Janet CollinsAre you interesting?
October 16th 2009 04:54
One of the things most of us would like to be described as is interesting but what is interesting? What makes a person more interesting than another? Is it their extroverted persona or their skill at telling a good yarn? Is it the job they do or the career they are in that almost leaves us with this silly sense of adoration?
This thought came to me when a fellow Orbler, Mr Nice Guy, did a post this week asking who you would most want to invite for dinner. My response, being the political junkie that I am, was Barack Obama.
It is the sort of question that always has us thinking about whom we would associate ourselves with and that, in itself, should make us in turn, interesting. Our choice could deem us "cool" or relegate us to "nerdy". We think of celebrities, politicians and anyone famous - anyone who is, whether imagined or not, more interesting than we are or than those around us.
My question is, are these people actually more interesting than the people we already know?
Karin Van Heerwaarden in a post this week on the online discussion site, The Punch, entitled The sad truth of celebrities is many of them are just dull uses the example of a Sixty Minutes interview of Canadian crooner, Michael Buble.
His response to Tara Brown’s question why he had become a singer, and after Brown clarified that she wanted a truthful answer, was that “he wanted to get laid”.
It wasn’t a particularly original response and it certainly wouldn’t have been the answer than Brown had expected. But nor was it celebrity spin.
In making her point, Van Heerwaarden actually concluded that it was a good answer, one that avoided all that trudged out stuff like "music was my passion since I was five" or "I always wanted to be the best singer in the world". Buble's answer may not have made interview gold, but it certainly revealed he was just like the rest of us.
Van Heerwaarden also made reference to an interview of Joaquin Phoenix on the David Ledderman show where he bumbled through the whole interview with one syllable answers, often incoherently, like a teenager speaking to his parents. And just like a teenager, sat through the entire interview behind sunglasses and an overgrown beard while behaving as though he didn’t want to be there at all.
The trouble is that we all tend to mix up a public persona with a private one. The well known actors or singers or models may live a life that most of us can’t afford and could probably never even imagine but does that make them more interesting? Probably not I would think. Most of them would have people fawning over them all day long, doing everything for them and most of the focus day-in day-out would be on them.
The ones who come across in interviews as being really interesting and vibrant and talkative and funny may be an interviewer’s dream. Does that make them more interesting as a person? What about away from the cameras?
Just think. These people have the same bodily functions as the rest of us but they have also learnt from experts how to talk, what to say, how to sit and how to look. We know all that of course but prefer to kid ourselves that these people would be far more interesting to dine with than many of the people we already know. We are star struck.
It is the same with some of our top business leaders and politicians whose appearances on the news and on talk-shows are every bit as important as the daily job they do because everything is all about perception - a perception that they are in charge and they have power.
Perception has us believe that these people are without faults because we don’t know what they are. There is as much chance of them being as interesting or dull as the next person – the ones in ordinary jobs and ordinary homes.
Interesting? Is that something that is really in the eye of the beholder? Probably because what I may find interesting in a person, another may not. There no test - at least that I am aware of - that calculates our level of "interesting".
The most interesting people to me are usually the ones who spend most of their time being interested in something other than themselves. They do things but they also see things and hear things and take notice of the world around them and they can relate to other people. Another person may find a person interesting because he or she may be an artist or a sportsperson.
The uninteresting ones? They are more often the ones talk about themselves constantly or just talk constantly; the ones who never listen to anything anyone else has to say and are generally uninterested in anything other than what they are doing and where they are going. They too can be famous or unknown.
The trouble is that fame and celebrity pushes people on to pedestals that are miles away from the rest of us. Far enough away, in fact, that we can't see the blemishes and the faults but they are there, just as ours are there.
That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t still want to dine with Barack Obama if I had the chance.
Sourced: www.thepunch.com.au
Image credit: www.nydailynews.com
| 54 |
| Vote |
Add To: 
subscribe to this blog
Comment by Jason King
Sydney Table
Salty Popcorn
Total Randomness
I think Richard Branson would be an interesting person to hang out with..... wish I had thought of that one when responding to MNG - I chose Leo DiCaprio
Comment by Janet Collins
Acceptable Etiquette
The Social Critic
Janet Collins Blog
I have heard this about Harrison Ford before. I still think that just because someone is good in interviews doesn't necessarily make them interesting, just skilled at doing interviews.
Having said that, most celebrities are asked on these shows with a lot of time to prepare for questions and answers and most interviewers expect that they will play the game. Some of them just squander the opportunity or in Joquain Phoenix's case, are just challenging the whole medium that gets them known in the first place.
You are probably much more interesting than any of them.
Thanks for dropping in.
Comment by Anonymous
Flick Wit
There is a guy in my office who never speaks to anyone, no-one really knows him, and I find myself so interested and intrigued by him, even though we have never even had a conversation.
Then there is another person I know, who is sort of text-book interesting - I find him so boring. It's like he has manufactured a personality designed to catch attention, complete with constructed idiosyncrasies and cultivated conversational quirks...
'Interesting' is very hard to define. For me, I find most people interesting. Even the one I was talking about above is interesting - in that I wonder how he came to have the character he has.
And I find unexpected truth from people very interesting, a bit like the Michael Buble anecdote about what motivated him to sing(I love him, I would like to have him over for dinner!)
Great post, Janet!
Mich
Comment by Morgan Bell
Science News
Deep Pencil
Business News
Movie Train
Artist Quirk
Comment by Janet Collins
Acceptable Etiquette
The Social Critic
Janet Collins Blog
Thank you very much. There does seem to be a kind of "textbook interesting" doesn't there and it's probably not nearly as interesting as ones that you won't find in a textbook as your example shows.
Thanks for dropping by.
Morgan
I agree. These people often don't take things or people at face value and look a lot deeper...and deeper if nearly always more interesting.
Thank you.
Janet