How to become an interesting person

The glow after summer vacation seems the perfect time to explore the interesting topic of interesting. Haven’t you noticed whenever you ditch your routine everything you usually do seems dull?

Do I like my work, my family, my mate, can I even stand myself? Is this the time, you think — while gazing at a mountain or lolling at the beach — to make big changes? Could life become less likely to fall asleep in the middle of, or make others do the same?

That was the overriding issue sparked by my nephew as we hiked the Rockies for his high school graduation trip. On the verge of becoming who knows what, he decided interesting was his primary goal: Not to be dull like old Uncle Ralph who snored when his butt hit the couch. Even a folding chair at holiday dinner would do.

Ralph always made me wonder: Was he exciting to someone else, even under the drool? Is one person’s to-diefor another person’s bored-tosnore?

With a big hike ahead of us, and nothing but time, my nephew and I pondered: Can you become fascinating, or is it something you’re born with like a mole or blue eyes? Or is riveting something you develop by the choices you make and the people you’re with? And is wanting to be interesting interesting enough? Well, at least it’s a start. We made a list: How to Become an Interesting Person, Top Ten.

And we said this: Be openminded, be curious, read, seek knowledge, listen and ask questions, broaden your horizons, tell a good (but short) story, believe in yourself, have opinions, have passions.

Which morphed into Top Twelve: Drop the ego, and duh — have a lot of interests.

And kept on going: Capture your uniqueness, have less fear, try new things.

Suddenly we saw there was no end to the ways we could at least try to increase our interesting-ness, which made me consider if poor Uncle Ralph was just exhausted from doing so many cool things.

As a fan of snappy ideas — “How to Lose a Ton Overnight” or “How to Make a Million by 13” — I’m a sucker for finding the tiniest truths in complicated subjects. “Eat Less” or “Save Pennies,” for example. Something you can grab onto like love handles.

Interesting though is an interesting one. Can you slowly, steadfastly become someone who grips an audience, or is entertaining born into your fat cells, your genetic code? Is interesting necessarily happy anyway, or can interesting be a lot of work when you’d really rather be lazy and eat in front of the TV.

And — to cover the full captivating subject — we wondered if having interests, being interesting, having an interesting life, is different from being an interesting person? Can you have a life that’s completely engaging to you, but like Ralph, not care a twit about sharing it with someone else?

And finally — TV or not, snoring or not, long-winded or not — do we all think, in our private heart of hearts, that we tell the best stories of all, that we do the best things, that we are, each one of us, to ourselves, fascinating, enthralling, engaging, riveting.

Do we each, deep down, plain and simple — even Uncle Ralph — think that we’re quite the hot tamale?

So many questions, so many ways to cut the grapefruit.

I’m glad one of us is off to college to try to figure it out.