I mean, I’ve wanted to talk deep with people, but I realised what I considered talking deep feels stupid talk when you’re not in the zone.
Like, people say they wanna talk about space and stuff, but there’s scientists already doing that, and in a more meaningful way.
Like, I can’t understand what I even want at this point. That feel of talking deep with someone, but when I actually think of talking about it, it sounds like I was high. Like what kinda deep talk can a average guy like me can even have?
To me, “deep talk” is discussing things like Susan Sontag’s book On Photography or Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain or similar topics. What you’re describing is actually the curiosity and openness and the willingness to think about things. That’s fantastic.
what
Some perspective: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykHmAGQ1Z_0
Also, there is no highfalutin cosmic measurement to which you have to adapt your “deep talk”, whatever it means to you. It can mean one thing to you and one other thing to me, which is okay. Whatever you feel gives you a sense of relaxation or purpose or excitement or agitation or interest or the likes, just go for it.
I think I get what you’re saying. Those are the talks where the conversation leads you thinking about something you never thought before, or thinking about it in a whole new way.
You want to have one of those conversations because the sensation of discovery feels good. It’s like a workout for your brain and you feel pumped up and stronger afterwards!
The problem is, you can’t really force it. Even if you go down the topics that usually get you there, you’re just regurgitating things that have already been said.
You just have to have lots of conversations with lots of different people and eventually you’ll fall into a discussion that really sucks you in and works those neurons.
I totally get it and am willing to have some exploratory discussions with anyone who’s interested!
or just read a book or listen to a lecture that requires you have to process the material. much easier to discover stuff this way than try to find the 1/1000 people who will give it to you in conversation.
Look at the fast friends procedure and use those prompts as inspiration for questions.
Facts can be looked up but our experience of them can not. Experience is interesting and deepness is often the feeling of connecting with someone emotionally through sharing that experience.
Be curious about people’s experience. Ask them about theirs.
What does living on a mote of dust floating alone through the great emptiness mean to you? Or my current favorite after basic intros, or even with people I’ve known a long time, “Who are you?”.
my parents fucked and i was born. that’s what it means.
Was it a good fuck tho?
god no. my parents were both catholics and afraid of sex.
God that’s relatable, sorry about the childhood LMAO. Ever figure out the whole emotions thing?
Oh I never bought into their bullshit. I don’t get catholic stereotypes because well, I ignored all the stupid crap my parents tried to teach me.
my childhood mostly sucked not because we were catholic, but because we were poor and my parents were very angry about it everyday. they probably would have been happier had they actually gone to church more often.
“Talking deep” means you’re a baritone or bass. 😌
“Deep Thoughts” by Jack Handy.
Most people don’t seem very interested in deep philosophical conversations. It distracts them from trying to focus on Love Island.
people avoid deep thinking because it makes them uncomfortable
we don’t have any answers to anything and that’s unsettling to them
even worse: theories for said answers are more unsettling
Why does it make them uncomfortable? It makes me my most comfortable and it frustrates me when people get stressed by existential stuff, for instance
the same reason running 5 miles is pure torture for someone who isn’t a physically fit trained runner and they will likely give out by mile 1 or 2 with their muscles screaming, their lungs burning, and their heart pounding out of their chest in total agony.
running 5 miles only becomes enjoyable when you have trained your body and mind to find it enjoyable and that’s going to take weeks or months of effort if you are a coach potato. when you are trained up, running 5 miles is a breeze that’s barely harder than walking.
the vast majority of people are mental couch potatoes and find any mental process that is new or challenging to be miserable and they will reject it out of hand for making them feel awful and terrible. and most of the conversations and media they seek out is comforting familiar, and easy.
Which is why the most popular things can’t be geared towards anyone who isn’t educated beyond 8th grade intellectual abilities. The average reading level of bestselling books is 7th grade and most big movies have stories/plots also at this level.
people avoid deep thinking because it makes them uncomfortable
I have a friend who sends me stuff about living in a simulation. I stopped engaging with them about this because it has absolutely no bearing on anything that could possibly concern me. If it’s true, great; of not, just as great. There is no part about living, or not living, in simulation that makes me uncomfortable; it’s a pointless topic. I indulged them for a while, but I’m done.
