"Bloggin' Solopreneur"
Talking with Crystal is like having one continuous "aha" experience (maybe that's why her blog is called Big Bright Bulb). Wait! No, it's "aha" experiences mixed with laughter - and heart.
We covered so many topics in less than an hour - and had so many laughs. If you resonate with the term Square-Peg I think you'll feel you've met a kindred spirit here.
Come meet Crystal...
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How Do You See Yourself as a Square-Peg?
I don't feel like I've ever quite been in synch with things. I even played with Barbies longer than other people.
I never had a clique because I always liked the people in other cliques. And one thing cliques don't do is associate with other cliques. I always liked a number of different people in every little clique - so I've bounced around to whatever was interesting without feeling obligated to stick to anything, or to any one group.
That definitely is not what I see other people do. I see it now - now, when I'm online, where we've got this crazy intersection of people...
It's a lot easier online - there are all the little groups, but all the little groups meld together into one BIG group. And all of us end up in this huge mixing bowl of connection - which is great! It's so much better than high school. It's the opposite of high school, isn't it?
One thing for sure, I think of Square-Pegness when it comes to friendship - in the early years it was hard!
But now {online} it's like there are lots of holes in the board and none of them are square. I can move around to all of them, but I don't fit into any of them.
I fit with the people who don't fit.
{Crystal mentioned being an introvert, so I asked her to talk about Square-Pegness and being an introvert}
I don't think there's anything wrong with being an introvert, but I've only come to see that because I've met so many others.
Extroverts don't have any trouble connecting to other extroverts, do they? But us, you know...Can you imagine The Introverts Club? I mean, who would show up?
One thing for sure - something I know that every introvert has experienced: our culture doesn't really welcome, or honor, the thinkers. We welcome and honor people who are big action takers, people in the front - those are the guys who get the love.
I have to make a special effort for people to even know what I've done. It's not that they're trying to ignore me, it's just that I'm not putting it out there - so even in a work sense it's really easy to be a Square-Peg.
If you're surrounded by people whose expectation is that you're going to toot your own horn - all you've got to be is kinda tooting quietly and you're going to look like quite the odd ball.
I was sitting here being resentful and frustrated - and I got exhausted with it. It's only really recently that I've come to a place with this where I realize I'm not going to run a business like everybody else.
And not because I'm ever-so special and have to be different, but because being an introvert makes publicising and marketing a business different. Being the kind of person who's very happy with having relationships with individual people instead of with a group also makes it very different.
How Do You Maintain Your Square-Pegness (in a round-hole world)?
That's a very interesting question. I think it's because, without any intent at all (it just naturally happened) I'm surrounded by a bunch of other Square-Pegs. They make it really easy - nobody has the expectation that I'm going to do what they're doing.
I think that helps a lot - who I surround myself with.
And also, as corny as it sounds, I love things like - you know how Amazon (and other search engines and stores) do that thing where they say: "If you like this book you'll also like..." - that makes it really easy to stay kind of off-the-cuff a little bit.
They know damn well which books are not like every other book everybody's reading, so they make it very easy to find other odd ball things...that is hugely helpful!
In a way it's kind of like going along with the crowd a little bit, and at the same time it's a nice way to find - to keep up with - all the little oddities that are out there.
I think that's still talking about the community thing, but in a more detached way.
It's not like you could go to Google and find the least popular topic - that's not the way that works, right? The stuff that ends up at the top is there because it's the stuff that everybody's talking about - but that's really the least interesting thing for me.
All the stuff that they're pushing in front of me, I'm like: "Yea, yea, yea, yea, what else is going on?"
If somebody gives me a Top 10 list of trending topics, or Top 10 list for the news, I want to know what numbers 11 through 15 are about. Because I've got 1 through 10 - I don't really need to read about that. I'll hear about that through other people.
You know, you go to the grocery store and it'll be on the cover of something, or the counter person will be talking about it - or the chick in front of you on the cell phone. You'll hear all the basic Top 10 stuff.
I want to know what's underneath that.
{Before getting in to the specific Square-Peg interview questions, Crystal and I talked about things in general - one of the topics was what I'd gotten out of my unplanned (internet connection difficulties and illness) time away from the internet.
Crystal had had a similar experience. She didn't mention this as a specific way that she maintains her Square-Pegness, but I think she might agree that it fits here.}
I got really overwhelmed at some point, maybe this is a Square-Peg thing. I got really overwhelmed with social media at the beginning of summer - I didn't want to talk to anybody. It was like my really, really introverted self threw up a protest or something.
{Laughing} Every single time somebody tweeted something, I got annoyed. And it wasn't personal at all - because I was mad at everybody! Everybody who said. nothing. useful. And clearly then - it was me, right?
