Movers and shakers. Who appears on your mindscreen when you hear that phrase? Corporate CEOs? Elected officials? Activist film stars? In other words, extroverts. Or at the very least, skilled extrovert emulators.

But if we look at the first verse of Ode, in which 19th century poet Arthur William Edgar O’Shaughnessy coined that phrase, he seems to be describing an entirely different sort of person:

We are the music makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams;—
World-losers and world-forsakers,
On whom the pale moon gleams:
Yet we are the movers and shakers
Of the world for ever, it seems.

Wandering alone in nature? World losing and forsaking? In other words, introverts. And what’s more, loners!

If you read the entire poem, Continue reading →