Let me rant for a hot second: I hate the word 'interesting'.
I hate it. I sit in class and listen to people say how it's "so interesting that author X said Y." We all read the book. Author X said Y. Most of us probably thought it was interesting. I wonder how often we mistake regurgitation for contribution; how often we venture to silence our fingers' pseudointellectual snaps, if for nothing else, just to ask ourselves when it is exactly that words ceased to matter. I always thought 'interesting' was a word from the vocab list of whimsical know-nothings who will grow up to be irrelevant. How it became everyone's go-to descriptor is beyond me.
At the very core of this quandary lies the question: Why? Why do we starve our vernacular, commanding a small percent of the vastness of the English language, riding the same old Ferris wheel when we're in Disneyland? Sometimes I think we've fallen prey to mediocrity, and it keeps me up at night – the thought that language is one big high school and we're all Shannen Doherty in Heathers, trying coolness on for size, with no life to give it except the listlessness of our flailing opinions. Channeling my inner Carrie Bradshaw, I rest my chin on my knee as I inhale the scented vapor of my coffee, and type on the screen: Do we rely on rehearsed nonchalance to get by, always professing to have control, when 'interesting' is all we have at our disposal?
I don't think this is an irrational tendency. In fact, I like to think that I've lived long enough to recognize a coping mechanism when I see one. Because this is what we do, us humans – we latch onto words instead of experiences, instead of events. We remember that 'fine' is the word we used when Creepy Uncle touched us in the funny place; that 'alright' is what we told our friends that time the jungle juice at a party had something more than drank in it; that 'chill' is how we described the torrid ecstasy of having our neck kissed for the first time. In our heart of hearts, we know those weren't the right words. Those aren't the right words.
So why do we do it? I will admit; there is something comforting about things being interesting, something cozy about remaining nondescript. And it makes as much sense as anything I've ever heard – the thought that we would infuse spaces with mitigated meaning. How noncommittal is it to say something is 'interesting'? So, we turn our backs on our vested interests, and pretend that every single experience is a 5 on a scale from 1 to 10. God forbid we admit we actually cared about something. That outs us as freaks – people who think cultural appropriation is not problematic, but fucked up; slam poets who stand at the open mic because their craft is their life, not just a hobby; men and women who refuse to settle for a chill lover, never ceasing to crave transcendence. Again, God forbid.
Dear reader, if you've made it to the end of this messy tractate – I commend you. It takes a special kind of mind to commit to a full page of text these days. If you have, I hope I have awakened within you at least some semblance of a wondering about what to do now. I still don't know if there is one definitive answer to that question. But if there is anything I have learned from my questioning of words, it is the following: we need to turn boredom on its head and populate the complacency of utterance with new words, provoking words, words that will reflect more accurately just how much is at stake. I have often felt that, in the art of expression, there must be a madman within all of us, banging furiously on the walls of our psyche. He has lain dormant for too long. I say we unleash him.
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