Deep Thoughts

I'm shallow. You may already be aware of this, but as I am not prone to self-analysis, it was news to me. It's actually something I realized when I was reading last month's Self magazine.

The fact that I read Self Magazine at all is probably your first clue. Why does she read Self magazine, my relatives are wondering? She's out of shape, doesn't watch what she eats, and is clearly not interested in fashion. Why? For the same reason that I read Runner's World. Because it comes in the mail. And it comes in the mail because of those people who sell magazine subscriptions door to door.
I'm a goner as soon as I see them on the porch with their little tablet and list of magazines. I'm already inclined to buy something because I can't imagine a crappier job in the world than selling magazines door-to-door for $10 a pop.

"You look like a successful woman," the girl on the doorstep says to me. I look down at my three year old Old Navy shirt with a stain in the middle of it, and my rather unfortunate sweat pants. I do? "I'm out here trying to better myself, trying to make some money so that I can stay off drugs and away from the influence of gangs. That's something you would like to help with, isn't it?"

"Sure."

"Great. Now, ma'am," she pulls out her wallet and shows me a picture of a little preemie in an incubator. The picture looks about one thousand years old. No way is this her baby. In fact, it may be a doll. Is that a doll?

(sample fake baby)

"This is my son. I'm out here working for him, to try to give him a good life. That's something you can support, right?"

Even though logically, I know this is probably a fake baby, I can't resist the allure of the teeny tiny fingers and toes. "Yes."

She pulls out the list of hideously overpriced magazines, and I look for something I'm not already subscribed to. I blindly select something. "Inventor's Weekly. Great. I'll take it."

"Now, ma'am, I only make about $5 if you purchase a year's subscription, but if you purchase a 16 year subscription, I could buy a pack of diapers for my son."

"Great, where do I sign?" I sign the papers, give her a check, and watch her go, happy to know that I'm helping her to keep her tiny fake baby in diapers.

So yeah, we get a lot of magazines.

Ahem. Er, where was I? Oh. Right. So, anyway Self Magazine had an article about accepting your shallowness, and I started thinking about it and realized that yes, I am quite shallow.


I don't think a lot about my feelings really, or my relationships, or fulfillment or anything like that. Those are things that just ARE. And I'm grateful for them, but I don't feel the need to analyze them. Feelings, to me, are something you have, not something you put a lot of thought into. When I'm happy I'm happy, and when I'm not, I'm probably either tired, stressed, hungry, or ticked off. I kind of think being shallow is a good thing. Shallow people are happier, I think. More content. But you're not supposed to be o.k. with being shallow.

I do have some cultural evidence of my culturally shallow nature:

• I do not like vampire fiction
• I don't like oldies.
• I think Tori Amos and Sarah McLaughlin need to snap out of it.
• I could care less about symbolism.
• I like reality television.
• I don't get depressed.
• I think A Knight's Tale is the stupidest, most horrifying movie ever made (All of my "deep" friends like this movie. I don't know if this means they are deep or just disturbed.)
• I hate 80s music. The 80s are over. Move on.
• I do not want to suffer for my art. Not that I have art. I'm just saying. If I had art, I wouldn't want to suffer for it. I'd totally sell out and be happy. In fact, if my blog ever became mildly popular, I would throw ads up so fast it would make your head spin, and not only would I not feel bad about it, I would put up posts begging you to click on the links so that I could feed my tiny fake baby.
• I think Persuasion is the most boring of the Jane Austen books because there is not enough flirting.
• Goths annoy me.

All of these items, I'm pretty sure, are proof that at least from a cultural perspective, I'm terribly shallow. I'm all about the fluff. Want more evidence? Look at the list itself! All totally shallow stuff. I'm sure there are a ton of deeper, more thoughtful, more relevant indicators of shallowness that I could list, but I do not want to be bothered to think about what they might be. So my actual list of shallowness indicators is, in and of itself an indicator of my shallowness (AND laziness)! Mind blowing, right? No?

You only think that because you're not shallow.