March 12, 2026
One Hobby Away
A therapy session about curiosity, hobbies, and the tragic modern response: “nice.”
Bookshelves. Leather chairs. Soft lighting.
The golden giraffe with a Bluetooth speaker in its belly is playing something jazzy.
It sounds like someone confidently failing at the piano.
You look like someone who has formed a theory.
I have.
Most people are one hobby away from being interesting.
That sounds optimistic. Explain.
Most people are already fascinating.
They just don’t know it yet.
All they need is one slightly unnecessary hobby.
Define unnecessary.
Something that makes them say sentences like:
“I accidentally learned way too much about this.”
Cooking properly.
Magic tricks.
Restoring old watches.
Learning Spanish just to order coffee dramatically.
And Netflix?
Netflix is not a hobby.
It’s a loading screen.
(The giraffe briefly plays the Netflix “ta-dum”. Nobody reacts.)
There’s also a piece of advice I’ve heard my entire life.
I’m bracing myself.
“Never be the smartest person in the room.”
That’s about surrounding yourself with people who challenge you.
Yes, but it’s been logistically difficult.
How so?
Not because I’m a genius.
But because sometimes the intellectual bar in a room is roughly:
“Did you watch that show?”
So you adjusted the rule.
Exactly.
Instead of trying to be the smartest person in the room…
I try to be the most interesting person in the room.
That actually aligns with something psychology values highly.
Please tell me it’s charisma.
Curiosity.
Curious people display what we call cognitive openness.
They ask questions.
They explore.
They engage with the world instead of just consuming it.
So curiosity is basically intellectual cardio.
In a sense, yes.
This brings me to another modern tragedy.
I assume it involves the internet.
Being impressed has become a lost skill.
Someone shows you something incredible.
A magic trick.
A brilliant idea.
A perfectly cooked steak.
A story about learning sword fighting in Spain.
And the reaction is always the same.
“Nice.”
That may be dopamine saturation.
Our brains consume so much novelty online
that impressive things start to feel normal.
So the internet broke our ability to say
“Wait — how did you do that?”
Curiosity solves that problem.
Curious people ask questions.
They stay engaged.
They remain impressible.
So the formula is:
One hobby.
A little curiosity.
And refusing to say “nice”.
That would already make someone interesting.
(Beat.)
What’s your hobby right now?
Collecting conversations that start with bad theories.
That explains a lot.
(The giraffe plays a soft applause track that feels slightly sarcastic.)
End Scene.
Curiosity is the fastest way to become interesting.