the soft rebellion of being enough

don't try to be interesting. try being interested instead.

i’m sitting at a table surrounded by people i love. it’s a friday night, or maybe a thursday. saturday? i don’t really remember, it’s been a while since this particular night happened, but i remember the conversation going on strong.

only i’m not speaking at all.

i listen to a friend telling us a story about her work, another talking about her latest date with her new boyfriend, another one speaks about an article she wrote that made her so angry she pitched a new one to raise audience awareness. there's a lot of side conversations happening, too, but i'm still quiet.

i feel a little bit like a fish out of water, or maybe just a fish, opening and closing my mouth, looking for something interesting to say. anything. anything at all. nothing comes to mind. when everyone looks at me, waiting on a response, i answer with ‘for sure’ or ‘that’s true’, just to let them know i’m keeping up.

i’m not.

as someone who felt invisible for most of her life, being interesting was always a sore topic. ask my closest friends and they’ll deny this vehemently. i lived abroad! i was a ballerina! i was a journalist! i moved countries! they’ll probably tell you i live (as in present tense) an interesting life.

huh.

my conscious mind disagrees. one, because i was taught to never be the center of attention and disappear in the background, quietly playing by myself and not causing problems. two, i was constantly shut down whenever i had something to say, so i also learned i shouldn’t add to conversations at all.

hence, the silence.

now, listen, i like to talk. i’m a yapper if you let me. and i like deeeeep conversations. the type you reserve for a friday night after many glasses of wine. but have it on a saturday afternoon. and let’s trade the wine for coffee.

but you get the feeling, right?

‘curiosity’ has always been a sore topic as well. i was told to not ask questions, to accept what was being said to me by my elders and to be quiet. which is why i love writing so much. the blank page never told me to ‘shut it’. nor did my cute notion template.

and besides the occasional online troll, writing is my way of communicating because, here, i can speak my mind without being eyed with a condescending look that says ‘maybe you should just be silent from now on.’

i’m just recently learning the effects of my upbringing in my life overall. but one thing i learned for sure is that i don’t feel like i’m interesting enough, so i have to bend and break and adapt and do things another way to be interesting and noticed and validated as a human being.

it’s exhausting.

and i kept thinking i needed to be more interesting, do more amazing stuff, dress a certain way and talk about this and maybe become a wine connoisseur even though i’ve been sober all my life? i should have a hobby and be part of a running club, or maybe start crocheting and, yes, i should definitely start coloring and buy all those markers to be part of this and finally! be! interesting!

turns out, i just need to learn how to be interested instead.

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you’re not at fault here

maybe since the dawn of (modern) time, we feel this pressure to be better. at least, as a woman, i certainly always did. and i feel like in comparison to brazil, north american culture is 100% more focused on self-development. you always have to thrive, to do more, to be more.

if you’re not rich, that’s on you. if you’re not living your best life, that’s on you. if you’re not making 6 figures a year with your side hustle, that’s on you. if you’re not married with your soul mate, that’s on you.

and yes, the ‘that’s on you’ part of the narrative is true, to an extent. but we are not alone in the world, are we? we are interconnected and intertwined and dependent on one another to live. we are the sum of the people closest to us, but also of our social context. for some, it’s not that easy to change overnight.

which is why the conversation about new technologies and being offline is complicated and mostly based on privilege. the internet gave minorities and less privileged people access to knowledge and opportunities they never had before, couldn't even dream of it.

but blaming the individual for collective problems is something so common over here, i feel. more than back home where the collective problems are well-known and we just love suffering together at the bottom of the pit.

the reason why i dislike ‘life hacks’ so much is because they don’t consider my reality the way i can. so when i don’t get the same results, it’s frustrating and unmotivating.

i know it looks like i’m digressing, but when i watch the ‘how to be more interesting’ videos all i feel is the pressure to be something more, and that, somehow, i’m still in the wrong even though i’ve been working on myself for years.

and part of living slowly, for me, comes with the understanding that i am enough and that my ambition is allowed to lie elsewhere. also, that maybe the secret is not in keeping looking at myself like a self-development project that needs constant work, but shifting my perspective from me, to you.

because the times i felt most interesting were when talking with people that were interested in me. not in the romantic sense, but in the ‘hey, i really want to hear what you have to say and get to know you’ way.

and curiously, those people, to me, were also the most interesting.

they hardly said anything about themselves, but they were really curious about what i had to say, they are the ones that really go after answers and share them because they think they will help, not because they need attention. they keep learning because they wish to understand the world better and find new solutions for collective problems.

yes, they can be ambitious and make money and all that. but they are, most of all, interested.

in people, topics, places. they explore and allow themselves to live adventures.

