It’s time to look again at these secrets of shyness. Joe Moran, professor of English and cultural history at Liverpool University, is an accomplished writer who comes at shyness with personal experience, literary skill and a subtle mind. His portraits of the many shy characters in history – politicians, military officers, authors, artists, musicians, etc. … Continue reading Rescuing Shyness| Joe Moran and the Secret History of Shyness
Rescuing Shyness|the hunting down of a shy hero |J. D. Salinger
Nothing I have read has convinced me more of the innate callousness and insensitivity to be found in the tribalism we prefer to call 'society' than this account of J. D. Salinger's experience. Salinger was the author of the famous novel, Catcher in the Rye and short stories that are sometimes claimed to be the … Continue reading Rescuing Shyness|the hunting down of a shy hero |J. D. Salinger
Autism and Love-Shyness | A message to the Incels
Yes, this is a message to the Incels from my younger self. When I published the recent post, Toronto Van Rampage III | Alek Minassian and the Incels, I didn't explain that when I was 17 yrs old I was well on my way to being one of them. Based on psychologist Brian Gilmartin's research … Continue reading Autism and Love-Shyness | A message to the Incels
Rescuing Fiction |The 10 shyest novels of all time
Yes, these are the 10 shyest novels of all time - according to me. Since there were over 25,000 novels written in the 19th century alone, and I haven’t read more than 150 of them, along with, maybe, 500 from the 20th and 21st centuries, whose novels no one has tried to count as far … Continue reading Rescuing Fiction |The 10 shyest novels of all time
Shy confidence and its rewards
In my book The Shyness Guide, I say that when you learn to accept your shyness, you become less shy. It's true. When you're no longer concerned about being shy, you no longer experience anxiety, so it's easier to talk to people. Simple as that. But that isn't all you gain from accepting your shyness. … Continue reading Shy confidence and its rewards
Psychologist Philip Zimbardo’s warning about Incels and/or Shy Loners
Writing since the 1970s, Philip Zimbardo is one of the few psychologists who has devoted much of his career to shyness. In a Mar 31, 2016 post in Psychology Today, "The New Shyness -How virtual reality has made social Isolation more seductive than ever before", Zimbardo provided a very interesting update. He says shyness is … Continue reading Psychologist Philip Zimbardo’s warning about Incels and/or Shy Loners
Shyness vs Everything else |the problem with diagnoses
When I was a boy, I was intensely shy, more avoidant than anyone else I met then in any of the schools I attended. No one in the working-class neighborhood of the North-American steel town where I grew up had heard of 'autism', but my behavior fit autism pretty well. If I got myself assessed … Continue reading Shyness vs Everything else |the problem with diagnoses
Rescuing Shyness|Why being a loner may be good for your health
The above refers to a Feb 28/2018 “Best of BBC Future” post by Christine Ro. After acknowledging that there has been a lot of research into the negative psychological effects of 'social isolation' (for example, the Royal College of General Practicioners in the UK say that research has found loneliness to have a risk level … Continue reading Rescuing Shyness|Why being a loner may be good for your health
The Wildness in Shyness
The following is a slightly revised version of a discussion in my book, The Shyness Guide, of the enigmatic question - “What is Shyness”. Psychologist Philip Zimbardo, founder of the Stanford Shyness Institute in California, has devoted much of his life to shyness. In his 1978 book, Shyness - What It is, What to Do … Continue reading The Wildness in Shyness
