As a compulsive, I have the problem of liking too many things. I don’t drink coffee because in a month I’ll be neck deep in forums about the proper way to grind beans. I don’t own an aquarium because I’ll be obsessively learning about perfect water pH for the most exotic fish. I don’t drink hot tea because I’ll be studying growth patterns and how seasonality affects leaves and their flavor. I don’t drink beer because I’d be sucked into learning how to craft my own.
I appreciate that it’s useful to have an open mind about your tastes and preferences, but each rabbit hole I stumble into is far deeper than the time I have available to explore. So for me, i have to find reasons to dislike things to protect my time and my existing obsessions.
As someone with ADHD, for me obsessing over something to the point of needing to be reminded to eat and drink is actually extremely healthy.
It took me a long time to accept that following my special interests is what my brain craves and what gives me a sense of fulfillment. It might be unhealthy for a neurotypical person but very healthy for me.
In fact when I am losing the spark and just can't get into anything that is when I know I am burning out and need to make changes.
While I enjoy (and crave) the waves (of time) that make my brain obsess over things which bring me immense joy to the point I neglect essentials (food and water), what follows is a hard learned crash where I have no energy (or dopamine) left to give to anything!
Similar for my approach (although I haven't been diagnosed with ADHD). This is how I learned electronics enough to manage becoming a certified electrical engineer without ever officially studying anything even remotely like it. I was in the exam with people who did this professionally for half of their lives. This is also how I learned anything I ever did as a freelancer, including sound mixing for movies, VFX work, color grading, programming: I was curious about it, I was young, had time and just followed my interest. It is still how I learn new things, only now all the knowledge from other domains helps me doing it even faster.
The trick is to play judo instead of karate with your own drive. Instead of trying to stop your urge and force yourself to do the boring stuff, it can work to take your energy and just slightly redirect it to where you want to go and where it makes sense for you to go. Maybe you have the urge to play a video game and can redirect it to reading a book like homo ludens instead, or maybe you redirect it towards making a game? Even if you never finished it you learned something.
I'm in the other spectrum I think. I like a lot of stuff, but I don't seem to be able to immerse myself in them. The flow doesn't come easily. Instead I feel detached and ambivalent about pretty much everything. It's fine that I'm doing, and while I'm doing it I'll do it with a lot of presence. I also get very good at it. But in time I just wanna lazy out and watch TV while browsing the web. It's pretty sad and I wish I could will myself into one obsession or another.
> I wish I could will myself into one obsession or another.
I understand. Not sure if you’re in the same boat, but for me, it’s a combination of age, energy, time, and becoming jaded. I used to spend late night hours poking at new things to learn about new hobbies and the like. The older I get, the less time and energy I’m willing to excerpt. This has been great for my getting back to reading books, but it’s been a sinkhole for self-learning and new skill development. The dopamine is lacking.
> I don’t drink coffee because in a month I’ll be neck deep in forums about the proper way to grind beans.
This was me last week. I was looking to buy a new coffee grinder, and I just could not believe the way that people on the Internet talk about these things. One popular coffee YouTuber recommended a $200 hand grinder as an entry level grinder [1]. There's also a widely repeated concept in the community of the "end game" grinder - as if working your way up to a $1000 coffee grinder should be the goal of every coffee drinker rather than just being satisfied with a $200 - $300 grinder (or even a $100 grinder, god forbid).
And I decided not to go down the rabbit hole because I really doubt whether spending more and obsessing more would actually increase my enjoyment of coffee. I currently use a $23 hand grinder [2] that makes a tasty cup of coffee (I am looking for a new grinder not because I am dissatisfied with the results, but rather because grinding by hand can be annoying). Now that I know there are $200 grinders out there, it makes me wonder what I am missing out on. And I'm sure if I had a $200 grinder, I would be wondering what $500 would get me, etc. And how am I ever going to be able to enjoy a cup of coffee at a restaraunt, or at a friend's house, if I allow my standards to get so high?
