Mousing in a lion's skin

Is power the only justification for an extrovert personality? asks Salman Rushdie in his latest novel, The Enchantress of Florence, then goes on to offer "beauty" as a possible alternative. What about "insecurity", one wonders? Stereotypically, it's the mousey individual, the sensitive one, the introvert, that's been associated with this sense of uncertainty.

But might not an extrovert personality be an ideal disguise to mask the lack of confidence massed just below? In a land of millions, knowing full well that introversion, withdrawn-ness, reticence is going to get one nowhere, might not the "mouse person" wake up one day and decide from henceforth to don an armour plated garb of extroversion? Easier said than done, but it is doable, one has to agree. Difficult, but not impossible, especially if "Mr Reticence" is secretly fired with a fair degree of ambition along with a desire to get even with life for whatever reason, for failures in certain areas - a love life, a lifestyle, a stagnancy in the workplace.

I do believe that when the future suddenly sends out signals warning there could be grimness ahead, every individual carries within his DNA the ability to do one of two things: sink into the blackness of depression from which, like Hotel California, one could check out any time one liked, but one could never leave; or, at the other extreme, stand up to the said "threatened grimness", look it in the eye, strategise, plot the course ahead and, given that the said road can no longer be traversed by passive footsteps, reach for the heavy boots and cloak of extroversion, put them on, and march forcefully forward. For who knows where such alteration may lead, although such forceful tinkering with what is inherent may have its own side effects at a later date and time. Also, as a bonus, it gets to throw the public completely.

Family, colleagues, close friends, acquaintances are suddenly amazed - albeit at sixes and sevens - at the transformation, although this takes place gradually, nearly imperceptibly. These people, too, wake one day to the realisation that, gosh, has so-and-so changed amazingly or what? At twenty he used to be Mr Fluid Wallet.

Money flowed like water. You wanted a treat, he stood you three treats! Your birthday came around, he went out and bought you the best present after first finding out what the others had given. His had to be the best - because he wanted to be remembered for his charitable outlook, his large heart.

Now, midway through his forties, he's brash and forthright enough to tell you that birthdays are black milestones flagging the pathway to the grave, so they're best left unacknowledged, for they bring with them the depressing notion that one is heading towards a state of permanent deterioration.

Nothing positive about a birthday, so why decorate it with a present? A bunch of flowers is the most he's willing to pay for now. Sometimes a posey of flowers snipped from his own garden and held together with supermarket cellotape. Likewise, dinners that once used to be lavish candle-lit affairs are now lesser events - taken at the foodcourt or takeaway, where no tipping is required but done with the flourish of the extrovert, with always an excuse handy. For, secretly, if the future looks grim, one must resolutely save every penny so that life doesn't get its chance to have the last laugh.

Kevin Martin is a journalist based in Sydney.