Linus has the X Factor

One thing about Linus: he has a remarkable singing voice.  It would only make sense that Linus pays homage  to the Police at the P.Nutz Club on karaoke night. The Police are eclectic, like Linus, influenced by punk, reggae and jazz.  Literate and informed, Linus digs any band that can pull off pop stardom while streaming the likes of Carl Jung and Arthur Koestler.  


Herein is Linus's charm.  Disarming, his non-threatening persona is equally equipped to challenge everything from misinformed mythologies to abnormal psychology.  He is a theologian and a philosopher; an investigative scientist and a poet.  


And when the days grow short and the air crisps with chill, Linus dons his blue cloak and ski cap for a long stroll to breathe deep the hushing sounds of industry and the rushing wisp of October's exhales.  Schizophrenic sidewalks scroll under his feet; aging grays and cobbled brick and asphalt scars tell the story of city founders and boom and bust; harsh winters and neglect and taken-for-grantedness flickering like a nickelodeon show.  


And when the sidewalk's story wheezes to an end, Linus looks up to find himself standing outside the P.Nutz.  The walls rattle to the revelry inside.  Voices rush together: orchestral tuning to an oboe's happy "A".


Inside, Linus waits patiently at his table for his chance.  He sings the Police.  That is no surprise. But who does Linus sing of when he coos "every little thing she does is magic..."?  


One more "x factor" in Linus's long list of charms:  a man of mystery.  No wonder Sally is so smitten.

http://youtu.be/6AvBL2Mx2xA

Introverts aren't anti-social just anti-obvious

Great book: Introvert Advantage.

It taught me how to speak extrovert.  Extrovert is a tedious language. It requires a lot of words. Spoken out loud. To others.  Sometimes to many-- at the same time.

This is because extroverts think with their mouths wide open.  Introverts, on the other hand, think with open ears and open eyes, and generally, as God intended, inside their brains.

Extroverts love to talk, especially about themselves. They seem to try to comprehend the world by warping the world around themselves.  Extroverts are like black holes.  They have an amazing and enviable ability to bring all things to themselves, bend it, consume it and make it their own.  This is why extroverts are the power brokers of the world.  You might think I'm out to mock extroverts but I'm not.  I am ever fascinated by them.  Besides, if I were to mock them it would only be an expression of frustrated jealousy.  The power to draw energy from a crowd of people and to channel that energy into a personal marketing campaign for the spoils of love and money is one that I admire from afar.

Linus knows the pain of the introvert.  He is not easily spooled into dialogue about the obvious.  Like most introverts he is regarded as "shy" or "anti-social".  In truth, introverts just won't waste precious socializing energy on ego engorging chit chat leading to an axiomatic conclusion. Introverts are simply bored by the self evident.

Introverts reserve such energy for the really important things like identifying the three most important people to greet so the actuality of your presence can be confirmed later when everyone asks on Monday why you weren't at the party on Saturday; texting your emergency contact to call you in fifteen minutes with a fake emergency; and locating the most convenient restroom and all viable exits.

The Introvert Advantage helped me to understand that extroverts are really, really, really annoyed by the Linus in the room.   It's like checking out a book from a librarian who insists on quoting the last two paragraphs of whatever you've picked. Introverts often respond with a blank stare during conversations because the most obvious response can't possibly be the anticipated response...thoughtful reflection later...the answer is ten minutes behind the conversation and too heavy for the levity of the moment.

What is Linus to do?  To bless the topic with the sacred introspection anything worth talking about deserves is  to ask too much of the common extrovert.  To blow off the topic with smug indifference anything not worth talking about ruins the simple game of human interplay.

Oh Linus.  It's not neuroscience (as much as you rather it were).  Make little Sally feel important.  That's all Hoyle's instructs for this game of social play.  She's not asking you about a patch over her eye.  She asking you about her: to notice her, to focus on her, to be concerned about her.  Sally just wants Linus to say, "Yes. I noticed that when you walked in. Tell me about your eye patch, Sally."  Nod and smile a bit.  Let Sally show you what she knows about her condition.  Maybe Sally wants you to believe she is smarter than you give her credit.  Maybe, in this moment, it really isn't all about her.  Maybe, in this moment, it's all about you, Linus. And while you may know a lot about amblyopia ex anopsia what do you really know about Sally?  Between them, which stores the richer knowledge that will better you in the end?


http://www.amazon.com/Introvert-Advantage-Thrive-Extrovert-World/dp/0761123695

The Rarely Rising Great Pumpkin

Linus.  He's the perfect companion to the pessimistic Charlie Brown.  If Charles views the glass as half empty, Linus quips that there is, at least, a glass.  This is what makes Linus at once lovable, laughable and pitiable.  Linus is the sage of ancient wisdom whose own insecurity toward life illumines as a great blue, fuzzy beacon.  He is the observer; never the doer-- ever the thinker but never the courageous advocate of his own ideals.  His is the cause of the cautious philosopher.  You know, he might just like little Sally but to admit as much would put him too close to reality for comfort.  He is the eye in the sky.  The power of eyes in skies is their distance.  Eyes on the ground get trampled. It's messy stuff.  Everything is too large...too near to make any sense of; and in the panic stricken end you never even have the satisfaction of knowing what it was that crushed you.


So Linus keeps to himself and the pursuit of his own interests.  His optimism is shrouded but it is there, wrapped around him like the warm embrace of flannel or fleece.  Hope abounds in Linus.  Quiet hope.  Enduring hope.  Linus has needs.  After all, it is something, not nothing, that impels him to a random pumpkin patch each October in search of the elusive Great Pumpkin.  Linus needs the Pumpkin to rise even if it is only to quantify his own professed conclusions.  Letters don't lie.  Legends are intrinsically bound to their truth.  

Each October Linus misses out on chocolates and sweet, hard candies and, yes, even rocks.  Rocks, at least, would be something.  Linus exiles himself to bitter disappointment in exaggerated expectation of the rarely rising Great Pumpkin.  He remains undaunted.  It has risen somewhere, for someone, just not for him... just not for him.  It is a rite of despair.  For, if one is convinced that a Great Pumpkin rises, then one must hold in trust one ragged, blue blanket of reassurance: to guard against the chill of October nights, to quickly receive and conceal the boldest of tears, to be the icon of shattered hopes for one who copes from afar and sometimes in concert with Brown's depression at a common wailing wall. 


You might think that Linus would be better off with stale suckers and miniature faux-chocolate rolls.  You might think that Linus should be with friends enjoying the thrill of deep October evenings in spooky revelry.  You might think that Linus's great mind could be put to better use, say, helping Charlie Brown make a ghost costume.  


You might be right.


You should tell him.


And you can, If you can find him in one of his many points of isolated meditation, where right now  his rite of failure has evaporated with the warmth of a family fireplace.  He is working on his list for Santa...  I wouldn't disturb him.