Like, give an example. Talk about , hey, how do we really know what blue is if we all see it different? Theres no way to know. Or, how is it that the government is run by billionaire pedophiles and nothing is being done? Or, are we really all here at random or did aliens put us here ? I like discussing all those topics
Try journalling. Just write down whatever you’re thinking about. It helps to get those deep thoughts out of your head and into the world. It makes them easier to examine when they’re out of your head. It also gives you more clarity when you articulate what you’re thinking: a definite thing instead of a fuzzy idea floating around on your head. That’s what I do. I don’t need to worry about sounding like an idiot because I’m the only person that will see them anyway.
A little bit goes a long way. Try to sprinkle it in randomly instead of sitting down and saying “let’s deep talk for a while” because it feels like an uncomfortable meeting. That kind of talk has to come naturally, or at least feel natural to get in the vibe for it. It’s in the same vein as a stranger blindsiding you with politics, it feels forced and is off-putting if unprepared for it.
To me, thoughts are like layers of a building. Maybe best to imagine you’re exploring a labyrinth with deeper and deeper layers.
- Things you idly think to yourself from glancing at something are layer 1 thoughts. “The cat is blue.” “That person is attractive.”
- Layer 2: “the cat is blue, someone must have painted it” and “That person is attractive (to me) because of how they dress and their high cheekbones”
- Layer 3
- layer 4
- layer 5 “…and why does that person dress that way? Did they feel pressured to dress so well because their beauty was always praised?” Or “will that cat be okay? I know that blue paint often contains polymadeupethyline, which can ruin the appetites of humans - will it have the same effect on cats?”
Layer 5 is deep thoughts. It can get deeper. But i suppose i would quantify it as being deeply connected, by branches, to other thoughts. Deeply rooted perhaps.
When you think deeply about things, you get better at analysing problems.
That feel of talking deep with someone, but when I actually think of talking about it, it sounds like I was high. Like what kinda deep talk can a average guy like me can even have?
Something i love talking about in depth is movies, but if I’m completely candid with you I think I had to engage with YouTube essays to learn to do so effectively. You learn fast when the topic is something you enjoy. I study engineering but I recently did an English course externally just for fun, and I was so much more engaged with that then my main course. Human passion is a curse, but without it we stop being human or even animal. With no impetus to do anything, perhaps.
Your own fear is the dam wall holding back a reservoir of curiosity. Let it flow forth. Everything else will come.
The most important thing is just look for what you’re into, and latch onto it, and engage with it in as many ways as possible - not just reading and study but doing activities adjacent to it.
I genuinely enjoy deep thought and unfortunately phone usage really represses it. Friends that don’t accommodate deep talks/lack of people to talk to full stop (no shams in it) similarly repressed the amount of deep talk that can be done.
people think you are are a mentally ill weirdo if you try to communicate beyond a superficial level these days. because everything has to fit into a short text messages of no more than like 25 words. otherwise it’s ‘too long to read’.
and they wonder why they are so depressed, anxious, sad, and lonely… well because this is what you choose. you choose a shallow miserable existence and it makes you miserable… rather than making choices that require more effort that would resolve the issues and lack of connection.
and when you point this out to people they get very angry and insult you because, you’re using too many words and they’d rather go back to watching tiktoks and feeling depressed about their life.
What’s your greatest fear and why?
Mimics. I’ve played a lotta DnD.
for most people ‘deep talk’ is you listening to them bitch about their perceived problems and their rambling incoherent thoughts they think make them very unique genius.
it’s basically give them an ego trip.
if you mean deep talk in terms of knowledge and experience, well you have to have knowledge and experience of things. like getting to the meaty 300/400 level stuff rather than the introductory/survey stuff you get in 100/200 level of the topic. and generally you will only find this level of discussion among peers who also share this knowledge.