So I guess to bring this back to the original article: try to find enjoyment in the basic, no-frills version. If you're a coffee snob, can you still enjoy a cup of Nescafe instant coffee? If you're a wine snob, can you enjoy a glass of Yellow Tail? If you're a music snob, can you enjoy listening to Taylor Swift?
Believe it or not, expensive grinders (~$500 range) create an unbelievable difference.
But they’re a luxury :)
Lance Hedrick (popular coffee YouTuber) demonstrates time and time again that cheap machines and setups can rival even the most expensive end-game setups.
HAH! I have been happily using your grinder for a decade (When I clicked on your link, Amazon tells me I bought it on July 30, 2015). Last week, I realized it is just way too worn down to be useful. I see no reason why I wont buy the same one again.
Pro tip: stick your drill/electric screwdriver to it and now you have a $200 motorized grinder. Been doing that for a decade. I use the same drill to roast my own beans in a homemade "wobble disk" roaster (look it up on youtube, if you care). I also use the drill with a whisk, and many other things.
Coffee is an example, but there are plenty of others:
There's a pretty basic problem that a coffee grinder is a motor, the actual grinding surfaces, and the tubes that connect where the beans come from and grounds go to. Maybe add a scale and a little bit of electronics, but still, what does a $1000 grinder have that a $200 doesn't?
Indeed you have to get a lot of things precisely right to get a desired grind particle size distribution and that takes science and study and precision but the end product is still only a few simple parts that meet a specification. The problem is volume and just charging large amounts of money because that's how you attract customers in the "quality" space where having very good taste for quality is itself quite hard.
Coffee grinders are ripe for disruption with a low cost high quality product, but in order to pay for the engineering time to make one you have to have confidence in pretty high volume so picking a price point is hard.
As I creak and grunt into my mid-forties, I find a major concern of mine is my mind growing stale and stiff like an old slice of bread, and a good random deep dive into cheesemaking or the different uses of tofu in traditional Chinese cooking might help stave that off. Or it might just make me boring in a different way, IDK.
Similarly, I have so many hobbies now that I am actually stressed by them taking us so much space and costing so much money, and me spending so little time on each of them.
I'm now actively trying to cut down on them instead, and accept that I'll have some "boredom" time as a result.
I can "like" just about any hobby. I definitely don't need to explore more of them. They find me on their own, and I really don't need them to.
What are some of your current obsessions? I enjoy learning and discovering so I enjoy tech and when I get into something the joy is from the rabbit hole and then I am done and move on.
Not OP, but I was also replying and had thoughts along a similar vein.
I'm 44 and have had countless hobbies over my adolescent and adult lives. Some I've taken up multiple times, some I've visited multiple variations on a core idea (e.g. aquariums/planted tanks/dwarf shrimp tanks). I've learned (and subseqeuntly forgotten) a tremendous amount, and spent an unholy amount of money. Most things have not stayed with me.
Miniature painting is one thing that I think might last me the rest of my life.
I think it boils down to a few factors:
- miniatures aren't alive; I don't need to care for them, so the worst that can happen is I break or scratch something. This keeps my anxiety/concern/guilt largely out of the equation.
- the feedback cycles are fairly short; I know almost immediately if a paint stroke was good or bad, if my brush is too wet or too dry, etc. A single project is normally just a couple of hours, and then it's done and I can view it as a completed whole.
- the product occupies little space and it's trivial to keep around and compare to work done before and after and see progression and evolution over time. Also, if you're prone to collecting things, just keeping the product on the shelf next to other things becomes an ongoing source of reward.
- if I absolutely fubar something, I can buy or print a new mini for a couple bucks or throw it in some Simple Green overnight and brush the old paint off. Most of the time I can just paint over the issue.
- paint, brushes, a wet palette, minis, airbrush, etc all add up, but you can have an amazing setup for under a thousand bucks, and you can transcend the realm of mortals for $2K. The ongoing costs after that are manageable unless you're into Warhammer. You can get started and do some really fun and cool things with a $50 starter kit.
So there's some higher-dimension graph with effort, frustration, reward, feedback latency, etc, and for me at least painting miniatures tends to sit in a happy area.