These people were really great yesterday - now they have nothing important to say. What's up with that?
I just put it down. I took some advice from a friend who was reading The Artist's Way, and I stopped - I wasn't reading posts, wasn't reading tweets, wasn't reading magazine, books, newspaper - nothing!
And ohmygoodness, like you said - I was like {to her self}: "Hey you, where you been?"
The only thing I allowed myself to read were some mystery novels - I was enjoying them because they were totally entertaining - pure fiction, and didn't have anything to do with work - NO value at all.
What Has Been the Hardest For You as a Square-Peg?
The worst is feeling the lonelies...
I used to get soooo lonely. You know, it was just me and a little suburban town. I had my neighbors - like 10 or 15 kids, and that was it! I was in a special program in high school, so that kind of whittled my potential friend list down a good bit.
There's always been this separateness. It seemed like it was just built in to everything I did.
I went to school for architecture. If I'd been an engineering student in college (or something where there were tons of people) maybe I could've been a little different, but I was in the architecture program - and it was very compartmentalized class-wise.
Separateness has always been this "thing"; I think that's why I like the internet as much as I do - because it's the exact opposite of separateness!
...and the isolation. Thinking that people who like you, who you enjoy being with, are rare.
Another thing that's hard is resisting the urge to go along with what everybody else is doing just to have company.
Like, you go to work and everybody's talking about a television show that you're not watching. Everybody is watching it - and you're not, and you don't care!
{And then, because Crystal is objective (see Favorite Trait section below), she talked about the other side of the going along with everybody/resisting going along issue}
For the sake of the whole collaboative environment, wouldn't it make sense to watch the fricking show? Just to be able to participate in that conversation.
What Is Your Favorite Square-Peg Trait?
I am nowhere near as smart as I would like to be, or as people think I am.
It's like my own little private joke that I'm really not that smart - in the sense that I know a good bit of stuff, but there's so much more I want to know. {Laughing} Relatively, I'm really pretty stupid.
Does that make sense?
I have a very decent sense of humor about my own intelligence. I'm very realistic about that.
{In what other ways are you realistic about yourself?}
I try so hard to be objective - like: I'm not Tyra Banks, but I'm not a ghoul either.
That kind of objectivity is kind of how I am, but it's hard to turn that kind of thing on yourself. Maybe objectivity is my favorte trait, but I'm not good at it all the time.
Objectivity is fun, it lets you enjoy a lot more. When you're walking around with a lot of opinions you have to maintain or defend them. What are you missing while you're standing around being pissed?
What Are Your Favorite Books?
Mystery novels, by golly I just love them! I tend to listen {to audio books} as much as read.
I love Burning Angel by James Lee Burk - that was just wonderful. I love anything John Sandford wrote, and anything John Dunning wrote - I listen to all those, too.
So all my John's, all my mystery guys...and ones that are a little naughty, like Lara Adrian. She has these kind of vampire ones with a little sex in 'em. They're cool because they've also got a mystery thing going.
At the same time I love good modern lit, like: Annie Dillard, Toni Morrison and J. California Cooper.
I sorta like authors more than books - if I like one thing they wrote I usually like everything - and I tend to get kind of absurd about it. If I like a book I will read the entire series.
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[Editor's note: You can now find Crystal and her laughter and heart over on Facebook, at Crys Wood (subtitled: writer, reader, salad eater).]
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Read more Square-Peg Interviews here!
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(Full Disclosure: we're affiliates of Amazon.com - so when you buy from the book links above you don't pay a penny more, but you help support Square-Peg People. Thanks!)
Oh, I sooo know where Crystal is coming from!
Even when I'm in the middle of something I still feel as though I'm looking in and watching, rather than being part of. When I was younger it hurt - now I couldn't give a monkey's hoot.
Those few precious friends I did make over the years remain true and amaze me with the way they perceive me even after all this time. There's a lot of truth in the saying a true friend thinks you're a good egg, even when they know you're a little cracked!
But I would consider them as being round pegs who quite like my squared off edges. They don't mind me not knowing who won x Factor or which band is the latest craze and never have - though they know.
Posted by: Linda | Monday, 26 March 2012 at 03:42 PM
YES! I hear you, Linda! And I'm not even sure what an x Factor is (shhh!).
Your friends sound delightful - and your mention of "monkey's hoot" and cracked eggs got me giggling!
Thanks for sharing in the Square-Peg Interview section - for some reason the interviews (which I love, love, love) next to never have comments. It's so great to hear how you relate to Crystal.
Posted by: Square-Peg Karen | Tuesday, 27 March 2012 at 06:57 PM