Before I respond to you, I will say that I have been on both sides of this argument. Especially early in college, there was so much to learn, and so many unknown unknowns. I craved the conversations with PhDs, postdocs, and researchers because everything they talked about was brand new to me. Being constantly immersed in new lines of human inquiry was beautiful. But after a while, the spaces of unknown unknowns became harder to find. But I have found that the things that I used to find pedestrian are much more interesting than I used to think they were. I just hadn't dug far enough.

> Some people are not interested in those pursuits and they are, in comparison, very "pedestrian" in terms of complexity.

No, they are not pedestrian.

* Sports - I have become much more interested in endurance sports. If you have never wondered what it takes to be a top endurance athlete, I'd say, it's something you should wonder about. Lots of people have asked the question "How far is the human body capable of being pushed?", and the answer to that question is fascinating and complex. The difference between top athletes is hugely psychological. Much of endurance sports is just "how much pain can you put up with?". Here's a different, but related question. If people are really pushing themselves as hard as they can, why don't they die more often? If you are talking more about team sports, personally, I like soccer. Ask yourself, how is each player observing the field to maximize outcomes? Every player on the team is playing a live-action RTS to be in the right place at the right time. And every opposing player is doing the opposite. There is a ton of depth in sports. Humans who play sports are not dumb or pedestrian.

* family - What philosophies of family have been most useful over human history? How did native americans' views of family differ from stereotypical modern families? Which do you think is better? If you really don't care about peoples' individual families, take them as data points to learn about how humans build structures of multiple humans. Why does/doesn't polyamory work for some people/cultures? What things does the human brain learn at different times (i.e. how are your kids doing from a learning perspective?) People love talking about how their kids are growing, and the ways that humans grow is fascinating.

> food - Nutrition. What makes good food? What parameters are good chefs optimizing for (hint: it's more than taste, texture, and presentation)? Can you do it? If you think you can cook as well as a professional chef, I challenge you to try. The thing that's difficult about this is that I needed to try some really good food to understand how far short I fall. Cooking is chemistry, and it is equally interesting.

* religion - How can you possibly say that religion is pedestrian? That's mind boggling to me. Religion has been one of the longest running, most universal organizing structures of human experience. This, to me, makes it totally fascinating. How have religions changed over time? What did independently invented religions look like? Why are many so similar? How did humans explain inexplicable phenomenon. I believe that humans have been as smart as we are today for basically as long as there has been written or oral history. The difference was that the didn't have the mental abstractions and information to come up with the solutions that we have today. Religion fills a lot of voids in human understanding over history, and provides a fascinating window into human history. Talking to people about their religion will make your life richer.

> The parent comment clearly enjoys pursuits that are of higher complexity and feels as if people in general do not share that interest and hence to him they seem boring

This exactly reinforces the initial comment of the parent:

> If you talk to a person, and the conversation is dull, they might be a boring person. If most of the people you talk to seem boring, then you are the boring person.

Basically, if you cannot find the complexity in "pedestrian" concepts, it's not because they are not there. It's because you're not able to find them. Maybe you're not being curious enough, maybe you're being arrogant, maybe you're just tired, and can't be bothered on that day.

I have a favorite saying relevant to this:

If you want to be interesting, be interested.

Give others the benefit of the doubt, and see how deep the rabbit hole goes. Lots of very talented humans have dedicated their entire lives to studying your so-called "pedestrain" topics, and they learned interesting things. I think it would be worth it for everyone to try to figure out the things that they discovered - at least some of them.