It’s hard for me to gauge what people think of me. While I’d like to be able to say I don’t care, that’s just not true. At least, not all the time.

This past year, I finished my college running career. It’s traditional in many sports programs to have a banquet at the end of the season, celebrating the team’s accomplishments and recognizing the seniors before they move on to new things. I ran for the track and cross country teams, so I spent a lot of time with my teammates and coaches over the years. I was definitely interested in what they had to say about me.

It’s remarkable—and kind of funny—that my track coach’s little speech about me sounded so similar to my cross country coach’s speech, and vice versa. They both mentioned positive things which are typical for college athletes: hard-working, determined, etc. But something unique both coaches pointed out about me was, “He’s a very deep thinker.”

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They elaborated on this in their own ways according to the differences in our relationships, and there was more said besides that. I am deeply thankful for their words and the time and care that they gave to me.

Something in the way they said those words—“He’s a deep thinker”—just kept me thinking, though. What does it mean when someone calls you a deep thinker? Why not an intense thinker, or a quick thinker, or some other kind of thinker? We’ve all had those moments where someone says something, and then maybe there’s a brief silence, after which someone else says, eyebrows raised, “That was deep, man.” What makes something or someone deep?

To be called a deep thinker is to be told that your mind is on a different level, that you are mentally distant from others. It’s code for, “I don’t totally understand you and the way you think.”

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Well, I guess I know why it’s hard for me to read what people think of me. If they don’t know what to think of me, it means they haven’t made up their minds, so there’s nothing for me to know! Which means trying to determine what’s in their minds (an indeterminate state) is just a waste of time!

Oh…

Being deep means wasting time trying to determine things that are inherently indeterminate. It means getting stuck on questions which most people know you just need to pick any answer for and move on. It means you are vain, turned in on yourself, and, if you are as bad at hiding things as I am, shameless enough to reveal it in the presence of others.

Or maybe it’s noble to ponder over unanswerable questions—like helping the poor is noble. You don’t do it for a reward or because you’ll ever solve the problem once and for all, but because it’s there in front of you.

That’s the only thing that makes someone deep. They see before them puzzling problems that they just can’t take their minds off. There aren’t inherently deep and shallow people—only people transfixed by different problems in different places.

So when my coaches said, “He’s a deep thinker,” it was actually not the case that they didn’t know what to think of me because I was somehow distant or unknowable. It was that they had taken the time and effort to notice and engage the problems and places my mind was dealing with, and in doing so had come to know me. What they or anyone else thought or thinks of me or you or anyone is kind of irrelevant. What matters is whether they know you.