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I agree, and I'm surprised to see so much positive feedback in the comments here. Being disinterested in 99.9% of what other people care about isn't special or

I agree, and I'm surprised to see so much positive feedback in the comments here. Being disinterested in 99.9% of what other people care about isn't special or interesting. It's just refusing to meet people where they are. If someone is too special for you to connect with, I guarantee that ascending to the lofty heights that they think they inhabit to engage with them will not be worth it. Even if they could articulate where they want you to meet them, and then you went out on a limb to discuss supernovae collapses, or whatever big important thing, I think you'll discover that their special tower above all the fleeting pastimes and bucket lists of the normies would suddenly shift to yet another inaccessible place. People who genuinely inhabit interesting or rare positions or have special life experiences still love to share their story with other people. No one lives in a tower because their ideals and life story are too special for anyone else to get. They build walls to keep people away. Of course it's never a good idea to tell someone else why they do something, especially a stranger on the internet, but in my experience with people that do this, it's not because they are special, but rather because they are not, and they like the game of making other people pursue them while they continually shift the field so you can never get to them. It's best not to play. If they get lonely enough, they'll do something about it. Hopefully it's a group activity, therapy, or a dose of humble medicine and going to talk about the weather with strangers at a language exchange meetup.

FollowingTheDao 4y ago
> Being disinterested in 99.9% of what other people care about isn't special or interesting. The fact that you think this tells me that you cannot meet me where I am. > People who genuinely inhabit interesting or rare positions or have special life experiences still love to share their story with other people. Appeal to purity. >It's best not to play. If they get lonely enough, they'll do something about it. Yes, it has led to at least one of my attempted suicides.
- noduerme 4y ago
  Come on. You can disdain everyone and everything, and claim that people are incapable of having a serious conversation, and where does that get you? To a world where you believe no one is as smart as you and no one can possibly relate to what you're going through? Have you stopped to consider that all the human beings on this board, and even those around you on the street, have inner lives and complicated thoughts and sometimes when they talk "surface level" they're just trying to establish communication so they might be able to talk more seriously once they get to know you? People are a jewel box. You find the good in them among the garbage, and almost every person has something you can absorb from them, even the negative ones. This is called being a member of your species. Like it or not, you are one. Look around and instead of feeling superior, appreciate the fact that every other human here has trodden upon the same lonely paths that you have.
  - FollowingTheDao 4y ago
    > You can disdain everyone and everything I can, but I am not. > and claim that people are incapable of having a serious conversation It is not about seriousness, it’s about my interests. > You find the good in them among the garbage I’m not saying what they like to talk about is garbage, I’m just not interested in it. You’re the one making the value judgment. I don’t think that people who talk about football are stupid or disinteresting or lowbrow, I’m just not interested in it. > Look around and instead of feeling superior, I do not feel superior, I feel inferior. You see, you cannot come to my level. I’m not saying it is higher or lower, maybe just different. Not better, different.
    - noduerme 4y ago
      > I don’t think that people who talk about football are stupid Hah. I actually do think they are, and I've had four years of not talking to my brother because he feels insulted by my opinion of his sports obsession. There's nothing wrong with value judgments. I don't know what your interests are, because you haven't expressed them. You've only expressed disinterest. Surely, if you have interests, there are other people with more knowledge in the area than you have, who you could learn something from. You can't possibly be the most knowledgeable person in everything you're interested in. Nor is anyone with your same interests likely to be a saint, or even worth spending time with in other capacities; but you may find you have something more in common with them than just your mutual interest if you care to look. > I do not feel superior, I feel inferior. You're not inferior. You might be self-loathing. That's ok. Everyone worth anything has been at one point. The only people not worth shit are the ones who never felt inferior.
      - FollowingTheDao 4y ago
        First, I’m 55 years old. Stop acting like I haven’t seen shit. I could’ve better worded it to say that it makes me feel inferior. I don’t believe I’m inferior and it doesn’t cause depression. The loneliness is what causes depression. And I’m not about to express my interest to sun stranger on the Internet that I don’t have a biological or physical connection with. That’s not the connection I’m looking for. And the fact that you think people who talk about football are stupid Is depressing. Football, to me, is stupid. But not the people. It’s not a value judgment to say you don’t like football it’s a value judgment to say people who like football are stupid.
noduerme 4y ago
> going to talk about the weather with strangers at a language exchange meetup. Or bars and cafes. I'm an absolute hound of places where people loosen up and start talking. Social circles don't have to be planned and managed through an app. On any given evening I know I can go somewhere to talk about politics, or about family, or about local happenings, and I'll know 80% of the people there and meet 20% new ones. There's absolutely no guarantee of having a unique high level conversation, but those do happen and inch by inch that's how we get to know each other, agree and disagree, and move forward in this huge experiment called life. The utter oversimplification of the occasionally stupid aspects of human interaction into something that someone cannot engage with is something I don't accept. A hundred or more years ago it would be the recipe for "Notes from Underground" or "The Stranger" - a capacious look at what happens to man if he retreats from society into his own brain, builds his own ideas on nothing. I'm a fan of man vs. society. I'd never want to tell anyone to be a member of society. But there's a new, special kind of alienation that comes along with all this message board posting. It's getting to hate your own kind before you really know them. It's what causes castout kids to pick up assault rifles and disregard human life. It's too easy; it's a lazy kind of hate. So yeah the kid's on the floor and spewing nonsense. It's our job, more or less, to pick him up and dust him off. It's hard to ignore because it's a real societal problem.

