Quiet and the New Yoga

 

I've just finished "Quiet; the power of introverts in a world that can't stop talking" by Susan Cain. Very interesting, full of aha! moments for innies like me. One of my favourites was her statement that blogging is tailor-made for introverts. We can consider what we write, cancel it, change it, so it comes out saying exactly what we want. Unlike speech, where words once said cannot be recalled and edited. The introvert, who stresses out completely at having to give a speech to 20 people, is totally unfazed at blogging to an audience of 20 million! I had to give a short presentation recently, what a train wreck. I don't think I even know what I said, and I caught one of my colleagues looking totally horrified, as if she had never realised that I could balls something up so conclusively.
   One of the things about modern life that so horrifies me, is how noisy everything has to be. Even yoga, the age-old practice of quiet meditation in physical form, has been transformed into something hip and young and noisy. A recent edition of Yoga Journal, a magazine that I used to look at quite regularly, made me feel sick. It's now full of adverts for slick merchandise, covering gorgeous young bodies in peak condition. The articles about meditation are gone, replaced with an almost total obsession with the acquisition of a gorgeous body. There are celebrity yogis and yoginis, advertising their own particular 'brand' of yoga, with attendant merchandising.  And the advert on the back cover sums it up:

   Freestyle yoga and a killer playlist make Goldie's Wednesday night black light class one of out favourites. It's like a party you never want to leave.

Killer play list? Black light class? Party? No way. The extroverts have taken over yoga, damn them. They ruined libraries ("we want them bright and buzzy with things going on") said our extrovert library planner, now yoga hits the deck. (Funnily enough, the biggest demand in our libraries at present is for quiet places where people can study, how hopelessly un-hip).
    Introverts unite! Take back the world!