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Hi dear TLers,
Just something about my life.
I feel my life is changing. I'm gradually becoming less and less social. I find less joy talking to people and I tend to avoid them as much as possible. Nobody's problems worry me (except my wife's, daughter's, brother's and parents'). I'm not a heartless jerk, I still feel sympathy, kindness and understanding. I will try to help someone struggling, but not talk to him/her. if the person is fine, I'm not gonna interact with him/her whatsoever.
I'm not sure why this is happening. The only people I find joy to talk are elders. They always have something interesting to tell.
As stupid it sounds, but I think young/middle age people are boring (with rare exceptions). The topics they discuss, the things they're interested in, the values they appreciate, all looks so [I don't have a better word for this] shallow? simple?
For instance, I have some close friends, we would stick together for 10 years, but lately I have no interest hanging out with them. boring.
I like talking about history, movies, culture, politics sports. I like deep discussion. With many whys and hows.
"Why people followed Hitler eventhough his ideas were crazy, what were the factors?"
"How do you think people will live in 50 years, are we going to expand to another planet?"
"Can a rational person be religious, if so what are the reasons to believe in god?"
"Why there are so many swimming disciplines in Olympic games, is it because america wants more free medals?"
Instead, I usually have this.
People just throw something like Real Madrid has bought X player for Y money. And thats their whole conversation. I'd go like, I'm not sure if it was a good purchase, Real already had good candidates for the position. And they'd tell me "are you kidding me, they bought him for 30 milion, he is definitely better than the others". Period. The guy doesn't have his opinion. he concludes that the transfered player is good because the cost is high. And you can't argue with that, he firmly believes in it. Things like this happen in a lot of conversation, I don't mean all guys are stupid like this one. but I couldn't find a better example.
Its seems that most people lost their ability to think.
or maybe I'm an outcast. I don't know.
EDIT: Just a remark.
I don't consider myself superior or smarter in anyway. More like I have different interests. Although I think I'm smart sometimes, but its irrelevant to this topic. Its more about socializing problem.
 
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Yeah I feel the same way.
I'm just generaly untisocial, so that might be my problem tho
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Find people you can have meaningful conversations with and become friends with them. I don't think its unnatural as people mature they get more selective of the people they want to be around with.
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Yeah, society is groomed to think less and less as time goes on. Even though it may seem like a lot of older people nowadays are closed-minded and/or stubborn, there are closed-minded and stubborn people in all age groups. So it doesn't make sense to say that "most of the closed-minded people are old and the younger generations push society forward with new ideas."
The average intelligence/wisdom of an elder is much greater than that of your average 20-40 year old. There are younger people who embrace technology and knowledge/wisdom but they are the few. You will find more elders read. You can even read some 19th century literature and see firsthand how the intelligence of the people has dropped, just by observing the relatively uniform quality of writing among authors of that era.
When it's not cool to be smart, the average person does not want to listen to much of what an intelligent person has to say. I find that the "smarter" you are, the less liked you are by the average person. But there is an area at the higher end of the IQ scale where you can deal with and perhaps even inspire an average person to care more.
There are ways to deal.
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Socializing is overrated. I don't think anyone really genuinely takes the concept seriously. I haven't talked to a person physically beyond one-liners and, at the most, small talk, in over a decade. I step out of the house maybe once a year, and only very briefly. I talk to some people over vent, but our conversations are never in-depth about anything besides how bad the gaming and related industries are.
Embrace the peace of silence for what little time you have it.
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We forgot how to think and read books and take things seriously. the world is just a big game to us now. we have a very anti-intellectual culture
edit: start a book group and read something hard
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Hey friend I've felt similar sometimes. Don't be discouraged, some people are afraid to have heavy conversations. Even people who are willing to discuss things deeper than pop culture and small talk many times don't have the values or insight to say anything interesting. You say you only enjoy talking to elders. I think that you have to be careful about feelings like that. I am an 18 year old American and I commonly discuss topics such as philosophy, socioeconomics, and ethics with my friends and family. Much wisdom comes from older men and women, it cannot be denied. Young people are not generally as matured and learned but they'll never improve if they don't have guidance. In my daily life I see that the average person only appears to care about petty things. They work unfulfilling jobs, spend their money on entertainment with little value. Even the religious folk don't seem to actually grasp meaning behind the words they speak. It is important to not be pessimistic about people. If you can get someone excited about something important, you've done a good thing for the world. People like you and I are not outcasts, we are intellectuals. Something I believe in is loving every person equally. Being kind and generous can build a bridge to someones mind that allows you to plant the seeds of thought. Show compassion to those who have small minds and lead them in the right direction. I think you will feel more joyful about someone when you see them learn from you.
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yea i feel the same way. i like discussing ideas and events but it seems like most people don't do that. even when discussing sports or politics, people can't discuss it as an idea and get too emotionally involved in them so its impossible to "discuss" per se. Well I guess we're the minority and they'll think of us as boring while we think of them as boring as well
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What kind of career do you have? If you channel some of your intellectual energy into your work, you may find that:
(a) you gather colleagues who are excited to talk about what you find exciting
(b) you are tired enough to want to relax with your friends instead of engaging with them intellectually
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On November 01 2012 15:55 Muirhead wrote:
What kind of career do you have? If you channel some of your intellectual energy into your work, you may find that:
(a) you gather colleagues who are excited to talk about what you find exciting
(b) you are tired enough to want to relax with your friends instead of engaging with them intellectually
Thanks. I think this is a good advice. Gotta learn to relax a bit.
