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One thing that helps is the lightbulb moment: The most interesting thing you can know is other people. Not as objects, curiosities, but real, truly unfathomabl

One thing that helps is the lightbulb moment: The most interesting thing you can know is other people. Not as objects, curiosities, but real, truly unfathomable beings. You'll never truly understand what's in someone else's head, but you can still spend your life striving to get to know them better, and to perhaps know them well enough to try and make their lives better. There is the age-old cliche of intelligent people finding 'normal people' dull. That idea starts to fade when you really, truly embed yourself in another person's life, or they manage to embed themselves in yours before you realize that's what's happening. Regardless, it's not all hopeless. It's a harder path, for sure, but it can be traveled.

arthev 7y ago
For a counterpoint, see Celia Green's 'Human Evasion' (available at http://www.theabsolute.net/minefield/humevas.html http://www.theabsolute.net/minefield/humevas.html ), which argues that preoccupation with the social sphere is just a psychological defense mechanism against one's finiteness and limitations.
bartread 7y ago
> There is the age-old cliche of intelligent people finding 'normal people' dull. I'm manifestly not a genius, not by a long stretch, but I am an outlier along several axes. Still, when I was younger I was certainly guilty of thinking along these lines and so, perhaps, it's just maturity that's changed me. As time has gone on what strikes me again and again about the quality of an "average" life lived well (partner, children, family, home, job) more than anything else is its richness. I know it's not easy, but neither is it dull, and the joys and triumphs of it are real. I envy those who possess it and I'm glad for them in equal measure. (You can of course argue that this is simply a "grass is always greener" mentality, but I believe that can often be a weak and lazy argument deployed when someone is unable to come up something better on their own. That said, what I've expressed above is my own point of view, and I acknowledge that it's by no means universal.)
mapcars 7y ago
>The most interesting thing you can know is other people You can know other people or anything for that matter only as a reflection in your own mind. The most interesting thing starts when you realize that you don't know pretty much anything.
bigred100 7y ago
I feel like this is a fault sometimes of how society views intelligence. If someone is 99.9 percentile at math (s)he will of course be recognized as “smart”. But someone who is 99.9 percentile at interacting with people and chooses to simply lead a normal, stable life might simply be viewed as normal and not exceptionally intelligent.
- whatshisface 7y ago
  Someone who is 99.9 percentile at interacting with people will probably become extremely rich acting as a corporate executive or salesperson.
TeMPOraL 7y ago
> There is the age-old cliche of intelligent people finding 'normal people' dull. That idea starts to fade when you really, truly embed yourself in another person's life, or they manage to embed themselves in yours before you realize that's what's happening. Does it, though? I mean, the part when you're discovering another human's story is interesting, but for me, that was always modulated by the feelings I had that made this person feel special. Beyond that, once the feelings fade or when there are none involved, I've always found the - to quote 'bartread - ""average" life lived well (partner, children, family, home, job)" to be very dull. Soap-opera level boring. IME, people get boring once they start living this average life. They forget their dreams, their own insights about the world, their own goals - everything that made them interesting and special - and engage in the age-old pattern of "partner, children, family, home, job, retirement, death". Or maybe I'm saying it wrong. People do get interesting with enough effort. It takes a lot of effort to dig through these layers of "average life well lived", to find and remind them of their old-forgotten passions and thoughts, and only then you get to have interesting conversations about molecular biology, or anthropology, or that time they wanted to be an actor, or how can we improve our community - as opposed to talking about diapers, who married whom, who just had a kid, and how we all don't have money. I'm probably an outlier here. I don't claim above-average intelligence, but I do find "normalcy" boring and sort-of pointless, in a recursive, self-propagating way.
- noonespecial 7y ago
  "partner, children, family, home, job" I found all of these "ordinary" things in life to be quite extraordinary when they happened to me!
  - jdietrich 7y ago
    That's rather the point though, isn't it? Your baby is fascinating because it's yours, but babies in the abstract aren't actually very interesting. They pass through the same developmental milestones at roughly the same rate and have the same (very limited) capacity for novelty. I've never met a baby with a unique perspective on the Israel-Palestine problem or a fabulous collection of golden age comic books. It's a bit like following someone else's baseball team - unless you're emotionally invested, it's really rather dull. Maybe I'm just a cynical misanthrope, but I'm not very interested in the mundane minutiae of other people's lives, nor do I expect them to be very interested in the mundane minutiae of mine. It would be quite weird if all seven billion of us were innately fascinating. An interesting question is how interestingness is distributed. A normal distribution seems plausible, but while I can think of people who are three-sigma interesting, I'm not sure I could think of someone who is three-sigma dull. Mass media would seem to suggest that a power-law distribution is more likely - most of us are really rather boring, but there's a long tail of exceptionally interesting people.
nine_k 7y ago
"Very complex behavior" does not always mean "very interesting to learn", though it does play a role.