> the product occupies little space and it's trivial to keep around
Haha, I have found this to absolutely NOT be the case! Each individual mini only takes up and inch or so, but they multiply and between them and the brushes/airbrush/paint racks and the ever-increasing grey Pile of Shame, it’s not a small amount of space taken up!
It is an extremely rewarding hobby with a low bar to entry, though, and I agree that I will probably never stop.
How hard is cleanup in order to keep things usable? I love the idea of painting minis and models- especially learning the various weathering effects but it seemed like it would take a lot of energy to keep everything functional.
Trivial, honestly. And I'm not a particularly disciplined or functional person. The overwhelming majority of hobbyists use acrylic, which has no meaningful smell and can be thinned with a drop of water. I haven't had any issues with staining or the paint going where it's unwanted, and you typically only use a few drops at a time.
Sometimes I use a dry palette and sometimes a wet palette. The dry palettes are plastic and cheap on Amazon. You rinse them off in the sink. If the paint dries, use a greenie or a brush - no problem. The wet palette just needs to be wiped off with a wet napkin before you close it up, and to have the wax paper replaced when it starts to rub through. If you get the sponge dirty, it's a sponge - just fill it up with water, squish it, maybe use a little Mean Green/Simple Green/etc to clean it up.
The airbrush is a little more involved, but I dramatically overestimated how much of a pain in the ass it would be. Most of the time the cleanup for that is 3-5 minutes and not unpleasant. Occasionally it'll need to be broken down a little further, but it's still not a big deal. The mechanism isn't nearly as complex as it may initially seem.
Brushes aren't a big deal to keep clean. You'd destroy a bunch, but you'll learn over time what not to do. Just don't start with the (comparatively expensive and arguably barbaric) sable brushes, start with garbage quality brushes and treat them as disposable. Rinse them, use a little brush soap, and don't brutalize or drown them and they'll last longer and longer and maintain a better quality, then you can upgrade.
Nothing else really comes to mind in terms of labor.
As an alternative... I have fun, for lack of a better phrase, collecting hobbies. I don't intentionally try to stop having one interest to give another "more important" one space, I just follow my nose. (most recently, auto repair and painting)
I had something of a semi-intentional palate reset in my early twenties.
I had been a super picky eater basically my entire life, and getting me to try new foods was like pulling teeth. Then I spent a couple weeks traveling around Japan with some friends. I think it was in part genuinely wanting to immerse myself in the culture and in part not wanting to make myself appear fussy or annoying to a girl we were traveling with, but I forced myself to try things I would never have eaten state side. I found myself by the end of the trip actually pushing myself to try things... Even perhaps a little too far as the Takoyaki triggered my shellfish allergy. Nothing a bunch of Benadryl couldn't solve.
I'd come to Japan a picky eater though and left an adventurous one. I will at least try just about anything once.
This is something which twenty years later my parents still don't accept. "Oh, I thought you didn't eat salad" when I am halfway through my salad.
Mind you there are still things I did not like before that I still do not like. Ketchup tops the list.
I used to be very judgemental about picky eaters and felt they are all super spoiled people but it important to know that there are vastly different reasons for being one.
Some neurodivergent people have genuine sensory issues that forces them to be selective about their food. They can't just get over it. Especially as exposure therapy does not work for them or at least not as well as for neurotypical people.
So it is always good to remind oneself to be kind and not judge people harshly. You don't know what they are struggling with.
That said, yeah most people absolutely profit from opening up their palate and trying new things.
I've eaten all sorts of strange and exotic things... but most seafood, I simply... cannot.
Most of it smells like it is rotting to me and the taste is overpowering[0]. Trust me, I've tried countless times. Something that my wife will insist has no or little seafood in will taste like I am eating the entire ocean.
People would tell me "Oh you don't know what you are missing out on!" so I would try to get myself to eat it again. I've now learned that the only thing I am missing out on is suffering - I don't like seafood. I'm ok with this.
[0]I have occassionally managed if it's exceptionally mild or watered down, but even then there is usually a sense that something taste a bit "odd" while not being wholly unpaletable.
