There is a difference between not enjoying a particular topic and extending that feeling onto the person speaking as well.
>I do not find the existence of passion on someone else's part to be a compelling motivation for me to expend energy indulging them.
Why not? Certainly, if you were speaking about something you were passionate about, would you not agree that I would learn at least a little bit of something by trying to grasp the source and fuel of your passion? Could I not relate quite directly if you say "Space is so amazing due to its complexity and movement..." if I replace that with "Football is so amazing due to its complexity and movement..."? Have I not just related to you as a fellow human in a meaningful way? Has making this connection not just better my understand of what drives my own passion and interests?
Surely you cannot be ready to say that you have learned all there is worth knowing about yourself and are now stagnant in desire and interest? Why close the door on an opportunity to learn? I find it incredibly interesting (and admittedly, perplexing) that you see the value of gaining knowledge from a book but see limited value in gaining knowledge from another human.
As a rule, the intellectual return on energy invested is less than what I would get from picking up my phone and going back to my ebook.
> Certainly, if you were speaking about something you were passionate about, would you not agree that I would learn at least a little bit of something by trying to grasp the source and fuel of your passion?
What if I already understand that, and find it uninteresting to me? Am I now obligated to review it all over again, because someone else hopes that I will have a Damascene conversion that failed to happen the previous fifty times someone went on about how much they love football?
> Have I not just related to you as a fellow human in a meaningful way?
Perhaps it's meaningful for you. That doesn't make it meaningful for me. I don't consider the sort of compulsive extroversion you seem to be in favor of to be a meaningful or valuable thing for me.
> Surely you cannot be ready to say that you have learned all there is worth knowing about yourself and are now stagnant in desire and interest? Why close the door on an opportunity to learn?
Because the alternative is not "not learning", as you seem to think. The alternative is investing my time and energy in something that I know has a much greater probability of being valuable to me.
Bluntly, I don't share your priorities. This does not make me a broken person. I am not broken. I do not need your "fixing".
> Humans are social animals, and part of what makes a social species social is that its members place a high priority on signaling their commitment to other members of their species. Weirdoes’ priorities are different; our primary commitment is to an idea or a project or a field of inquiry. Species-membership commitment doesn’t just take a back seat, it’s in the trunk with a bag over its head.
I'm one of those weirdos. You aren't. That's fine. Stop trying to force me to be like you.
Thanks for taking the time to explain your views to me. Sorry to have bothered you and eaten away at the precious time you could be spending on more meaningful persuits.
It's actually very important for me and people like me to engage on this subject. If we don't, we get marginalized by people who don't even realize that we exist.
>I do not find the existence of passion on someone else's part to be a compelling motivation for me to expend energy indulging them.
Why not? Certainly, if you were speaking about something you were passionate about, would you not agree that I would learn at least a little bit of something by trying to grasp the source and fuel of your passion? Could I not relate quite directly if you say "Space is so amazing due to its complexity and movement..." if I replace that with "Football is so amazing due to its complexity and movement..."? Have I not just related to you as a fellow human in a meaningful way? Has making this connection not just better my understand of what drives my own passion and interests?
Surely you cannot be ready to say that you have learned all there is worth knowing about yourself and are now stagnant in desire and interest? Why close the door on an opportunity to learn? I find it incredibly interesting (and admittedly, perplexing) that you see the value of gaining knowledge from a book but see limited value in gaining knowledge from another human.