominant neural pathways are longer than extroverts’, and stimulated by different brain chemicals, so it takes us more time to process information and to formulate thoughts. With the parasympathetic (resting, throttle-down) system dominant, the same noise and chatter and interruptions that jazz up our extroverted friends bleed the energy out of us at an alarming rate, and the only way to recharge is to Make Everyone Go Away.

Our culture values the extrovert. We’re “supposed” to be busy, active, outgoing, multi-tasking, able to work without rest, go without sleep, and, thanks to better and better technology, be available and eager for interruptions from all people at all times. Our economy and our social systems are built on more, better, faster – and introverts are constantly pressured to “keep up” or lose out.

Until recently, the writing world has been one of the few places dominated by introvert values: contemplation, the search for depth and meaning, the ability to sit alone in a room for hours at a time. The luxury of shaping and re-shaping our words, at our own pace, without anyone interrupting or impatiently changing the subject. Allowing thoughts and images emerge from deep wells of mind and imagination. Inviting and courting the muses.

It’s a way of being that’s uneasy with focus on quantity and the bottom line. It doesn’t benefit from pushing harder, from multitasking, from efficiency studies or increased production.

Lately, however, the extroverted norm has been creeping into the writing world. Daily blogging. Twittering. Social networking. Creating a platform, responding individually to readers, forming multiple communities and relationships. I’ve got nothing against any of these things, or against writers who do them. (Notice me blogging as we speak.) The Internet has created many wonderful opportunities to bring readers and writers together. The problem comes when we let an extroverted mentality pressure us into allowing these activities to dominate the way we order our writing lives.

It’s not just that most introverts don’t like to deal with interruptions and multiple tiny projects and schedules stuffed with short bursts of this and that. They can’t. Literally. It’s not the way they’re made. Each of us has only so much creative energy. Perhaps we only have so many daily words. How much of our creative energy, our daily words, are we siphoning off into All the Things We Have to Do to Make It as a Writer? How much of a toll is all this extroverting taking on introverted writers’ bodies and brains? Can we afford to let well-meaning extroverts dictate our creative lives?

As introverts, we have to stop thinking of ourselves as failed extroverts. We need to value our purpose as memory-keepers and visionaries, as mirrors and interpreters of the human condition. We need to give our stories and essays and poems room to grow, and ourselves the outer and inner space to examine life and the world, to turn it over in our minds, to let the words and images well up. We need to think about how much energy we’re wasting, bowing to the pressure to “get out there.” If we don’t stand up for ourselves, it won’t be long before we’re all so busy “connecting” that we’ve stopped actually writing.

There are words that scatter wide, and words that go deep. Words that skim the surface, and words that examine the facets of our lives, that draw us in and point the way to something beyond the surface, leading us to art, to the numinous, to the soul. We’re all free to choose where our words come from, and where they go.

Choose.