I started listening to Amy Schumer’s The Girl With the Lower Back Tattoo recently and, when she described herself as an introvert, I was elated because I too struggle when I feel like I have to be “on” all the time. As a writer, I need a certain amount of time for personal reflection, introspection and regeneration. For me, long phone calls, rambling emails, nonstop texting and group social interactions are the emotional equivalent of sticking my finger in an electric socket. Way too intense and they leave me fried. I think I’d have been better off living in an age before social media and cell phones. Although not too much before because (in case you hadn’t noticed) I’m biracial and a wo
When it comes to politics, I am basically an idiot. Or, perhaps, it is kinder to say I’m uninformed. But that’s much too self-forgiving a perspective. Perhaps, the right way to frame it is that I am ignorant about all things political. But, I wonder, is this the worst thing? Alright, maybe, in a democratic society, you could argue that I have a civic duty to keep up with the issues and cast my vote, etc. But do I? Isn’t part of my right as an American to be completely ass-backwardly ignorant? I like to think so and, in fact, am supported in this by one of my favorite weekly podcasts (This American Life) http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/585/in-defense-of-ignorance
