Everywhere, Shallow People Everywhere

[jacob635]

To me, people are becoming more unconscious (they do not act in ways they choose) and are more shallow, they care more about what other people are caring about

Now to me this makes me feel good that I can enjoy the things I like and take pride in that decision, but there are so few people who are not shallow that focusing on what I want, what makes me happy inside is actually quite a lonely experience and in a weird way makes me want to forget everything important and care only about the surface level of, well, everything! It'd be much easier -Ignorance is bliss, huh?

So my real question is; even though I know that being shallow isn't a good thing, how can I stop feeling like I'm missing out?

[cari]

You just need to accept others. Some people just don't care about what you want because they are too busy working for what they want and that's not a bad thing, in order for they to give you their best they need to have a "best" thing to give

[Richard@DecisionSkills]

So my real question is; even though I know that being shallow isn't a good thing, how can I stop feeling like I'm missing out?

Missing out on what? What behaviors do you think are shallow that you are missing? Watching a movie, drinking beer with friends, posting something on Facebook, buying a sports car?

[Beloved]

are becoming more unconscious (they do not act in ways they choose) and are more shallow,

Have they changed or have you changed?

[McCain]

To me, people are becoming more unconscious (they do not act in ways they choose) and are more shallow, they care more about what other people are caring about

Now to me this makes me feel good that I can enjoy the things I like and take pride in that decision, but there are so few people who are not shallow that focusing on what I want, what makes me happy inside is actually quite a lonely experience and in a weird way makes me want to forget everything important and care only about the surface level of, well, everything! It'd be much easier -Ignorance is bliss, huh?

So my real question is; even though I know that being shallow isn't a good thing, how can I stop feeling like I'm missing out?

Do you want to be a shallow person? Do you think it's a guilt free life ? Do you feel your missing out of the "nobody gives a $hit party"?
McCain

[your.transformations]

So my real question is; even though I know that being shallow isn't a good thing, how can I stop feeling like I'm missing out?

I sound like you are not letting yourself do what you want to do... caring what others think about you is not shallow, its natural. Only caring what others think, that is just narrow minded.(its not always shallow but it can be)

Is there some specific things that you feel like doing but just not let yourself to do?

[jacob635]

Great replies, thank you all.

You just need to accept others. Some people just don't care about what you want because they are too busy working for what they want and that's not a bad thing.

I hadn't thought of this before! If I could observe myself, I would think I had little depth at first because I keep myself to myself ,I think if I was to meet myself however, I would understand this is not the case, so that reduces the amount of people I see as shallow!

I sound like you are not letting yourself do what you want to do

Simply put, this is not the case I know who I am and what I want, and if I want something enough I will try my best to get it, thanks for the response though.

Missing out on what?

Have they changed or have you changed?

Do you want to be a shallow person? Do you think it's a guilt free life ? Do you feel your missing out of the "nobody gives a $hit party"?
McCain

I connect with other people of all ages and have interesting conversations and a good laugh with whoever, but In my own head, if I thought what it would be like if I was less curious and more ignorant of what's around me then I could imagine being less stressed and being able to connect on a different level with these people who I perceive to be shallow.

Possible reasons for how I am feeling like this;

The stress part
1.)I am stressed from study and work, I need to be more resilient- I have always been inconsistent with my effort levels to everything (High or Low) and I certainly struggle with consistency so any guidance on how I can reduce these swings would be great help

I think being tired has caused me to be irrational but I can see now that the problem is not that I cannot connect with people in general, but that I cannot connect to a specific type of person. It is not that I feel like I am missing out, but that I am on a different wavelength to these certain shallow people- please see my next paragraph about what I classify as shallow and that I am not overgeneralising.