considering my wish to live a big life, i came back to a quote i saw a long time ago that i'll paraphrase here, because i can't for the life of me remember where i wrote it down. but it said something about life being made for adventures, so when you reach the end of it, you look back happy you lived it, instead of seeing only one day, the same day, lived again and again.

living equal days for most of my life terrifies me more than the impending modern world doom.

and i kept coming back to the same answer to this. it's not that i need to do something more to be this incredible person i wish to be, nor that i'm defective in any way. i must only relearn to find my voice and ask questions without fear.

i know, it sounds so easy when i write it like that. but this is coming from the person that just an hour and a half ago (as of the moment of writing this) practiced how to ask for an extra poop bag because i forgot to grab some when leaving the apartment to walk my dog. it took me two tries and an awkward eye contact for that to work.

when asking questions, no matter what the context, we can so easily feel like we're disturbing, somehow. or being intrusive. and, of course, let's not forget common sense and expected boundaries, yes?

but i feel like a simple, respectful ‘why?’ as a follow-up in a conversation could already supply us with so much rich material. or even a ‘and how was that experience?’. my mind blows just thinking about it. it doesn't take much, i fear, to be interested.

it's much less exhausting than trying to be interesting. more rewarding, too.

because at least you come out of that talk knowing someone a little better. being closer to a friend you're already close with. or with an opening to turn an acquaintance into a friend next time you meet. you make the other person feel seen. and you'll probably learn something new as well.

and that applies to everything. what if i asked more ‘why’ to the things i'm interested in. like, why do i love writing so much? what's up with my obsession with coffee? or fanfiction? why is it so appealing to me? somehow, i feel like knowing these answers will make me more curious and, by extension, more interesting.

and i say this with love and giving myself a lot of grace because i'm a journalist and for a long time it was my job to ask questions. but even then i was terrified of offending my interviewees, of being invasive, or plain old rude. that never happened, obviously, but i always felt like i was missing the ‘bold’ trait of being a great journalist.

and i have this plan, you see, of things i want to change in the next six months. and it just dawned on me that i won't be able to achieve them if i'm not interested. if i'm not curious. if i'm not willing to learn the answers to the questions i'm too afraid to ask.

i'm not delusional in thinking i'll be able to change overnight. and maybe you deal with this too. but i've learned a long time ago that people are craving connection. real connection. and they will crave more and more as ai advances. but it's impossible to create it if we're constantly worried about ourselves and the impression we're making instead of looking outside of us and reaching out to others.

i know. i wish we could do it alone. unfortunately (or maybe that's very fortunate), we can't.

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answering questions i'm too afraid to ask

i love writing because writing was my way to deal with the loneliness i felt as a child. it's the only ‘place’ my voice was heard and not judged. it's not that i'm in love with coffee, the beverage, per se, but i love the process of making coffee and how it works as a trigger to working and writing and being productive, for me. it also reminds me of home and how much my culture revolves around coffee-drinking at all times of the day, even when it's 35ºC outside. fanfiction brings me comfort like few other things because it explores characters i already know, in a universe i already know but living all these different lives so they can find each other again in the most heartwarming and/or heartbreaking way.

i know i was curious as a child. i heard the stories of how i would yap myself away from my parents, speaking to everyone i could find. that got lost, somehow, along the way. and i feel like getting that back might help me live the way i want.

so i'm asking many questions i'm afraid to ask. at first, to myself. to learn about who i am now and how i can honor this person i've become. hopefully, i'll start asking them aloud to others, so i can learn more about them. and then, start asking them about the world, to understand it better. it's hard work, i know. our minds are overwhelmed constantly with an insane amount of information. which is why part of the plan i mentioned earlier will consist of this:

• i will delete social media from my phone on the weekends.

• i'm only reading a book at a time, and starting a new one after i finish processing the one i just read (which includes journaling).

• i'm going back to the morning pages. i wanted to do the artist's way again, but i don't think that's necessary and it will add extra pressure to my days.

• i chose a few goals i have for different areas of my life that will be my main focus. everything else will have to wait. these topics will be explored on a later article, but they're enough to keep me busy for the next six months.

• to learn what i like and don't like, i will be conducting experiments and exploring new activities to understand why i like them or not - and, yes, i'll be journaling about it afterwards.

trying to be more interested in my own life is hard, and i'm trying to make it fun, creating some prizes and celebrations or little rituals i can refer to when necessary. i'm also starting small, with things like how i'd like to dress myself during the summer and why or how i can make studying french more fun so i don't procrastinate it (like i have for the past two years).

again, i don't have all the answers. but the questions are coming more easily to me. and i think that's progress, right?

i'd love to know your thoughts on this. do you agree that we should try to be more interested than interesting? let me know in the comments:

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that's it for today.

take care,

maki.