The Meaning of Interesting

"What do people thank you for?"  Oddly, it took me some time to answer the question for myself this past week.  That is not to say people never thank me.  It is a result of my typical response to their comment, which is to sidestep the compliment.

If I listen carefully, I can hear myself brushing off the compliments as if they were burrs that might mat my fur if I allowed them to get near me.  When someone says, "Thank you for dusting the banister," I say, "You're welcome!  But it's just part of my job."  When someone thanks me for my insight on dealing with people in a particular situation, I assume they would have come up with the same idea if they had time to think about it.  If someone credits me with doing the tedious people-wrangling involved in a group, it brings to mind how I got the job through my lack of experience with Excel.

Caveat: I have not actually read
this book, but it looked
interesting . . . .

There is one compliment, however, that I can never quite refute.  "Thanks, Tish!  You make our life interesting."  I got that one the other day, and it helped me realize that people thank me and compliment me all of the time without my even noticing.  You see, this time I was so busy trying to decide whether the modifier interesting represented praise or an insult that I had no time to brush the thanks away.  And it got the heart of a big problem--my ignoring the things that people really find helpful, that change the world in small ways, that make life interesting.

So what is interesting, really?  As some of my friends know, I can use the single world interesting to signify anything from high praise to absolute disgust--the difference comes from intonation and expression.  But the true meaning of the term--the definition used by my literalist sister--is something that catches our attention and interest.  I am a curiosity to her because I am so different.  Being interesting means I have the power to bring joy and laughter to her life.  It means I have a contribution to make.  And, despite the amount of time it took me to decide this, it is a compliment!