An Introvert as Deep Thinker - II
Today, on his birthday, we pay homage to Albert Einstein, an extraordinary scientist and humanitarian – and a definite introvert.
Most people know at least some of the main facts about Albert Einstein (1879 – 1955). Born into a Jewish family in Germany, he was a lackadaisical student who ignored classes he felt were regimented or boring. After he graduated from a technical university in Zurich, Switzerland, professors who considered him brilliant but undisciplined blocked him from every academic post he applied for. Through family connections he finally obtained a job screening patent applications for the Swiss patent office in Bern.
In 1905, while working for the patent office, he published four groundbreaking scientific papers, including one on the theory of special relativity that he later built upon in his theory of general relativity. Soon universities throughout Europe were eager to hire him, and after studies of a solar eclipse in 1919 confirmed his theories, he became world famous as the successor to Isaac Newton.
When the Nazis rose to power, they targeted Einstein by recruiting other scientists to denounce him and by publishing a photo of him on a magazine cover with the caption “Not Yet Hanged.” In December 1932 Einstein left Germany forever and settled into an institute at Princeton University as his new academic home.
Later in the 1930s, Einstein became convinced that the Nazis were working on an atomic bomb, and though he considered himself a “militant pacifist,” he wrote a letter to President Franklin Roosevelt urging the United States to develop its own atomic weapons program. However, Einstein was never invited to participate in the resulting Manhattan Project because the FBI considered his connections with pacifist and socialist organizations, along with his passionate support for civil rights, suspicious.
After World War II, Einstein enthusiastically supported the formation of the state of Israel, so much so that in 1952 Israeli Premier David Ben-Gurion offered him the ceremonial post of Israeli President. Einstein politely declined. Workwise, Einstein resisted fellow physicists’ theories of quantum mechanics because of his rock-solid belief that “God does not play dice with the universe.”
Being left behind in the scientific field he had earlier revolutionized made little or no difference to his worldwide fame, and when he died in 1955, the New York Times lauded him as “a symbol of the human spirit and its highest aspirations.”
Einstein as an Introvert
Let’s back up now and consider Einstein’s personality and some of his noteworthy quirks.
Although many acquaintances described him as friendly and good-natured, Einstein himself confessed that he felt distant from others:
"My passionate interest in social justice and social responsibility has always stood in curious contrast to a marked lack of desire for direct association with men and women. I have never belonged wholeheartedly to country or state, to my circle of friends, or even to my own family. These ties have always been accompanied by a vague aloofness, and the wish to withdraw into myself increases with the years.”
Other quotes that establish him unquestionably as an introvert include:
“Be a loner. That gives you time to wonder, to search for the truth.”
“The monotony and solitude of a quiet life stimulates the creative mind.”
“I live in that solitude which is painful in youth, but delicious in the years of maturity.”
“The trite objects of human efforts – possessions, outward success, luxury – have always seemed to me contemptible.”
In typical introvert fashion, Einstein had several solitary methods of recharging his energy. He took long walks. He enjoyed sailing by himself, letting the boat drift and often having to be rescued when he capsized it. And he would noodle on a piano or on Lina, the beloved violin he took with him whenever he left home. “Music helps him when he is thinking about his theories,” wrote his second wife Elsa. “He goes to his study, comes back, strikes a few chords on the piano, jots something down, returns to his study.”
Interestingly, music also served as a wordless, transcendent vehicle of human fellowship for him. In Princeton, he set aside Wednesday evenings for chamber music sessions with local friends and visiting scientists or professional musicians. Several well-known musical celebrities praised Einstein‘s emotional expressiveness but complained that he would come in on the wrong beat or in the wrong measure. The mathematical genius “couldn’t count.”
As for quirks, Einstein had quite a deep rebellious streak. “Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth,” he once wrote, but he applied that principle to practical matters also. As a boy, he decided socks were a stupid fashion convention, and for the rest of his days he went without them. On relatively formal occasions, such as visiting at the White House, he disguised his bare ankles by wearing boots. Famously, he also couldn’t care less about having wild hair.
According to Johanna Fantova, a Princeton librarian sometimes described as Einstein’s final girlfriend, Einstein occasionally feigned illness to keep away visitors. I found this strategy also in the biographies of fellow introverts Florence Nightingale and Charles Darwin. Like both Nightingale and Darwin, Einstein avidly wrote letters and corresponded with many eminent people, including pioneering psychologist Sigmund Freud and the poet Rabindranath Tagore.
An introvert to his core, Einstein once told a high school journalist that he had no interest in birthday parties. So you’ll have to come up with a relatively more creative way to tip your hat to him today.