FollowingTheDao 4y ago

> Being disinterested in 99.9% of what other people care about isn't special or interesting. The fact that you think this tells me that you cannot meet me where I am. > People who genuinely inhabit interesting or rare positions or have special life experiences still love to share their story with other people. Appeal to purity. >It's best not to play. If they get lonely enough, they'll do something about it. Yes, it has led to at least one of my attempted suicides.

noduerme 4y ago
Come on. You can disdain everyone and everything, and claim that people are incapable of having a serious conversation, and where does that get you? To a world where you believe no one is as smart as you and no one can possibly relate to what you're going through? Have you stopped to consider that all the human beings on this board, and even those around you on the street, have inner lives and complicated thoughts and sometimes when they talk "surface level" they're just trying to establish communication so they might be able to talk more seriously once they get to know you? People are a jewel box. You find the good in them among the garbage, and almost every person has something you can absorb from them, even the negative ones. This is called being a member of your species. Like it or not, you are one. Look around and instead of feeling superior, appreciate the fact that every other human here has trodden upon the same lonely paths that you have.
- FollowingTheDao 4y ago
  > You can disdain everyone and everything I can, but I am not. > and claim that people are incapable of having a serious conversation It is not about seriousness, it’s about my interests. > You find the good in them among the garbage I’m not saying what they like to talk about is garbage, I’m just not interested in it. You’re the one making the value judgment. I don’t think that people who talk about football are stupid or disinteresting or lowbrow, I’m just not interested in it. > Look around and instead of feeling superior, I do not feel superior, I feel inferior. You see, you cannot come to my level. I’m not saying it is higher or lower, maybe just different. Not better, different.
  - noduerme 4y ago
    > I don’t think that people who talk about football are stupid Hah. I actually do think they are, and I've had four years of not talking to my brother because he feels insulted by my opinion of his sports obsession. There's nothing wrong with value judgments. I don't know what your interests are, because you haven't expressed them. You've only expressed disinterest. Surely, if you have interests, there are other people with more knowledge in the area than you have, who you could learn something from. You can't possibly be the most knowledgeable person in everything you're interested in. Nor is anyone with your same interests likely to be a saint, or even worth spending time with in other capacities; but you may find you have something more in common with them than just your mutual interest if you care to look. > I do not feel superior, I feel inferior. You're not inferior. You might be self-loathing. That's ok. Everyone worth anything has been at one point. The only people not worth shit are the ones who never felt inferior.
    - FollowingTheDao 4y ago
      First, I’m 55 years old. Stop acting like I haven’t seen shit. I could’ve better worded it to say that it makes me feel inferior. I don’t believe I’m inferior and it doesn’t cause depression. The loneliness is what causes depression. And I’m not about to express my interest to sun stranger on the Internet that I don’t have a biological or physical connection with. That’s not the connection I’m looking for. And the fact that you think people who talk about football are stupid Is depressing. Football, to me, is stupid. But not the people. It’s not a value judgment to say you don’t like football it’s a value judgment to say people who like football are stupid.

noduerme 4y ago

> going to talk about the weather with strangers at a language exchange meetup. Or bars and cafes. I'm an absolute hound of places where people loosen up and start talking. Social circles don't have to be planned and managed through an app. On any given evening I know I can go somewhere to talk about politics, or about family, or about local happenings, and I'll know 80% of the people there and meet 20% new ones. There's absolutely no guarantee of having a unique high level conversation, but those do happen and inch by inch that's how we get to know each other, agree and disagree, and move forward in this huge experiment called life. The utter oversimplification of the occasionally stupid aspects of human interaction into something that someone cannot engage with is something I don't accept. A hundred or more years ago it would be the recipe for "Notes from Underground" or "The Stranger" - a capacious look at what happens to man if he retreats from society into his own brain, builds his own ideas on nothing. I'm a fan of man vs. society. I'd never want to tell anyone to be a member of society. But there's a new, special kind of alienation that comes along with all this message board posting. It's getting to hate your own kind before you really know them. It's what causes castout kids to pick up assault rifles and disregard human life. It's too easy; it's a lazy kind of hate. So yeah the kid's on the floor and spewing nonsense. It's our job, more or less, to pick him up and dust him off. It's hard to ignore because it's a real societal problem.