I have some tell me so. The life I have lived so far is… well the life I have lived. It has been interesting to me in some aspects, not so much in others.
- no
- no
I do not believe that most people are interesting, although I recognize that most people think they themselves are interesting. I don’t find the minutiae of day-to-day life interesting, though, not even for someone who, say, has 12+ kids and is frequently in the news. Having children does not make you interesting. Traveling does not make you interesting, unless you are traveling to deworm African orphans for free. Being a politician does not make you interesting, unless you’re the president. Being a judge does not make you interesting unless you’re on the Supreme Court. Being a physicist does not make you interesting unless you’re Stephen Hawking… etc.
Things that DO make people interesting are only those things which are truly exceptional. Going to the moon, saving a fellow climber on Mount Everest, curing cancer, finding the Higgs boson… Plain old astronauts and mountain climbers and cancer researchers and physicists aren’t interesting people merely by dint of their profession, much *less *the “normies” of mankind (drones with office jobs, like me).
I think the US would be in much better shape if we all stopped thinking our mundane lives were so interesting.
- Are you an interesting person?
I would like to think so. 
I started writing when I was 11 or 12, have a bunch of fun hobbies (knitting, making jewelry, video games) and am pretty much a total geek.
- Have you lived an interesting life?
I think interesting things have happened to me, but I don’t know that I would say I’ve had an interesting life.
Examples:
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After my grandma died, her boyfriend chased us out of the house with a shotgun. Yikes!
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I got to live in Hawaii! (Before you think this is too cool, they have giant flying cockroaches. EW!)
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I totaled my car once when someone (who had a stop sign!) pulled out in front of me. Very traumatic.
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I have been depressed and can tell you what it feels like.
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I have been ecstatically happy over falling in love.
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I’ve acted in church drama fundraisers.
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I’ve been in the emergency room when someone else was in there for something pretty serious; he started thrashing around and yelling, instruments and everything flew all over. I was just there because I was sure I’d broken my toe. :rolleyes: At least the LifeFlight guy who bandaged my toe was cute (he must have been bored or something).
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I know enough of a second language (Spanish) to vaguely follow the thread of a conversation: “He’s saying something about his brother.” My high school Spanish teacher would be appalled I can’t do any better than that! But I am thinking about going back for conversational Spanish, may help me out when I’m looking for a job again.
I get the feeling I’m rambling. Sorry. Carry on with your thread. :smack:
I used to be fascinating but now, nobody bores me more.
Oh God, no. I live a mundane little life and I’ll be forgotten by the world before I’ve been dead 100 years. But I’m content - even happy - so I’m not bothered by that.
I lived an entire year without seeing the sun once.
I lived an entire year in adulthood without wearing shoes.
Those are weird… just not sure how interesting.
No and no.
Yes and yes. I think so, anyway.
I’m an interesting person because I can engage with a variety of people on a variety of subjects in a variety of settings. And not necessarily via being the life of the party, either - often it’s most important to be a good listener.
My life has been interesting. I wrote a little song about it, wanna hear it, here it goes* :
When I was 20 I went to East Berlin before the Wall fell (saw both sides of the Wall in the same day). Went through Checkpoint Charlie and saw the guards with their dogs checking the trains for stowaways. We also went to Dachau on that trip. It’s in an ordinary suburban neighborhood. Nice houses and picket fences. There’s no way that someone can be unaffected by that.
I appeared on the “Who Wants to Be A Millionaire” game show and was waiting for my turn in the green room when Kevin WON the thing - he went all the way. Sitting in the green room was awesome, all of us trivia geeks playing along on the closed-circuit TV. And we saw the guy actually WIN the million.
I recorded a “Bicentennial Minute” at our local TV station when I was in the 5th grade; when I was in the 3rd grade I persuaded my school to change their policy and allow me (and subsequent students) to start playing the violin; in the 6th grade I started and ran my class newspaper. That was the year Janet Guthrie qualified for the Indy 500, back when it was barely acknowledged that women could drive conventional cars. We used a huge font to celebrate that one.
I traveled to England and performed with an orchestra; helped the same orchestra with our “Rolling Requiem” concert, on the first anniversary of 9/11 – we played Mozart’s “Requiem” for 1,200 people. A hundred of us in the orchestra, plus another hundred in the choir, playing in the Rockefeller Chapel at the U of Chicago. After the first movement, the echo back from the rafters was so powerful, our conductor completely forgot where he was and buggered up the second movement. Oh, and while our group was in England I saw the man who stole my friend’s purse and drew him for the police (who later found her passport in Argentina).
