Ask Lemmy

IMHO, you need two things for "deep talk": authenticity and vulnerability. You can't have that level of connection without both individuals bringing those to the table. I, personally, don't get to that level flippantly--only with people I know and trust can reciprocate. If you try to force it, you get the opposite: shallowness.

What are you interested in?

Sharing your current hyperfocus can work well, but you have to introduce it gradually. Don't infodump. Introduce the subject a few times superficially until you become known as "the guy who's into X". Then as some point you will be asked to explain. That's your moment!

If you're more into discussing philosophy and meaning of life, you need to wait for a correct setting. You mentioned it yourself. It usually includes consuming some kind of substances, but even if you don't it's that kind of vibe. Put yourself into "afterpaty" situations. When you do some activity (not necessarily a party) and then stay to hang out with the same people.

It's all relative.

My 2 year old was sitting on the toilet and was like "sometimes, you just have to let the poop out".

Hell yeah.

"Talking deep" means you're a baritone or bass. 😌

I would say it's a subjective thing. Looking back at friendships that I had along the way, "deep and meaningful" conversations happen when you've sparked with each other enough to let the walls down and just talk about life, the universe without worrying that you sound like you're high or whatever.

So I don't think it's something that can be forced either. It just happens when you meet someone on the same wavelength as you. Easier to come across in real life than social media because no one really talks one on one on social media. Or it's rare. Reddit style platforms are generally good for the 'deep' part but not the connection part.

I think I get what you're saying. Those are the talks where the conversation leads you thinking about something you never thought before, or thinking about it in a whole new way.

You want to have one of those conversations because the sensation of discovery feels good. It's like a workout for your brain and you feel pumped up and stronger afterwards!

The problem is, you can't really force it. Even if you go down the topics that usually get you there, you're just regurgitating things that have already been said.

You just have to have lots of conversations with lots of different people and eventually you'll fall into a discussion that really sucks you in and works those neurons.

I totally get it and am willing to have some exploratory discussions with anyone who's interested!

"Deep Thoughts" by Jack Handy.

Most people don't seem very interested in deep philosophical conversations. It distracts them from trying to focus on Love Island.

Look at the fast friends procedure and use those prompts as inspiration for questions.

Facts can be looked up but our experience of them can not. Experience is interesting and deepness is often the feeling of connecting with someone emotionally through sharing that experience.

Be curious about people's experience. Ask them about theirs.

What does living on a mote of dust floating alone through the great emptiness mean to you? Or my current favorite after basic intros, or even with people I've known a long time, "Who are you?".

I have one friend who I occasionally get into deep topics with, and it's usually a gradual thing - talking about light stuff that gets more and more deep.

I will sometimes get into moderately deep discussions on the internet like here on Lemmy. Sometimes people (more on reddit than here) are like "lol tl;dr" and such bullshit, but I try to ignore those people.

So it depends on whether or not you want deep discussions in person with someone you know well, or if just discussion in general is sufficient, in which case, you can be the change you want to see - to some degree. Put it out there and often it'll be ignored but not always.

space and stuff [...] more meaningful

Oh, that's not a concern. Deep discussion allows us to work through topics with feedback from soneone else, to give and take ideas, just to even be excited deeply about some particular topic. It doesn't have to have any specific value to be worth it.

Look for the places where discussion happens and if it interests you, jump in. It won't always work, but sometimes it does.

For that matter, there's folks like me who are generally chatty (depending on mood and fatigue level). Anything strike your fancy recently? I or someone else might bite. I like discussing lots of random things, though there's also a lot that just doesn't draw my attention. heh. But if you wanna give it a go, why not? :)

But also, finding things to submit, or thinking of good discussion questions to submit to this community, can be good conversation starters. Especially if you indicate you're interested in longer discussions. May not work every time still, but it's a good method.

what

Three things that might help:

Shared vulnerability. I’d say this is what you mean with “deep”. Others said it well, if you force it then it’s awkward.

Which brings me to the second thing: progressive self-disclosure. In other words, with each person you meet there’s a set of steps in a staircase. You meet everyone in level one. If you open up a bit and they walk up with you, you can continue going up a bit more and see if they go up with you a bit more. You need to notice where others are: are they visibly comfortable? Are they being enthusiastic about the topic?

The final thing is shared competence. Sometimes, talking “deep” is finding someone who knows the same stuff that you know about and you go on a wild ride, exploring your mental palaces and building new ones throughout the conversation. This also requires going up step by step.

If you’re kind and lucky, you will find people with whom you can have shared vulnerability and people with whom you can have shared competence.

Check out these resources that might help:

• Popular by Mitch Prinstein
• Crucial Conversations

Try journalling. Just write down whatever you're thinking about. It helps to get those deep thoughts out of your head and into the world. It makes them easier to examine when they're out of your head. It also gives you more clarity when you articulate what you're thinking: a definite thing instead of a fuzzy idea floating around on your head. That's what I do. I don't need to worry about sounding like an idiot because I'm the only person that will see them anyway.

people avoid deep thinking because it makes them uncomfortable

we don't have any answers to anything and that's unsettling to them

even worse: theories for said answers are more unsettling

Like, give an example. Talk about , hey, how do we really know what blue is if we all see it different? Theres no way to know. Or, how is it that the government is run by billionaire pedophiles and nothing is being done? Or, are we really all here at random or did aliens put us here ? I like discussing all those topics

A little bit goes a long way. Try to sprinkle it in randomly instead of sitting down and saying "let's deep talk for a while" because it feels like an uncomfortable meeting. That kind of talk has to come naturally, or at least feel natural to get in the vibe for it. It's in the same vein as a stranger blindsiding you with politics, it feels forced and is off-putting if unprepared for it.

