people with a wide range of talents and interests - c/d

me too but it's more the interests part that i am down on, people can't help being talented.

you may be right. i find that people with a wide range of interests are often articulate and well-informed about their preferred hobbies/likes/whatever, but in a really boring kinda way. like, you wouldn't think that they're talking nonsense about their interests but, for some reason, they never say anything *really* interesting about them.

jealousy would lead me towards a 'dud' response. but only if they're good-looking as well.

i think jealousy is a partial factor in my "dud", though it's def not the only factor!

'natural health' is probably my least favourite other people's interest to have to hear about, most people who go on about it somehow manage to be simultaneously boring and wildly implausible. marvelling at that can distract me for a little while but they always go on long beyond the point of marvel.

i'm baffled by this thread

I have one word for those kinds of people: LOSERS!!

Seriously, though, I don't understand this thread, either...

i find that people with a wide range of interests are often articulate and well-informed about their preferred hobbies/likes/whatever, but in a really boring kinda way. like, you wouldn't think that they're talking nonsense about their interests but, for some reason, they never say anything *really* interesting about them.

HI DERE ;_;

How do they find time? Getting good at ONE thing would take far, far longer than I currently manage to spare, never mind working at several and going out to socialise and network and show it off.

(Maybe they do not spend so long reading the interwebs, ho hum)
('cept these days doing so seems such a useful way to get up to speed on yr interests + a handy part of that whole getting to know people aspect + the main way I notice these people, so, eh)

now i am thinking about the kind of people my mother thought i should be friends with instead of my actual friends.

TS: Dilettantes vs Specialists.

Heart vs Head

I'm definitely a dilettante, which is classic because learning new stuff is fun, but dud because the driving factor is always boredom with what one already knows.

Also I don't bore other people by talking about my interests, unless they share them.

xp... which is which?

I'm a bit of a dilettante, but it's mostly because I have trouble focusing on one thing for too long. Which is dud.

Yeah, I don't imagine that I'm all that or anything, but I've always been much more of a dilettante than a specialist. People who didn't know me that well in college assumed I was a theater major because I was in a couple of plays and did improv, but I always thought of myself more as a writer, and these days most casual acquaintances know me best as a musician.

Frankly, I've always been envious of people who know exactly what they want to pursue and go at it full-steam because I'm constantly doubting my commitment to whatever I do. I sort of want to find a weird niche for myself, like as a crossword-puzzle constructor or something, but that hasn't quite happened yet.

lol, threadstarter mad

Yeah, I was similar. I started college in the conservatory as a jazz guitar major, but got bored and switched to English, edited a weekly paper but fucked it up because I didn't take care of the business/paperwork stuff I was supposed to, started playing drums in a couple of bands, taught myself banjo out of boredom and then gave it up a couple years later, etc.

I'm the kind of person who reads the book review and wants to read all of the books - every time I hear about anything I think I need to know about it. Of course I never finish most of the books I start. My wife just makes fun of me and thinks it's kind of pathetic. It shows on my class transcript too. I took "Africa in WWII" without having taken a basic WWII class (and did pretty badly as a result).

I have a friend who's much worse than me this way. He's probably the best rock drummer I know in raw talent terms but doesn't practice, he's a gifted enough operatic bass that his teachers thought he could have a career, and he's an awesome photographer and video artist. But his life is almost a running joke among his friends because it's just an endless succession of starting things and then running away. And he's depressed.

I also have an aunt who attended a top law school, became a major news anchor, started two successful businesses and then became a moderately successful jewelry designer. But she failed at three marriages and now she lives alone in a remote part of Hawaii and she wants to sell cheesecakes or something.

I don't get it. If you mean that there are people who dabble without attaining any proficiency or getting really INTO their scattering of hobbies, then uh I mean, I'm not sure who that is, but they're probably fairly boring and ineffective in other areas of their lives, too.

That can't be too large a subsection tho, surely. I wd think having a "wide range" of interests is sort of the definition of being a developed whole person.