But in all honesty I prefer having couple of beers while watching a movie/sport/stream, rather than hanging out with a friend. Because it feels awkward sometimes. We have nothing to say eachother.
I think this why I come on TL. People are great here to talk to.
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On November 01 2012 15:32 IskatuMesk wrote:
Socializing is overrated. I don't think anyone really genuinely takes the concept seriously. I haven't talked to a person physically beyond one-liners and, at the most, small talk, in over a decade. I step out of the house maybe once a year, and only very briefly. I talk to some people over vent, but our conversations are never in-depth about anything besides how bad the gaming and related industries are.
Embrace the peace of silence for what little time you have it.
I feel so much better hearing this since it pretty much describes my life.
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I'm not judging anybody, but what happens in this thread is: other introvert persons will dominate the reply frequency and you will "discuss" these matters of RL and conveniently end up with a biased conclusion that it is normal/acceptable/justifiable to go on living the good life alone behind curtains and in front of your computers.
RL friends and socialization is the best thing about life IMO-
EDIT: nothing unusual about hating the entire topic that is football in any social setting; that's just a motivation to make new friends
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On November 01 2012 15:32 IskatuMesk wrote:
Socializing is overrated. I don't think anyone really genuinely takes the concept seriously. I haven't talked to a person physically beyond one-liners and, at the most, small talk, in over a decade. I step out of the house maybe once a year, and only very briefly. I talk to some people over vent, but our conversations are never in-depth about anything besides how bad the gaming and related industries are.
Embrace the peace of silence for what little time you have it.
You shouldn't underestimate the power of socializing (which is basically talking to people and blending into community). It opens so many doors. While you spend your time hanging out with people, chit-chating and discussing unimportant stuff, you also catch some useful information here and there. New opportunities might arise. Like a nice job openings, some stuff being sold half the price (which you were considering to buy), getting to know that someone you care about is in the trouble and be able to help in time. And much much more. Being in community has far more benefits than being alone, albeit even if you waste your time 'talking'.
Thats why I think my antisocial behavior is kinda of a problem. I don't know how to solve this. My shyness doesn't help either :/
^responding to above. By no means being anti-social is good. I could go as far as to call it a decease and needs treatment.
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On November 01 2012 15:33 sam!zdat wrote:
We forgot how to think and read books and take things seriously. the world is just a big game to us now. we have a very anti-intellectual culture
edit: start a book group and read something hard
The world has always been non-intellectual. Of course if you compare the intellectual elite of the past to the average person now the past looks rosy. But I doubt the average pub conversation in a working class neighbourhood 100 years ago was very deep either.
edit: To post something on topic too, some of the conversations OP suggests are avoided for a reason, except between close friends or anonym forums. Imagine this conversation:
OP: "Can a religious person be rational"
Atheist: "LOL, religion is stupid, faith is the opposite of rationality"
Religious: "Burn in hell, atheist"
OP: "..."
OP: "Why did so many people follow Hitler, despite his terrible ideas"
Crypto-Nazi: "He had some good ideas too, you know"
Host: "Did you hear that Real Madrid fired Murinho?"
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This is my opinion on the matter:
![[image loading]](http://www.traemcneely.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/wpid-greta-things-525x3611.jpeg)
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hypercube has a good point about pubbies imo: just because people don't dress in rags anymore it doesn't really mean they're the full hundred percent :p There are seven billion people on the planet, all of them can't be that bad? Then again, the good ones are scarce, you've got to seek them out. Young people 'don't have time' to think, they're all doing the rat race, it's a very strong system. Infotainment, work, food, hard-resetting parties, getting along with everyone...
Personal mistake I made was that I expected everyone to be perfect, be physically able, love kpop and medieval literature, all while being vegetarian german beer drinkers. Guess how many I found :p Now I do different things with different people: Kpop I get here at TL, although I don't post in the kpop thread because those people are CRAZY scary, vegetarian with some friends and family, talking nonsense still is a bit of a problem in real life, oh and german beer has many fans so that wasn't much of a problem anyway :p Now if only I'd find some people who'd like medieval literature...
Guess you've got to love the struggle ^^
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You're fine, I often feel the same way. Modern society encourages people to be superficial. Watch the movie "God bless America"; it's very well made, and it will probably make you laugh a lot.
Don't wanna spoil it too much, but it's basically the story of a guy feeling like you and goes nuts.
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On November 01 2012 19:10 opsayo wrote:This is my opinion on the matter:
Depends on what you want, I guess...
If you're in a social environment and you want to acquire a lot of power socially, talking about other people is very relevant.
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The door swings both ways. You're boring if you can only small talk or discuss the latest in pop culture, but you're also boring if you can't talk about anything that isn't serious or 'deep'.
I think that it's a case of getting out what you put in. If you expect conversations to flow with no effort at all and in the precise direction you want then you're kidding yourself.
It might just be that socialising isn't your thing (anymore), but don't become one of those people who calls anybody they don't immediately hit it off with boring. If anything that's worse.
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EPT