I’ve canvassed for politicians and marched and protested; wrote a letter criticizing the art critic of the NY Times for being elitist (and it was published); and drawn the portraits of almost 2,000 people including politicians, nuns, wealthy businessmen, homeless adults, people with a variety of disabilities (I couldn’t draw the woman who had Alzheimers because I couldn’t tell who she was - she didn’t know), teenagers, children, babes-in-arms and one sweet woman’s stillborn child – that one was from the hospital’s photograph, obviously, but it gave her an image she could share with her other children.
I delivered the eulogy at my grandfather’s funeral and wrote and gave a eulogy at my father-in-law’s funeral; and helped a woman who caused a 7-car accident when she passed out at the wheel because someone had called to tell her that her sister had been murdered.
I coordinated and hung 5 art shows for other people who hadn’t exhibited before and were shy about showing their work (I believed in them even though they didn’t believe in themselves) (several of them sold work, too) and created and “starred in” a really lame series of art instruction programs for our local access cable channel (not everything succeeds).
I dealt with my mother’s suicide attempts and mental illness; dealt with my mother-in-law’s mental illness and homelessness (not successfully, but I tried); and divorced my husband after 22 years of marriage.
I also gave birth to twins 
And a couple of years ago I drove with my girlfriends all the way to Chicago just to eat pie. It was some good pie.
I think that’s tragic, although I certainly agree that people who are stuck on themselves are dull.
(*In Living Color reference)
I used to think my life was interesting, but the more people I meet, the more I realize how un-extraordinary my life is. Not that I’m bored or unhappy with my life. I think I’m luckier than most, but even among my friends, my life does not particularly stand out to me.
I think almost everyone, even the most average, seemingly boring person, has something in their life story that might have come from the plot of a Hollywood movie. But in general, I agree with rachelellogram. People that live truly unique lives are few and far between.
Well “truly unique” is a self-limiting concept.
It bothers me when you say that only the truly unique can be considered to be interesting, as though there’s some kind of magic threshold. Why should that be the case? It isn’t a contest.
There’s a Zen saying, “Before enlightenment, chop wood and carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood and carry water.”
No and no. But I find 97% of you equally boring.
Of all my friends I’ve lived the most interesting life, but I wouldn’t say I’m very interesting. I don’t know how to tell interesting stories of the semi-interesting things I’ve done. I’ve got some friends who have lived in the same town, on the same street, for all of their lives, and done very little other than drink and eat, but they can hold the interest of a group or individual much better than I ever could.
Of my family, I’d say I’ve lived the most interesting life of most of them, the pro football player and Broadway actress notwithstanding.
Who’s in 3%?
I’ve done a few interesting things, but have probably mentioned them here enough times so as to become quite boring by now.
My day to day life is pretty quiet and routine, but I’d say I’ve had an interesting life in the sense that I’ve had unusual and varied experiences.
I don’t know whether having unusual experiences has much to do with being an interesting person to others, though. I’m taking “interesting” to mean that others genuinely enjoy listening to you talk, but someone could live a very ordinary life and still be considered interesting because s/he made humorous and insightful observations about everyday matters, was widely read and could talk about different topics in an engaging and informative manner, or was good at making up entertaining fictional stories.
Why does it bother you? I don’t think of it as a contest.
Yeah, someone’s observations about life and their ways of self-expression are much better indicators of an “interesting” personality than they things they’ve experienced. IMHO.
But this is independent of whether their life is interesting.
This is kind of where I fall. I’ve done a fair amount of interesting things in my life (not on par with some people in this thread, but more than average!), but I suspect that fundamentally I’m a boring person. I’m pretty measured and even, I don’t get into trouble, I’m not quirky, I’m quiet… People like me - I always hear how “nice” I am - but I’m no one’s idea of “interesting”.
I used to work with a guy, and we’d often eat lunch in the breakroom with other people we knew. The other people would ask me how our shift was going, and I’d invariably say, “Fine - how’s yours?” They’d then ask the other guy, and he’d regale them with all the interesting things that had happened that day, the news, his opinions, or he’d get them to relate all the suddenly interesting things that had happened to them. He livened up the table and made lunch enjoyable, or at least memorable. We’d had the exact same day up to that point, but he was able to be an interesting person about it in a way I wasn’t. I envied him that.
Ah, here I’m exactly the opposite. Just about everyone interests me. I’ll talk to anyone about who they are and how they came to be that way, and most of the time be completely and sincerely interested.
No, I’m average. But that’s ok, I prefer stability over crazy-assed freedom.