Tag Archives: Interest

What Catches Your Interest?

The other day I was walking down the street, just ambling along. It was the weekend, and I had slept in a little bit later than normal. As such I hadn’t eaten breakfast, so I was a bit hungry, although that wasn’t my only purpose for going out. It was a nice day so I decided to stroll downtown to look in the shops, do some people watching, and eventually gets something to eat. You know how when you do this, it can be better. You just float along without any particular destination in mind. People can really enjoy doing this. It can be better than the other way.

So I was just looking in shops, occasionally flirting with girls I passed on the street when I bumped into an old friend. He’s the kind of friend that one would consider low maintenance. The kind that you only need to send a random email to every few months to keep each other up to date on things. Then when you get together, you can quickly remember all those good times you’ve had together, and all those good feelings can help you to really enjoy the present. Other friendships are so lucky, and you have to consistently keep them going. It’s almost like when you were a kid and you convinced your mom to buy you a hamster. It looked really cute in the store, but when you got I home and realized what pain it was to maintain, it didn’t seem so cute any more. And the paradoxical thing is that although it became a pain, this slowly turned into a commitment that through completely different reasons caused you to maintain an interest.

Just before I bumped into my friend, I noticed a commotion across the street. It had seemed that there was a sizeable crowd gathered. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we humans are highly susceptible to follow the crowd, even though many of us don’t like to admit it. When we see a crowd it becomes very hard to resist finding out what the heck is going on.

So naturally I crossed the street to investigate. It was a new surf shop that mainly had surfboards and peripherals. I’ll admit I know absolutely nothing about surfing, which is embarrassing having grown up in a beach town where surfing is popular. The draw was two girls dressed in bikinis, which were one of many clothing items that the store apparently carried. The two girls were professional models who were hired for a couple hours. Their job was to stand outside during lunchtime and attract as many customers as possible. Obviously it worked

Despite my complete lack of knowledge regarding surfing, I nevertheless had to take a look inside. It’s interesting when you look at something. As I was looking at all the surfboards on display, I couldn’t help but notice that some were really interesting, and I couldn’t help but to get really curious about their design and origin. Others that I didn’t think were as interesting only earned a passing glance. Which is interesting in and of itself, the way interest is generated and all that. Why would one surfboard catch one person’s interest, and another surfboard seem completely boring? Not to mention all the accessories, not that I have any idea what they are used for. I ended up spending about twenty minutes walking around the inside of that surf shop. I guess the owner really knew what he was doing when he hired those two bikini models.

After I found out that my friend hadn’t eaten yet either, we decided to head down to a Thai restaurant. There, you can order based on scale of hotness. I always appreciate a spicy meal, so I endeavor to go as hot as I can take it. My friend, on the other hand, being from the south, doesn’t have much of a taste for spicy food, and likes to keep to dishes of four or less.

Bite into Interest to Create New Friends

I was riding the train home from the mall this evening. The weather was kind of dreary, and the digital camera I was looking for wasn’t in the electronic store that I thought it would be in. I want to buy a video camera so I can start posting video logs. I think that will be fun. Also, table I usually sit at in my favorite coffee shop inside the bookstore in the mall had been taken, so I had to sit someplace else. Of course, that didn’t stop me from making my usual observations and journal ideas as I sipped my black iced tea. But on the train, I was sitting across from this woman, who’d I put in her mid fifties, that was very bored. She looked like I felt. So I wondered what would happen if I started a conversation.

Conversations can be tricky sometimes. Like Forest Gump says, you really don’t know what’s inside unless you bite into it. Sometimes you’ll see a really mean looking person, and when you start to talk to them, they turn into the friendliest person you could ever meet. Other times, somebody seems to projecting an aura of friendliness and kindness, but once you start to talk to them, they look at you as if you’d just ran over their puppy. People can be extremely interesting.

I was reading this book, and it was saying that you really do have the power to find this interesting. It’s like a movie. Sometimes you don’t find this movie very compelling, other times you just have to keep your eyes focused on this. He said that the more you can choose to feel interested, the easier it gets. It was kind of a strange concept, purposely turning up your interest level so you can find something very intriguing that you wouldn’t normally do. I guess like everything else, it takes practice. He compared it to a situation when you meet a new boss that you will be working closely with. At first blush, he doesn’t seem like the kind of guy you’d want to spend more than five minutes or so in a bar, but since you are in a situation where you have to interact with this person, you somehow find a way to find interest in the same things he does. It’s almost as if by pretending, you actually generate strong interest. I know more than a few marriages where the wife will say at first she wasn’t interested, but this guy kind of grew on her. Persistence pays.

So I asked the woman where she was going this evening, and she said she was going to the airport to see her daughter who was away at university. The reason she looked so bored was that she just hates to travel. She said that she would much rather use those devices on star trek, where you just disappear one place, and then reappear in another place. That kicked off a great conversation about high tech electronic gadgets and where we’d be without them. Which just goes to show you, you never know until you bite right into it and see what’s inside.

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