The Inner Monologue

Ask anyone to list what they care about.
Most will start earnestly: family, friends, health, happiness.
Then, when pressed—what else?—there’s a pause. They might mumble music, movies, travel, or my dog. And that’s it. For all the hours spent scrolling, streaming, and speaking of “passion,” the actual list of things that command sustained attention is remarkably short.

The hard truth is that most people are not as deep or interesting as they think they are. They’re not evil or stupid—just remarkably ordinary, built to follow grooves carved by culture and convenience.

The Illusion of Depth

We confuse volume of content with depth of engagement.
Someone who binges a dozen documentaries imagines themselves “curious about the world,” yet couldn’t summarize one of them two weeks later. Someone who reads the news daily believes they’re “informed,” though their opinions are indistinguishable from whatever headline occupied the top bar of their favorite feed that morning.

Depth requires tension—the willingness to sit with uncertainty, to gnaw on a question until it becomes personal. Most people would rather scroll. It’s not laziness; it’s self-preservation. Real curiosity destabilizes comfort. It forces change.

The Narrowness of Interest

Strip away the universal human concerns—family, love, survival—and the remaining subjects that truly engage the average person would fit on a Post-it note.
Even self-proclaimed “interesting” people usually orbit a handful of obsessions: a team, a hobby, a celebrity, a cause. Ask for five more and they’ll struggle.

It’s not that people can’t be deep; it’s that modern life rewards shallowness. Algorithms amplify what’s familiar. Conversations reward quick takes. Corporations monetize attention, not reflection. So we build personalities from fragments—memes, slogans, playlists—and call that identity.

The Social Theater of Interestingness

We perform depth like actors reading from a script.
A person mentions meditation or stoicism to signal mindfulness. Another claims to “love travel” but means beach resorts, not foreign ideas. We curate these performances on social media: the bookshelf selfie, the concert wristband, the protest sign, the gym mirror. None of it is false; it’s just flattened—real experiences pressed into tokens of personality.

Our ancestors had fewer distractions but richer conversations. Modern “interestingness” is thin soup—pleasant, palatable, and instantly forgettable.

Why This Matters

If most people are shallower than they believe, so what?
Because self-delusion blocks growth. The first step to genuine depth is realizing how rarely we venture beyond the surface.

When you know your own interests are few, you can nurture them intentionally. You can choose to go deeper instead of wider—to master one subject, read one philosopher thoroughly, understand one era of history completely, or truly listen to one person’s story.

Depth isn’t about having many opinions; it’s about having earned a few.

The Invitation to Dive

Here’s a simple experiment:
List the things you genuinely pay attention to—not what you think you should care about, but what consistently holds your focus. Cross off the universal human stuff. Whatever remains is who you really are.

For most, the list will feel alarmingly short. But that’s the beginning of authenticity. Once you know the shallows, you can start to swim.