arthev 7y ago

For a counterpoint, see Celia Green's 'Human Evasion' (available at http://www.theabsolute.net/minefield/humevas.html http://www.theabsolute.net/minefield/humevas.html ), which argues that preoccupation with the social sphere is just a psychological defense mechanism against one's finiteness and limitations.

bartread 7y ago

> There is the age-old cliche of intelligent people finding 'normal people' dull. I'm manifestly not a genius, not by a long stretch, but I am an outlier along several axes. Still, when I was younger I was certainly guilty of thinking along these lines and so, perhaps, it's just maturity that's changed me. As time has gone on what strikes me again and again about the quality of an "average" life lived well (partner, children, family, home, job) more than anything else is its richness. I know it's not easy, but neither is it dull, and the joys and triumphs of it are real. I envy those who possess it and I'm glad for them in equal measure. (You can of course argue that this is simply a "grass is always greener" mentality, but I believe that can often be a weak and lazy argument deployed when someone is unable to come up something better on their own. That said, what I've expressed above is my own point of view, and I acknowledge that it's by no means universal.)

mapcars 7y ago

>The most interesting thing you can know is other people You can know other people or anything for that matter only as a reflection in your own mind. The most interesting thing starts when you realize that you don't know pretty much anything.

bigred100 7y ago

I feel like this is a fault sometimes of how society views intelligence. If someone is 99.9 percentile at math (s)he will of course be recognized as “smart”. But someone who is 99.9 percentile at interacting with people and chooses to simply lead a normal, stable life might simply be viewed as normal and not exceptionally intelligent.

whatshisface 7y ago
Someone who is 99.9 percentile at interacting with people will probably become extremely rich acting as a corporate executive or salesperson.

TeMPOraL 7y ago

> There is the age-old cliche of intelligent people finding 'normal people' dull. That idea starts to fade when you really, truly embed yourself in another person's life, or they manage to embed themselves in yours before you realize that's what's happening. Does it, though? I mean, the part when you're discovering another human's story is interesting, but for me, that was always modulated by the feelings I had that made this person feel special. Beyond that, once the feelings fade or when there are none involved, I've always found the - to quote 'bartread - ""average" life lived well (partner, children, family, home, job)" to be very dull. Soap-opera level boring. IME, people get boring once they start living this average life. They forget their dreams, their own insights about the world, their own goals - everything that made them interesting and special - and engage in the age-old pattern of "partner, children, family, home, job, retirement, death". Or maybe I'm saying it wrong. People do get interesting with enough effort. It takes a lot of effort to dig through these layers of "average life well lived", to find and remind them of their old-forgotten passions and thoughts, and only then you get to have interesting conversations about molecular biology, or anthropology, or that time they wanted to be an actor, or how can we improve our community - as opposed to talking about diapers, who married whom, who just had a kid, and how we all don't have money. I'm probably an outlier here. I don't claim above-average intelligence, but I do find "normalcy" boring and sort-of pointless, in a recursive, self-propagating way.

noonespecial 7y ago
"partner, children, family, home, job" I found all of these "ordinary" things in life to be quite extraordinary when they happened to me!
- jdietrich 7y ago
  That's rather the point though, isn't it? Your baby is fascinating because it's yours, but babies in the abstract aren't actually very interesting. They pass through the same developmental milestones at roughly the same rate and have the same (very limited) capacity for novelty. I've never met a baby with a unique perspective on the Israel-Palestine problem or a fabulous collection of golden age comic books. It's a bit like following someone else's baseball team - unless you're emotionally invested, it's really rather dull. Maybe I'm just a cynical misanthrope, but I'm not very interested in the mundane minutiae of other people's lives, nor do I expect them to be very interested in the mundane minutiae of mine. It would be quite weird if all seven billion of us were innately fascinating. An interesting question is how interestingness is distributed. A normal distribution seems plausible, but while I can think of people who are three-sigma interesting, I'm not sure I could think of someone who is three-sigma dull. Mass media would seem to suggest that a power-law distribution is more likely - most of us are really rather boring, but there's a long tail of exceptionally interesting people.

nine_k 7y ago

"Very complex behavior" does not always mean "very interesting to learn", though it does play a role.