Just Start: How to be interested in things

(and maybe get back into maths as a grownup)

In my experience, the one thing that most people who are interesting to hang around with have in common is that they themselves are interested in things.

The best definition I can give for that is that they don't just watch or listen to or read whatever's pushed on them by algorithms or bestseller charts or best-of lists, but actively seek out things that interest them, and dive deep into those things. Over time, those interests aggregate, or branch off into new areas, and eventually lead them down little fractal cul-de-sacs where they find insights and connections I’ve never heard of. These people are also more inherently interesting to listen to, because they’re not trying to come up with unique takes on the things everyone else says you should be reading, watching, or listening to, but striking out on their own, into unexplored terrain which they’re charting for themselves.

So how do you start being interested in things?

I’ll admit that I don’t think I’m the best at this: I’m definitely an amateur compared with some of the people I talk to or follow. But I have a few suggestions:

Soften the ground
This is a phrase I’ve borrowed from Visakan Veerasamy, author of one of my favourite books of 2023 and possibly the best Tweeter alive. He (rightly) points out that you can’t just brute-force yourself into a new interest: you have to find a way into it that already relates to something you’re interested in, or soften the ground first. His example is getting into Miles Davis through an interest in ‘scenes’. A recent one for me is that my 7-year-old recently got into logic problems, which got me back into nerding out about probability. I studied it a bit at school, but leaping back in two-footed led me to Frederick Mostaller’s Fifty Challenging Probability Problems, which introduced me to entire new levels and ways of thinking about a subject I find fascinating. But really, softening the ground can mean a lot of things! Is it embarrassing to admit that I’m mostly familiar with Hungarian Rhapsody No 2 from Tom & Jerry’s Cat Concerto? I mean, maybe — but that helped me get into piano, and now I love a huge variety of classical music. Getting into things is important — I’m not sure it matters much how you do it.

Pull on threads
Sort of related to the above, there’s something very satisfying about finding a little thread of interest you have in something, then just tugging on it (gently at first, like you would with an actual thread) and seeing what happens. Off the back of the probability stuff, I read someone mentioning a puzzle from Alice In Borderland, the Japanese Netflix show/manga about finding meaning in life through a series of terrifying death games (it’s not for everyone, but I vastly prefer it to Squid Game, which I couldn’t finish). Then I dug into the manga a bit, which mentions the idea of Keynesian Beauty contests and K-level thinking — which tied straight back into some stuff I’d been reading about game theory earlier in the year. Fascinating stuff, topped off with a surprising amount of meditation about the proper meaning of life (also, the show is ridiculous: check out this fan edit).

Spend more time on websites
There was a time, probably from 2005-2015, when my way of using the internet involved going to the address bar of my browser and manually typing the URL of each of my favourite websites in turn, seeing what was going on, and then moving on to the next one. Nobody does that any more, obviously — browsers are too good at anticipating what you want — but what’s more common is that everyone goes to aggregators instead of websites: relying on Twitter, Reddit, or Substack to show them things they might be interested in. This is a mistake, I think: aggregators are good at showing you the things (and opinions) that are most popular, or most evolutionarily successful at grabbing attention, but if you want to discover interesting things on your own then nothing beats finding an actual website and digging through its old posts like a prospector looking for gold. By way of an example, I’ve read through about half of Futility Closet’s entire archive recently, and I’d be amazed if you can’t find some interesting stuff in there.

…and in the stacks
In a similar way to the above, looking at what bookshops put on display usually isn’t half as interesting as seeing what you can find wandering around their least aesthetically-interesting shelves. One of my local bookshops has a series of rolling ladders that you’re allowed to use as a customer: I spend a lot of time in there.

Take recommendations really seriously
I’ve mentioned this before, but one of the best things you can do when you’re chatting people is to take their recommendations seriously. Don’t just nod and smile and forget what they suggest: write it down and look at it later, and maybe give it a few pages/episodes/minutes of your time. Not everything is going to be great — people recommend terrible things — but you sometimes find gems this way.

Have ‘seasons’
When I was a kid, I remember Channel 4 (one of the 4 basic channels everyone gets, if you live in the UK) putting on a late-night Jackie Chan season — my dad let me watch it, and it was the start of my interest in everything from Parkour to Buster Keaton. I don’t feel like the modern TV viewing experience lends itself to seasons like this, but the good news is that you can make your own — you can just decide that you’re going to watch a whole lot of Denzel Washington films, or get really into Chekov, or focus your reading on Chinese science fiction for a bit. Do this for a few months (or weeks, if you’re really committed), and you can go from being completely unfamiliar with a genre/author/director/actor to knowing more about them than 95% of everyone you’ll ever meet. Also, when you meet other people who’ve done this: ask them lots of questions.

And maybe most importantly:

Don’t be ashamed of the things you like
There’s a bit in James Hawes’ A White Merc With Fins which I can’t find online anywhere, but goes something like: “Growing up is when you stop pretending to like the things you think the sort of person you’d like to be like would like, and start liking the things you actually like.” What this means to me is: if you love Chopin’s Etudes but can’t get on with jazz, that’s fine! Come back to it in a few years. If you think physics is endlessly fascinating but you don’t want to read Middlemarch, just read about physics! Maybe at some point you’ll change your mind, or maybe you won’t. Maybe you don’t want to watch Citizen Kane: watch Police Story 2 instead, get into Jackie Chan, then get into black and white films in five years after you stumble across Buster Keaton.

Like the things you like, immerse yourself in them, try to unpack why you like them so much and what else that says about other things you might like, and you’ll probably find that the world is full of amazing and interconnected stuff that’s more interesting than you could possibly imagine. It’s a lot better than seeing what’s new on Netflix.

Have a great weekend!

Joel x

Stuff I like

📖 Book - Greek Lyric Poetry, Richard Lattimore
I got into this collection after reading the Metamorphoses, and it’s bonkers — touching, funny, sexist, horrible — it’s worth a read just to remind yourself that some of the best and worst human foibles have always existed.

🎶 Hype Music - Alice In Borderland
This is 11 minutes long, but the bit that kicks in around 4:20 is my new march-to-the-gym music. Unbelievably hype, 10/10.

🎥 Video - Gladiator 2 – Anatomy of a Bad Sequel
I tried to watch Gladiator 2 the other day — had to give up, it’s terrible — and I think Tom Van Der Linden absolutely nails what’s wrong with it in this video. Save yourself an hour and a half.

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