“I know I seem to always getting into the thick of things with outlaws and what-not,” said the Lone Ranger, “but at heart I’m really more of an introvert."
The news came as a great surprise to the many who’d previously considered the legendary hero of the American Old West an extremely extroverted, gregarious sort. Not so, says the Lone Ranger.
“Honestly, all those long trail rides through dusty desert towns in the middle of nowhere were really just an excuse to get away,” he said. “I enjoy connecting one-on-one, which is why I so appreciated my time together with Tonto. But I realized I don't need violence in order to interact. In fact, the violence was a cop-out. What takes real courage is vulnerability."
The Lone Ranger also disclosed that he takes philosophical issue with the horse-riding culture. “They’re great animals,” he said. “But Silver never asked to have a painful hunk of metal in his mouth all day, every day, let alone to carry a two-hundred-pound human on his back for weeks on end. I always felt kind of bad about that. Again, it was all essentially just a way for me to get some time to myself. The introvert thing – it can be challenging, you know?”
And perhaps most shocking of all to the Lone Ranger's gun-slinging entourage, he is also not a fan of firearms. “These school shootings are out of control,” he said. “I don’t want to shirk my own responsibility in feeding this mystical appeal of pistols and rifles. But, at this point, we need some legislation." In a poignant call for progressive political action, he urged, "Can we please get a new ranger in town who'll actually take care of some things?"
The Lone Ranger explained that it was reading Susan Cain’s best-selling book, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can't Stop Talking, that ultimately prompted him to come out as an introvert. “People need to know they’re not the only ones,” he said. "I've managed to succeed in my own way, on my own terms. And they can, too."