The connecting on a different level with shallow people, part
2.) -Other people's responses are converging all of the time and it seems like other people's ideas are more safe and less risky, whereas I like to suggest my own ideas and opinions to every conversation.
-It seems as if people have become lazy; they all have the same haircuts, the same college bag, similar ways of expression and care a lot about appearance and celebrities (who is doing well, who died etc.) I just don't care about that stuff.
-It gets on my nerves when male's explicitly share their views on how attractive a woman looks, (even when I think the same) I just find it inappropriate and old-fashioned to feel the need to share these things, unless we are in need of advice from peers. These people constantly judge a book by it's cover and I think that is the worst thing when you could have met somebody so significant yet you choose not to interact with them simply because their face value is different.

In short, I miss how people do not appear to be truly themselves any more and as I get older, there is becoming less and less people who are willing OR able to express themselves. This saddens me because I want to learn and see things differently everyday because I am not perfect and want to learn things that others see in me that I don't.
(FOR EXAMPLE ON HERE YOU ALL GAVE ME DIFFERENT HELPFUL VIEWS!!!!)
But people in real life are becoming less unique and aren't able to give me so many different viewpoint!
Here is an analogy; Letters represent people in this case. A , B , C, D, E are 5 different people on this forum who offered me 5 different responses.
F, G, H, I, J are 5 different people in real life, but appear as only F, G because H, I, J are not able to or willing to be themselves.

There are MANY people who are not shallow but now it seems even MORE who are.

I have met some amazing characters from all walks of life and it feels great to be able to connect with such random people! I am just concerned whether it is society as a whole that has shifted or if it is me who is out of touch.

Please do not assume I think grandiosely of myself or that I think I am more intelligent than others, this isn't true. I feel as though the more I learn about the brain and why we behave the way we do, the more obvious people's imitation is to me and the more I feel like I am talking to the same, shallow person.

[jacob635]

I think a possible reason for feeling out of touch is that whilst I am learning about my interests, other people are learning about theirs and I feel disconnected from these people because there is less common ground to discuss and in some cases less conversation as a result.

However, I still stand by the opinion that that there is a large percentage of people who are not truly themselves and are suckers for conformity.

[McCain]

Maybe it's time for change. Get out of that surrounding and challenge yourself with a place that has more "down to earth , mentally stimulating people. It's a big world out there.
McCain

[bert_ernie]

hi,

it's a thing. this phenomena you're describing. as in many people will tend to conform. contort themselves so they can fit in. or to try to be cool. & the unconscious thing. that's pretty much everyone. that's even you & me. people get into habits & then they just run through those grooves in life over & over again without consciously thinking.

but i don't think it's a particularly new thing. nietzchke talked about "the herd". i'm pretty sure it's been around since the dawn of time.

i would say that media, newsprint & tv, etc seems to be getting worse & worse. which i guess could be causing what you're describing. everything's justin beiber this or kim kardashian that. i personally haven't experienced people becoming more shallow. but i guess that could be a thing.

i also read a book called "in search of the miraculous". which was about g gurdjieff. his thing was that he said we are all asleep. behaving automatically. & he had methods he used to try to act more consciously.

[Richard@DecisionSkills]

I think a possible reason for feeling out of touch is that whilst I am learning about my interests, other people are learning about theirs and I feel disconnected from these people because there is less common ground to discuss and in some cases less conversation as a result.

However, I still stand by the opinion that that there is a large percentage of people who are not truly themselves and are suckers for conformity.

I politely ask, why does this cause you so much discomfort or concern, i.e. so what? Do you fear you are missing out on being a sucker? How many people do you need in your life to discuss your interests? So what if you overhear people discussing celebrity gossip? Does that trigger anxiety?

[jacob635]

Maybe it's time for change. Get out of that surrounding and challenge yourself with a place that has more "down to earth , mentally stimulating people. It's a big world out there.
McCain

Yeah maybe I need to do something that's going to really challenge me every now and then..

i also read a book called "in search of the miraculous". which was about g gurdjieff. his thing was that he said we are all asleep. behaving automatically. & he had methods he used to try to act more consciously.

