{"id":3693,"date":"2013-09-12T20:54:51","date_gmt":"2013-09-13T01:54:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/?p=3693"},"modified":"2013-09-12T21:05:29","modified_gmt":"2013-09-13T02:05:29","slug":"introverts-lemons-and-freckles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/?p=3693","title":{"rendered":"Introverts, Lemons and Freckles"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was going thru an interesting article on the neuroscience of introversion<\/a> recently. There have been a surprising number of brain studies which well establish that the brains of introverts and extroverts operate quite differently. One side effect: extroverts are found to be “happier”. Well, why not, America is an extrovert culture, and those who go with the flow generally have an easier time of it. Personally, I feel more “fulfilled” as an introvert, even if my life isn’t one big smile.<\/p>\n

Another interesting fact about introverts: our brain reacts more sensitively to certain physical stimuli. One such stimuli is lemon juice. Various tests have shown that introverts salivate quite a bit more<\/a> then extroverts in response to lemon juice in the mouth. Actually, I do rather enjoy licking fresh-cut lemons (when no one else is around and only I will use them). It’s interesting that extroverts can’t easily turn a sour lemon into a pleasurable experience, as the introvert within me can.<\/p>\n

This all reminds me of an old episode of “The Little Rascals<\/a>“, one that I watched many times when growing up (one of the pleasures of summer vacation as a child was getting up around 8, shuffling to the kitchen for a bowl of cold milk and cereal, then going to the living room and watching The Little Rascals for an hour or so before deciding what backyard or neighborhood adventures would be pursued that day). The show in question<\/a> turned out to be Season 13, Episode 1, first shown in the movies in August, 1934 (by the late 1940s these moved over to TV, which they were perfect for). This episode involved a radio talent show for children, where Spanky, Alfalfa and the gang showed up with a musical band (“the International Silver String Submarine Band”) and wanted to get a chance to play. But the snooty guy in charge had better, more cultured child acts to put on. One of those acts was “Little Leonard”, who did a trumpet solo of “My Wild Irish Rose”.<\/p>\n

The kids in the Submarine Band were hanging out in the audience while Leonard was blowing his horn, and one of them pulled out a bag of cut lemons. He gave a lemon-half to the kid next to him, saying “want a lemon, it’s good for your freckles”. (Interestingly, lemons turn out to be good for getting rid of freckles<\/a>.) So the two kids are sucking away on lemon halfs, and Leonard starts having problems holding his tune. Finally he is blowing nothing more than random notes and has to be gently escorted off the stage. Only in recent years have we realized that Leonard must have been quite an introvert!!! (Yes, any kid who would master “My Wild Irish Rose” would have to be the quiet type).<\/p>\n

Of course, the International Silver String Submarine Band finally got its chance just as the sponsor of the show was ready to give up on it, and their rousing version of “Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze” saved the day. But it would be another 50 years or so until neurological research would uncover the mechanism which brought Little Leonard down. Recall that he was only watching someone else eat lemons, not eating them himself. But by the 1980’s, scientists determined that our brains contain very active “mirror neurons<\/a>“, which allow us to virtually feel what we imagine the person that we are observing is feeling. So, the same neurons that would be triggered by lemon juice on the tongue go off simply by intently watching someone else licking a lemon. <\/p>\n

And thus, sensitive Leonard bombed out and the extroverted Silver String Submarine guys had a happy time of it. But I’m sure that Leonard went on to live a fulfilled, meaningful life. In the end, extroverts experience life as a half-filled glass of lemonade; but introverts figure out how to take the lemons along the way and make the best of them. My mouth waters just thinking about it!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was going thru an interesting article on the neuroscience of introversion recently. There have been a surprising number of brain studies which well establish that the brains of introverts and extroverts operate quite differently. One side effect: extroverts are found to be “happier”. Well, why not, America is an extrovert culture, and those who […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,22],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3693"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3693"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3693\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3700,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3693\/revisions\/3700"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}