but can introverts be exuberant, too? [YES!!!]
a review full of interesting comments by William Kowinski, the author of The Malling of America
Exuberance : The Passion for Life
by Kay Redfield Jamison
KNOPF; 405 PAGES, $24.95
click book cover to order from amazon.com
... Jamison explores the idea and its implications mostly through people. Many of these exuberant achievers (and fictional characters) are familiar, and they are all appropriately fascinating -- for creating fascination is one of the things that exuberance does.
"I believe exuberance is incomparably more important than we acknowledge, " she writes. "Exuberant people take in the world and act upon it differently than those who are less lively and engaged. They hold their ideas with passion and delight, and they act upon them with dispatch. ... Exuberance is a peculiarly pleasurable state, and in that pleasure is power."
- continually renewed fascination, joy and love.
- natural
- found in the play of animals
- basic human activities, such as dance
- has survival value, especially for the whole
- is contagious
- can energize group endeavors to heights of creativity and performance
- can help overcome doubts and obstacles
This book seems an outgrowth of Jamison's earlier Touched with Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament. She sees exuberance within a dynamic continuum, with dangers at both ends. "Enthusiasm shares a border with fanaticism, and joy with hysteria; exuberance lives in uncomfortable proximity to mania." Ultimately, it is the effective continuum that counts. "Our species, like most, is well served by a diversity of temperaments, a variety of energies and moods."
Exuberance invites excess, so cautions are appropriate. Jamison is perhaps too quick to identify exuberance with extraversion, either as a Jungian category or even in its popular sense as an outgoing personality. The great 19th century scientist Michael Faraday is one of her examples of an exuberant teacher, but Jung classifies him as an introvert. [emphasis mine]
end of quotation from Kowinski
I found this comment of particular interest. "While exuberance may be mysteriously inborn, it can be either nurtured or discouraged. It's striking how many exuberant achievers in this book recall a childhood of unstructured play, in the embrace of nature."
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