Interesting Times
I'd like to say 2011 was an interesting year, but that would not be in even the top 10 adjectives I'd use to describe it.
In a personal way it started out promisingly enough, although those of you with a little more organizational experience than I had going into it could probably have guessed that "interesting", while on the list in the ironic "Chinese curse" sense of the word, would not make it without the air quotes.
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"Interesting" is a singularly
boring adjective.
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"Interesting" is a singularly
boring adjective.
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Likewise, many of the "interesting" characters I met along the way. I am a curious sort, and love a good story, and everyone has one. Unfortunately only a very select few seem to be able to tell it in an interesting way. We all have complicated stories — It would be crude, condescending, and needlessly cruel to argue otherwise — but most tend to tell them (if indeed they can tell them at all) as if telling a cabbie directions home from the airport. And directions, while useful, are not interesting.
Meanwhile, my day job, inarguably in the service of a great cause — educating an underserved population, and blah blah blah — is not in itself interesting, either. If I had my druthers higher education would be free to all those who qualify, and learning a trade would be mandatory for everyone, even — especially — academics. (I know, I know. It's like having to do phys. ed. in grade school, but trust me, learning to do something useful, as my dad used to say, can be useful.)
As it is, my job is to shake 'em down for all they've got, and I can do that because I understand that the world is a prison and we're all somebody's bitch, and that getting fucked is still better than getting shivved in the neck and bleeding out on the shower floor to the heedless jeers of your heartless attackers. That's what I tell my kids anyway. And while I occasionally hear stories from them that would draw blood from a heart of stone, you'd burn through a good ten or twenty-five other adjectives there before getting to interesting.
My pet projects of 2011, likewise. You know, people like to think that if it's challenging it's interesting, but I'd say it all depends on the times. And I think we live in times when, in fact, a lot of things are challenging that aren't all that interesting.
I mean, a lot of things are challenging that we maybe used to take for granted. Like getting by. Getting by is not interesting. Maslow's Hierarchy doesn't start to get interesting until Level 5, really, and the longer you're scratching around down at the base of the pyramid the more of a bore you're going to end up being.
And then you become one of those people the rest of us have to step on on our way up. And you're going to bitch and moan at us for doing it, and we're going to have to stop and, you know, make nice. Strap you on our backs and try to hoist you up to level 4, kicking and screaming most likely.
I'm not saying I didn't get a hand up every now and again myself. But lemme tell you from experience: egos weigh a ton, and you'll never make it to the top with yours in tow. I don't want to sound like some cut-rate douchebag guru here, but trust me on this.*
In July I met the guy I've been dating ever since. It'll sound like a big cliche, but he's hands-down the best thing to happen all year, period. I'm sorry he couldn't have happened to everyone, but you know how it is.
But this thing we've got going, which is a gift as all good things are, is — mercifully — not interesting, either. In fact, he was telling me just this morning that he thought "interesting" was a singularly boring adjective.
But I dwell on that word — interesting — because it has so long been the one I have associated with my aspirations for a life. I mean, I used to want to live an interesting life, Chinese curse and all. And I guess I kinda did for a while.
But, man, did it get boring.
For the record, here are my top ten adjectives for 2011:
10. aleatory
9. untethered
8. brackish
7. mealy
6. thick
5. raw
4. uncut
3. rowdy
2. heroic
1. futile
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*There were at least seven people in my 2011 who could use that little piece of advice. You know who you are. Not. I mean, of course not.
'Interesting' is what a mealy-mouthed would-be critic calls something that he/she is pretty sure he/she doesn't get.
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Hey! Did you just call me a mealy-mouthed would-be critic, Stephen?
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