Russell Davies wrote a fascinating ditty on how to be more interesting. It includes ten easy steps to increase your interestingness. All of these steps are based off of the following two facts:
The way to be interesting is to be interested
. You’ve got to find what’s interesting in everything, you’ve got to be good at noticing things, you’ve got to be good at listening. If you find people (and things) interesting, they’ll find you interesting.
Interesting people are good at sharing
. You can’t be interested in someone who won’t tell you anything. Being good at sharing is not the same as talking and talking and talking. It means you share your ideas, you let people play with them and you’re good at talking about them without having to talk about yourself.
I’ll start with step one, a photo a day posted to flickr. I take more than I post, and many are under private viewing. However, as aforequoted, it is the sharing that increases interestingness. Photos kept to one’s self serves little purpose and decreases the possible joy derived from such photographs. There is greater joy in sharing.
The photo-a-day may be in conjunction with step six, “Collect Something” (which may include photos). I take many photos of the oddities found in the area in which I live, so these would be viable candidates for my posting.
The ten steps to interesting are quite interesting (redundancy?). Although, is it not futile to write a list of interestingness as though one can really acquire that stature by means of mere actions? Are we to speak nothing of the underlying unspoken interestingness of a person or object - an intangible entity that cannot be created or identified other than its sheer existence?
As reminiscent of that notorious senior video, can a hero really attain heroism by means of checking items off of a list? 1) Locate damsel in distress 2) Save her 3) Die the hero’s death in the interim. The question really lay in the heart condition - motivation - of the “hero”, or “interesting” person. A person’s interestingness or heroism ought to be happenstance of life’s natural unfolded events. If such qualities are sought after for the sheer purpose of acquiring heroism or interestingness rather than the self-improvements or goodnesses accomplished, the horizon has been defeated and the shallow shell remains.
To clarify: the ten steps are not bad in amongst themselves. But are we posting to flickr to be more interesting, or are we posting to share the photo-y goodness and to reap the self benefits of viewing the world in a wider spectrum?
The steps are brilliant, but I must ensure that my aim is true. I am upset that this article portrays interestingness as a skill. Improving one’s being engenders interestingness. Bear in mind the two keys of interestingness and the principles behind them. Ignore the view of skilled interestingness; read the article, as it lists good things to help reflect and to widen one’s view on the real situation that this world finds itself.
November 18th, 2006 at 4:32 pm
Very….interesting. Sorry, I couldn’t resist.
Very nice, very true. Try to do interesting things (and then share them) and you will be interesting. Just trying to be interesting for the sake of appearing interesting won’t work. Thanks for the moment of ponderance.