Personality types: Jung's model of typology - Inner City Books

Concluding Remarks 97owy —primitive and unadapted—but not be able to call it upwhen it's needed. I may know that feeling is required in a particularsituation but for the life of me can't muster it. I want toenjoy the party but my carefree extraverted side has vanished.I may know I'm due for some solitary introversion, but thelure of the bright lights is just too much.The shadow does not necessarily demand equal time withthe ego, but for a balanced personality it does require recognition.For the introvert this may involve an occasional night onthe town—against one's "better judgment." For the extravert itmight involve—in spite of oneself—an evening staring at thewall. In general, the person whose shadow is dormant givesthe impression of being stodgy, lifeless. Typologically, thisworks both ways: the extravert seems to lack depth; the introvertappears socially inept.The introvert's psychological situation is laid bare in FranzKafka's poignant observation:Whoever leads a solitary life, and yet now and then wants toattach himself somewhere; whoever, according to changes inthe time of day, the weather, the state of his business and thelike, suddenly wishes to see any arm at all to which he mightcling—he will not be able to manage for long without a windowlooking on to the street. 118Similarly, the extravert may only become conscious of theshadow when struck by the vacuity of social intercourse.There is a balance between introversion and extraversion,as there is between the normally opposing functions, but itrarely becomes necessary—or even possible—to seek it out,until and unless the conscious ego-personality falls on its face.In that case, which happily manifests as a nervous breakdownrather than a more serious psychotic break, the shadow118 "The Street Window," in The Penal Colony, trans. Willa and EdwinMuir (New York: Schocken Books, 1961), p. 39.