Some perspective: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykHmAGQ1Z_0

Also, there is no highfalutin cosmic measurement to which you have to adapt your "deep talk", whatever it means to you. It can mean one thing to you and one other thing to me, which is okay. Whatever you feel gives you a sense of relaxation or purpose or excitement or agitation or interest or the likes, just go for it.

Deep talk rises more from questions and openness to considering different options than it does from having the broadest knowledge of a topic. It's about asking why instead of accepting the popular narrative about a subject. Following the scientific method doesn't really make someone's understanding of a topic deep. Propagating wide sets of data to confirm hypotheses about the natural world is a fairly mechanical process on to itself.

This part's relevant:

I can't understand what I even want at this point.

You can't have an in-depth conversation("talk deep") with someone until you have something to talk about.

Once you know what you are interested in, you can be honest and express yourself concerning your interest in a topic with another person in a way that shows you've given considerable thought to said topic.

Then you really listen to what the other person says, consider it, and riff on that.

Conversation, or "talking deep", is not about being the most correct or knowledgeable("scientists") response, but about expressing yourself, divung in, and figuring out your feelings about a topic by exchanging ideas with another person.

I think you're describing an in depth discussion. What makes the talk deep isn't having complicated subject matter. It's when your talking about things you feel to your core.

The deep part is emotional not philosophical.

What's your greatest fear and why?

I guess there are a lot of thoughts that easily arise in our minds (about life or relationships or whatever), but that we instinctively jump away from when they appear. They're not necessarily scary per se, but they're somehow elusive if you try to look straight at them. Like you have to juggle several psychologically difficult things in your head at the same time, and it's easier to just go back to clicking on Lemmy. Sometimes you find yourself looking at them exploring those things anyway, often involuntarily and maybe from a mental state where your normal psychological reflexes are suppressed, such as after a few stiff drinks ;). The insights that you get from that are what you're calling deep thoughts, I think.

Talking about space the way a scientist does (like in terms of general relativity) is also deep, but that's more because of the amount of preparation that it takes to get there (understand some linear algebra and differential geometry, see spacetime as a curved 4-manifold with a metric tensor field, bla bla bla). Yeah you probably can't have that kind of conversation with another person unless both of you have had some mental preparation. I don't claim to understand the above beyond the poseur level, from watching a few intro videos on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRZgW1YjCKk but it's enough to have a conversation. In theory I know what I'd have to study to understand it "for real" and what it would be like, so I guess that's a start.

The really deep ideas are hinted at here, but not in any "depth": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQU9yOtWrQk It's deeper for me because I don't know what it would even be like to understand it for real.

To me, thoughts are like layers of a building. Maybe best to imagine you're exploring a labyrinth with deeper and deeper layers.

• Things you idly think to yourself from glancing at something are layer 1 thoughts. "The cat is blue." "That person is attractive."
• Layer 2: "the cat is blue, someone must have painted it" and "That person is attractive (to me) because of how they dress and their high cheekbones"
• Layer 3
• layer 4
• layer 5 "...and why does that person dress that way? Did they feel pressured to dress so well because their beauty was always praised?" Or "will that cat be okay? I know that blue paint often contains polymadeupethyline, which can ruin the appetites of humans - will it have the same effect on cats?"

Layer 5 is deep thoughts. It can get deeper. But i suppose i would quantify it as being deeply connected, by branches, to other thoughts. Deeply rooted perhaps.

When you think deeply about things, you get better at analysing problems.

That feel of talking deep with someone, but when I actually think of talking about it, it sounds like I was high. Like what kinda deep talk can a average guy like me can even have?

Something i love talking about in depth is movies, but if I'm completely candid with you I think I had to engage with YouTube essays to learn to do so effectively. You learn fast when the topic is something you enjoy. I study engineering but I recently did an English course externally just for fun, and I was so much more engaged with that then my main course. Human passion is a curse, but without it we stop being human or even animal. With no impetus to do anything, perhaps.

Your own fear is the dam wall holding back a reservoir of curiosity. Let it flow forth. Everything else will come.

The most important thing is just look for what you're into, and latch onto it, and engage with it in as many ways as possible - not just reading and study but doing activities adjacent to it.

Learning about math with your budddy

To me, "deep talk" is discussing things like Susan Sontag's book On Photography, Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain or Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico Philosophicus . What you're describing is actually the curiosity and openness and the willingness to think about things. That's fantastic.

for most people 'deep talk' is you listening to them bitch about their perceived problems and their rambling incoherent thoughts they think make them very unique genius.

it's basically give them an ego trip.

if you mean deep talk in terms of knowledge and experience, well you have to have knowledge and experience of things. like getting to the meaty 300/400 level stuff rather than the introductory/survey stuff you get in 100/200 level of the topic.