“Only the shallow know themselves.”
Oscar Wilde, The Writings of Oscar Wilde (London and New York: A.R. Kelleher, 1907)
Oscar Wilde made this comment in 1891. I found it while researching literary quotes for my upcoming urban fantasy mystery novel. I liked this quote because it goes to the heart of my book – identity. What makes you – you. And how do you know who you are if you don’t go looking for it? In essence, are you shallow or are you deep?
This particular quote will be used by my secondary protagonist, Angwyndith, to spout when she was annoyed or wanting to impart wisdom to her human host (whom she thought was a simpleton). Angwyndith was last awake in the 1800s, so I couldn’t use just any old quote. They needed to be smart and maybe sarcastic, and definitely literary in some way. Oscar Wilde was certainly literary, although I’m sure someone out there will disagree with me.
Seraphina, my main character and Host to Angwynidith (she’s riding shotgun), struggles with determining who she is outside of Angwyndith and her influence. Is she just her hobbies? Her interests? Her love of books? Or is there more to it than that? And should she dig deep to find out?
I obviously think there’s more to it than that; otherwise, my main theme would have been something else. And yes, everyone should dig deep to figure out who they are and not just use a convenient label to define their identity for them. Book lover or introvert, you are more than just that one facet of your personality.
But I digress. And that’s a soap box for another day.
Self-exploration is necessary to know who you are. And oh, by the way, who you are could change in a heartbeat or over a thousand lifetimes. You’re never going to fully discover all that you are, even less so if you stop looking.
And thus the deep vs shallow debate of human nature.
If you are deep, you can never know yourself because there are too many nooks and crannies for pieces of you to be lost in. It’s like you are an underground sea cave so deep that the average diver can’t explore all of it without running out of oxygen. If, however, you are shallow, you’re more like a wading pool of clear still water, where everything you have to offer is right there in front of you.
Are you shallow if you never look into all of those nooks and crannies? And are you deep if you do?
Well, not exactly.
Shallow is…Shallow
If you read any of the many articles that come up when you google, “Can humans be shallow?,” you’ll find that yes, yes we can.
There was even a study done by Behavioral Ecology that beta-carotene (stuff found in carrots) enhances facial color and creates the perception of health, which makes that person more attractive to the opposite sex. The person taking beta-carotene could be completely unhealthy, but still appear healthy and more attractive versus a picture of the same person from weeks before they took the beta-carotene.
In other words, we’re a superficial bunch of book cover judgers.
Just think about it though. For our species to survive, we need to breed the strongest and healthiest of offspring. This requires a healthy mate, who is also someone with whom we can bear to be intimate. So, attraction is shallow for a very specific reason – biology.
But is that all there is to it though?
Nope. A shallow person doesn’t simply focus on superficial features, but also on knowledge, communication and impact.
Shallow people tend to believe the things they hear or read without investigating it any further. They are the prime target of misinformation campaigns, because they’ll take what you tell them and run with it. Snopes.com was not created for these people.
Shallow people are also more likely to be talkers, but not great listeners. They are too busy talking to pause enough to hear other people’s ideas.
They also fail to notice the connection between their actions and words and the impacts they have on others. They literally can’t see beyond their own noses, not because they are blind, but because they can’t be bothered to do so.
In essence, you could say shallow people are lazy. They’re looking for the easy road in life and just can’t be bothered to go deep.
Deep is as Deep Does
According to Kathryn Haydon, Msc, in an article in Psychology Today (https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/adventures-in-divergent-thinking/201901/7-strengths-deep-souls), people who are deep share 7 characteristics:
1. Bravely independent: Someone who needs to figure it out for themselves, even after you tell them how it works. They are non-conformists unless conforming fits with their own conclusions of the action being worthy.
2. Meaning Seekers: They require meaning in everything they do – it is one their deeply held “values, interests, or strengths.” Once they have the meaning, the motivation quickly follows.
3. Deep Divers: These people are not surface skimmers, like me. When something captures their interest, they go all in to a fully engrossed state.
4. Knowledge Questers: They are curious about everything and they can learn by reading about a topic, taking a class, or experimenting and exploring the topic. They create patterns and connections from all that they learn and experience.
5. Learn by Making: They prefer to get their hands dirty and apply their knowledge in a hands on way. They make connections, patterns, systems, and solutions. They dig through their knowledge and see themes the average human misses.
6. Intuitively Sensitive: They are sensitive humans. This could be in empathy – they feel what others are feeling – or they could be sensitive to their environment. They also value respect and can tell when it is not forthcoming.
7. Crave Authentic Understanding: They want to understand themselves, but they also want others to understand them as they are, rather than as someone wants to see them. They want to be perceived in their authentic states.
According to the article, all of these traits are ones almost all of us have as children. But over the years, they get beaten out of us by life, experiences, and education. Deep people, however, resist this wear and tear, coming out of it battered but unbowed.
My husband is a deep person. He had a bad experience due to an inept teacher when he was 10, but it didn’t stop him from continuing to be a deep thinker (It just scarred him a little bit. Okay, it’s a big gaping wound, but we ignore it because he’s English and that’s just what they do). His deep soul is why he’s such a great world-builder and why my book has the foundation it has. If it were left to me, there’d be no real world there to base the book on. I have my first ever novel as proof on that point.
And while his deepness can drive me crazy, especially when he creates patterns from random statements over the past 6 months to indict me with (I have a horrible memory, so it’s really not that hard to do), he’s also an inclusive extrovert, an adrenaline junkie (or he was until he got old), and someone who likes a good laugh at the pub over a pint.
When I look at the deep list, what I see is just a lot of work. I’m inherently lazy at heart, which is why I’m a surface skimmer. I don’t go deep on a topic (it’s boring), I don’t need to figure it out for myself (why should I when someone’s done the work for me?), I’m not curious about everything, just about specific things that are interesting right now, and I’m not particularly sensitive (just ask my husband about that one). I am in essence a Taurus if you believe in that sort of thing.
But that doesn’t make me shallow. I do listen, more than I talk (I’m an introvert). And I am very aware of the impact of my actions because I’ve been on the receiving end of actions of the unaware and it was painful. I’d rather not do that to someone else if I can help it.
While I do initially judge a book by its cover, I also wait to see the contents before I make my final judgment. I’ve dated all sorts of humans and my type is whomever I find attractive in that moment. My husband has been that person since 2007 and hasn’t wavered. Maybe that’s because he’s deep. Or maybe it’s because he’s just my person. Or maybe it’s because we balance each other in unexpected ways.
Ultimately, what this boils down to for me is that we can all be shallow and deep, depending on the topic. We choose whether to exert the energy into exploration, learning, and doing, or choose to do nothing at all.
Are there people who are more shallow or more deep? Absolutely. Your average human may not be a deep-sea cave, but they’re also not a wading pool either. They could fall on either end of the scale or somewhere in between.
Only you get to choose which one you are.
Except if you’re the main character in my book, and then I get to choose.
Originally posted on The Masterpiece.