I'll definitely be researching this so I don't fall into the same trap! Thank Bert.

I politely ask, why does this cause you so much discomfort or concern, i.e. so what? Do you fear you are missing out on being a sucker? How many people do you need in your life to discuss your interests? So what if you overhear people discussing celebrity gossip? Does that trigger anxiety?

Some good points but I don't really know. You're right that this difference really doesn't matter so for me to be so concerned with it is a little odd.

I am interested in behaviour and why people behave differently, I guess this has led me to seeing what differences I have with other people. I've gotten to know some people who I've believed to have many layers and become good friends with yet when sensitive or intimate topics are brought up, these relationships have ended. I guess I'm a little annoyed this has happened so often and want to see why I misjudge people.
~~~~~
Now you've said this, I think I've been overgeneralising. YES there still are a lot of people who act less consciously than others. BUT the people who I've thought were deep and appeared shallow actually weren't shallow at all. I am normally confident in who I am but maybe it's part of how I am which results in these breaking downs of relationships?
To me the people who are most intriguing are the ones who have characteristics I want to have and by learning from these I can be a better person through a new perspective/way of thinking.
Because they're different to me, our initial effort to understand one another is difficult which makes these relationships fizzle out?
It would be silly to generalise all of my failed relationships though.. so perhaps a better reason would be that I miss the company since I do not see people as much as when I was in school?

The more I research how the brain works and why we behave the way we do, the more I learn about myself and the more I learn about pain I feel. I think there is the above problem here aswell as the below one revealed in how I have been thinking.
in a certain way, being so curious about how I feel has been uplifting and a weight off of my shoulders is felt every time, but understanding exactly the pain I feel is difficult to interpret and this is why being shallow seems appealing, since I don't have to think about (my) complicated thoughts/emotions/mind etc.

[Alexander Ang]

Hi Jacob,

Thank you for your sharing.

Is good that you know what's going on here. I have some few suggestion that you might want to consider here:

1) the word "Shallow" is a subjective word that can be defined in variety of ways depending on individual. Hence,sometimes it could affect on what you choose to believe to be true (e.g: Shallow is not a good thing, shallow is for lazy people etc) in the way you look at others. - This is definitely not very healthy for you and other people you care about.

2) There are different personality style of people in this world. Everyone is unique, and everyone is special on their own (So do you! )
What you can to is to acknowledge and respect their model of the world. Why not look at their strength, be curious about them? understand them with compassion will makes you a greater person by looking people in different point of view.

This is my personal thought and experience.
Cheers!

[jacob635]

1) the word "Shallow" is a subjective word that can be defined in variety of ways depending on individual. Hence,sometimes it could affect on what you choose to believe to be true (e.g: Shallow is not a good thing, shallow is for lazy people etc) in the way you look at others. - This is definitely not very healthy for you and other people you care about.

2) There are different personality style of people in this world. Everyone is unique, and everyone is special on their own (So do you! )
What you can to is to acknowledge and respect their model of the world. Why not look at their strength, be curious about them? understand them with compassion will makes you a greater person by looking people in different point of view.

This is my personal thought and experience.
Cheers!

Some great points Alex.

I should respect people's privacy and not make it my problem that certain people choose not to express how they're really feeling, despite whether I think it is 'right' or 'wrong'.

[coffeelove3]

I get what you are saying, I see the same things around me and it is depressing at times

I seek out to have stimulating conversations with the people around me but all they care about is what was on fox or a show. I'm not anti-social-I just don't care to continue a pointless conversation. I have a couple of corkers and all they look at or talk about are celebrities and luxuries we can't afford. WHY? who cares? Live within your means ... they spend all day discussing the clothes and browsing online at shoes they couldn't possibly afford.

Iv'e been reading more than I ever have in my life and take weekend trips out to hike in the San Gabriel mountains- its peaceful , quiet and ultimately REAL

I know me and I can read people better now - I am not a pretender. Goodluck finding others out there like you