Nov 13, 2025
3 min read
Learning to enjoy your own company isn't loneliness—it's one of the most valuable forms of strength.
Learning to enjoy your own company isn't lonely—it's the most powerful thing of all.
My friend Emma has a spreadsheet that keeps track of every book she's read since 2018.
The number of pages he reads each month is the same as each year.
He never told anyone at work.He never speaks.They never bring to parties.
When I got into an accident while we were sharing armor during a video call, he laughed and said, "Oh, I'm like keeping track."
I asked why he never mentioned it.
"Because the second I do it, it becomes a thing that people have an opinion about. Someone's going to ask why I'm not on Goodreads. Someone else is going to want to compare numbers. It's not mine anymore."
That's when I realized something important.
Intelligent introverts do not hide their interests because they are ashamed.They protect them because they understand that some things lose their magic when performed in front of an audience.
The most effective entertainments are those that exist only for you, in quiet spaces where no one is watching and no one is marking.
1. Keep detailed personal records
Emma's book chart is not unique.
I know mentors who monitor their coffee consumption, record every performance they see, catalog their plant growth, or keep their precious voices about their dreams.
These are not productivity hacks or self-improvement projects.Они су лична археологија.Ways to pay attention to your life that make no sense to anyone else.
I started keeping a list of every meal I cooked.Not recipes.Just the names of the cooks and the date I made them.
When I mentioned this at dinner once, one immediately asked, "Why? What's the point?"
Futhi anginayo impendulo enhle.Ngoba iphuzu ukuthi alikho iphuzu.Yinto engiyenzayo Ngoba ngithanda ukuba nerekhodi.Ngoba kuyangisiza ukuqaphela amaphethini.Ngoba kungenza ngizizwe ngixhunyiwe emlandweni wami。
2. Create a complex fantasy world
Not for writing D&D projects or campaigns.just for myself
I know who built the fairy tale city at the beginning of fifteen years.They have a map.Political system.History.Family trees for characters that will not appear in any stories.
When I asked them why they didn't write novels, they said, "Because I don't want to think."
This may sound strange to those who create things only to share.But for introverts, imagination can be its full experience.
My version is a hypothetical design restaurant. Complete concept including menu, floor plan, staff structure and seasonal specials. I have never worked in a restaurant. I have no plans to open one.
But on long walks or before falling asleep, I think about how I would set up the kitchen, what would be the signature dish, how the place would feel.
It's a sandbox for my brain - a place where I can control all the variables and find ideas without too much trouble.
3. The magical grasp of undefined skills, no one is needed
I met someone at a party who could identify most birds by their calls.It's not because they're animals or work in the field of environmental science.Simply because they find it interesting.
They didn't bring it. I heard about it because we were out and they casually said to me: "That's white throat."
I started noticing a few years ago when I asked how they knew."
Introverts quietly gather these kinds of skills.Learn to recognize typefaces.Memorize the periodic table for fun.Study old maps of cities you'll never visit.
No useful purpose.No career application.No fancy party trick.
A bad thing is the personal satisfaction of knowing only because it is desired.
I taught myself to identify about forty common mushrooms.Not foraging.Just listening.When I walk in the woods, I like to name what I see.
I've never told most people this because the first question is always, "Are you going to start looking for food?"And then I have to explain that no, I just wanted to know.And that always sounds inadequate.
But that's the thing about introverted hobbies.It doesn't have to be enough for anyone.
4. Collect things that have no monetary value.
Not vintage, less vinyl.Things like stictick stubs.Nice stone.Watch the beautiful colors.
My team has collected pictures of amazing doors.The doors you see while traveling or driving around town.Thousands of people.Organized by color and style.
No Instagram account.No coffee table book is produced.Just a folder on the phone that they occasionally look at.
Someone once asked them what they were collecting, and they replied, "Nothing in particular." To explain why, we need to judge why the door is worth paying attention to in the first place.
Introverts understand that some collections have only aspirational meaning, their value is not their skills or investment power, they lie about their observation, selection and preservation.
I have a document where I save sentences that I like.Not quotes from famous people.Just sentences from novels, articles, or overheard conversations that I found beautiful or true.
I would never do anything with them.But if he has them there, in the same place, I will visit him, I will feel like a company holding thoughts that are not important to me for once.
5. Development of complex personal systems
I know someone who has a color-coded system for organizing their thoughts.Not for work projects.For everything.
Blue for where they are .Bag for those who liked it.
They keep them in a private app that no one else uses.You don't use it.It cannot be divided.It is only theirs.
Introvers like to create systems that only they understand because the system itself is an extension of how their mind works.
I have a set of tags for a topic that I think has nothing to do with me.Tags like "winter feeling" or "good enough" or "makes me want to write."
It would be contradictory if I tried to explain the taxonomy to someone else.But for me this is a complete map of my inner world.
Systems like this don't scale.They are not meant to be.They exist only as a tool for a person to understand their own experience, and it is this information that makes them powerful.
6. Skills that are never perfected
You play guitar on your own in your bedroom with no intention of ever playing for others.No one else likes to perfect a recipe.Learn how to take a picture but never show the illustrations to anyone.
These are not the preferred methods of dealing with windows at the end.These are the practices that exist in their needs.
I am teaching myself to write by hand.No calligraphy for wedding invitations.Just write quotes or poems in careful, deliberate handwriting.
I don't post them.I don't frame them.Sometimes I throw them away.
The practice is the point.
For an extrovert, this often doesn't matter.Why put the clocks in when no one can see them?But for the introvert, removing the pressure to perform is what makes the practice sustainable.
When something is right with you, you can find a compromise there.You can plateau and not focus.You can do terrible things on purpose just to see what happens.
There is freedom in that.A type of creative drama that exists only when the stakes are personal.
7
Not for study or work.Simply because something has caught their attention and they want to fully understand it.
One introvert I know spent six months researching the history of a parking lot.Why were they invented?How they changed cities.Politics around them.
They never wrote a book.They were not writing an essay.They just want to know.
This is not like the internet rabbit hole we all fall into.This is deliberate curiosity supported over time without external motivation.
I once spent three months reading everything I could about the history of fermentation.Not because I was starting a business or writing an article.Because I wanted to understand how people think it's best to let food rot in certain ways.
The research felt generous.I kept thinking that I should do something more productive.But the deep satisfaction I feel when I understand something simply because I wanted to is difficult to replicate in any other way.
Introverts do this because they appreciate understanding as their own reward.They don't need research to get anywhere.Knowing is enough.
big picture
Story about Buckeyeworth's impressions: Because they were shy.
They are private because privacy protects them.
The moment you share something you love, it enters the realm of judgment, comparison, and external expectation.People want to know why you do it.You are fine with that.What are you going to do with it?
Sometimes the answer is just: nothing.I do it because I like it.Because I am.
What? What is your old plant-powered yard?
Have you ever wondered what your daily habits say about your deeper purpose – and how they influence the planet?
This 90-second quiz reveals the plant-driven role you play here and the little switch that makes it even more powerful.
12 fun questions.Instant results.Moi precise.
