A few weeks ago, I watched an awards program on YouTube where that evening's honoree was Jane Fonda. I don't remember the specific award, or the reason she had been selected to receive it. I only remember that, in her speech, she said:
Stay curious. It is much more important to stay interested than to be interesting.
I have a feeling that she was actually quoting someone else, but if she was, I didn't catch the name of the original speaker. And when I Google the quote, Ms. Fonda is the only reference I uncover.
Anyway . . .
As I look back now over the approximately 15 months of the worst of the pandemic, I realize that staying interested was the hardest thing for me to do. Some days were better than others. Some days, I knew there was "light at the end of the tunnel" even if I couldn't see the light. Some days I know that staying interested was part of getting myself prepared for life after the pandemic.
But some days I wasn't really convinced that there would actually be any life after the pandemic! I saw and heard about too many people who refused to wear a mask or engage in social distancing, people who didn't understand—or didn't seem to care—that their behavior would make the pandemic last longer and be harder on everyone else. People who didn't seem to care that others might die—maybe even people they knew and loved—because they believed ignorant folks who said that having to wear a mask at the supermarket somehow infringed on their personal liberty.
So now I finally see that there is indeed light at the end of the tunnel. In fact, I find myself close enough to the mouth of the tunnel that I can see daylight out there. And in filling my days with social media, my performing friends' websites, movies and YouTube videos, I have become interested again—interested in other people who do things I never thought about before, interested in subjects I never considered before, in authors whose work I never read before, singers totally new to my ear and types of music I avoided before.
I watched a lot of things on YouTube strictly out of boredom—things I would not otherwise have chosen to watch. I have listened to TED talks on subjects I never thought would interest me. I have reread (and finally finished) books I had started years ago and put down unfinished because I just couldn't get interested in the subject.
And I have learned that Ms. Fonda's statement is correct. As I have broadened my own interests, I seem to have increased and broadened the groups of people who are now finding me interesting—because I have more things to talk about, more subjects about which I have some understanding and am willing to listen, or at least subjects about which I know just enough to ask reasonably intelligent questions about the interests of others.
I don't think I'm crazy. I would never think the events of the last 15 months were a good thing. I would never call a pandemic a great time to be alive. But apparently some good came out of the insanity that was my life for much of that 15 months. And for that, I find myself both grateful and happy.
I hope all of you are finding the same about your own last 15 months.