"the reflective character, the introvert, though certainly trying to deal with his unruly affects, is in reality more influenced by his passions than the man whose life is consciously guided by desires oriented to objects. The latter, the extravert, tries to get away with this all the time, but is forced to experience how his subjective thoughts and feelings constantly stand in his way. He is far more influenced by his psychic inner world than he suspects. He cannot see it himself, but the people around him, if observant, will always detect the personal purpose in his striving ". <...>.

"The other, the introvert, with his conscious thought-out intentions, always overlooks what the people around him see only too clearly, that his intentions are really subservient to powerful impulses, lacking both aim and object, and are in a high degree influenced by them."

"​The observer and critic of the extravert is liable to take the parade of thinking and feeling as a thin covering that only imperfectly conceals a cold and calculated personal aim. Whereas the man who tries to understand the introvert will readily conclude that vehement passions are only with difficulty held in check by apparent sophistries. "

Reading Schopenhauer I discovered that he writes a lot about Solitude-cheerfulness-intelligence triangle.

"hearing of interesting events which have happened in the course of a man's experience, many people will wish that similar things had happened in their lives too, completely forgetting that they should be envious rather of the mental aptitude which lent those events the significance they possess when he describes them; to a man of genius they were interesting adventures; but to the dull perceptions of an ordinary individual they would have been stale, everyday occurrences"

_ I thought it has interesting implications for the world of televised life, Instagram, etc.; the majority of content is skewed towards presenting exceptional and amazing things is no big deal, not towards how ordinary turns extraordinary because of the "mental aptitude".

Also, disclaimer: Schopenhauer was a terrible racist. And a snob.

She can get a chair; she can sit down and write. Facing the blank page. The blank page also faces her with freedom.
<...>
Stand with the woman by the table. Sit with the woman facing the blank page, or blank canvas. A space waiting for filling. These spaces are perfect. What is perfect terrifies.
<...>
The steam of tension evaporated. The moment passed. The fear, buried. It is easier like this. It is ordinary and safe. We hurry to fill in spaces with everydayness because spaces frighten us, but, the dividing line between fear and excitemnet is thin.
<...>
In bardic times, it was considered a great misfortune to have a poet in your family. But if the poet happened to be a woman, this was double misfortune, for she, as a woman, would have double the power. ... Magic surrounded the poet's power and this power was feared.

- I used him, but, you know, I paid for it, in not being known by him.
-And as for that - passion - I was so estranged from it that I could hardly remember what appetite was like or what confidence was like that would let it show.

- ... you do gain a small distance from anything by keeping it in suspension in your mind while you work on finding the words to fit it. I think this is interesting because you also lose sight if you ruminate on something in your head all the time. The difference is in one case your producing something and in the other your are sort of stuck in thought cycle.