Are You Interesting?

Ben Casnocha writes a lot about interesting-ness: what it means to be interesting, how to be interesting, how to determine quickly whether someone else is interesting. Sometimes, I like what he has to say about the topic, particularly when he says something along the lines of, "The way to be interesting is to be interested."

But for the most part, his thoughts leave me a little bit peeved. Who are all these people that Ben comes across in daily life that he deems so uninteresting? Does he meet so many inexcusably boring people that he feels compelled to write about how to be interesting so regularly?

At one point in my life--namely, during the intellectual awakening of my adolescence--I would sneak away from social gatherings to read James Joyce. His words--"Evidently she had been unfit to live, without any strength of purpose, an easy prey to habits, one of the wrecks on which civilization has been reared." (Dubliners 91)--sent fireworks off in my head as I exclaimed to myself, "How true and how sad it is that so many people muddle through life in zombie-like fashion!"

So I admit it. I've made my fair share of snap judgments about people I find uninteresting and not worth my time. But, taking a break from Joyce, I started talking to people and took a stab at understanding others. Everybody's got a story to tell, obstacles encountered and overcome, dreams foiled and realized, hearts broken and filled. Looking back, I regret every single time I have written someone off as being uninteresting.

Back to my question: Are you interesting? Yes, you are.