Wait - are there people who don't taste alcohol that way? I also taste charcoal for all coffee/espresso and people say the beans were burnt. Nope, my buddy ran a coffee shop and my kid is a coffee aficionado. All charcoal. But I just assumed everyone thought alcohol tasted like what I imagine bleach to give impressions of.
I think this is in-part the beauty of a certain type of travel in general, which if you do it before you form too many rigid biases, eventually sets a person apart from their grade school peers who just went full-send on their hometown or whatever. It's totally cliche, but if you just set yourself up to be forced to try and explore and enjoy different geographies, cities, food, or meet types of people you'd otherwise have avoided, then your default perspective is forever unlimited by the invisible ceiling or floor that you had before.
For me, it didn't even occur to me that it was normal to have trains/trams inside your city until I was in my twenties, and you don't even need to be NYC! Once I learned about it, my hometown pretty much lost whatever argument they might have had to get me to stay, and as soon as the option presented itself, I was out.
There are a lot of negatives attributes to people that they think are fundamental to themselves that folks identify with which turn out to be... well... bad habits and bad attitudes.
I had a very intentional palate reset in my late teens going into my early 20s.
I wasn't exposed to any variety of food growing up and I stopped eating meat at a very young age (In my 40s now, still don't eat meat). So before adulthood all I ever ate was pasta, and almost always boxed pasta at that. I also had issues with some texture and flavors being extremely off-putting and making me wanna gag.
I knew I wasn't going to be able to eat that way forever, for a number of reasons (health being a big one) so I forced myself to try new foods, gradually. I fucking hated it, but I kept at it. I now like most non-meat foods, even enjoy mushrooms which have previously made me vomit. The first time I had avocado it was the nastiest thing I ever tasted but I eat (and like) avocado most days now.
One thing that people don't know very well is that kids' taste experience is different and for some this is stronger than others. The actual flavor sense is different or much more intense and this dulls with age.
I still can't eat fresh tomato and it isn't a matter of being picky or having preferences, it is very obvious that I can taste something in tomatoes that other people just can't and to me that taste is "poison".
I remember feeling vaguely threatened by interests that I didn't understand growing up. At one point for instance, my friend was really into anime, and I felt like it's too weird, like you'd need to be a very different kind of person to enjoy that kind of thing. Years later I decided to try it though, and still I have a bit of an aversion to a lot of the tropes of most anime, but there are also quite a few gems in there that I would've missed. I'm reminded of this often because it's common that people just have a blanket "I don't watch cartoons" attitude. I try to remember this when I have an aversion to some kind of music, literature, movie or hobby.
yep, for me, the wild overemphasis on grunts, huuuhs, hmmm, uhhh, errr, etc drives me absolutely bonkers.
it isn’t at all the animated aspect, i do love a few anime’s but the good ones don’t do that weird noise huh thing. the stories can be incredible i just wish i could watch them without ripping my hair out every time the characters do that.
Something my middle-class British upbringing nurtured in me was incredible pessimism. Day to day this used to manifest as an assumption that I wouldn’t like any new experience, so I’d avoid them and stick to what I knew. My (American) wife pointed this out to me and life got much better when I learned to just give new things an enthusiastic and unprejudiced try more often.
> On planes, the captain will often invite you to, “sit back and enjoy the ride”. This is confusing. Enjoy the ride? Enjoy being trapped in a pressurized tube and jostled by all the passengers lining up to relieve themselves because your company decided to cram in a few more seats instead of having an adequate number of toilets? Aren’t flights supposed to be endured?
I really like flying. I've flown gliders as youth and young adult, so I'm a small-time aviation enthusiast, and all the plane's movements make sense to me. I remember when they didn't.
My favorite flight was to Gran Canaria - the pilot did a visual approach as if he was landing a glider. Engines completely idle (very quiet!), plane over the ocean, airport parallel to the right. Turn right a few km after passing the airport, straight for a few seconds, turn right again, glide down.
An exciting one was an aborted takeoff when already pretty fast, but comfortably before decision speed.
I had this same reaction! All of the process of getting to and from the airport, and through security, etc, isn't my favorite. But once we're actually flying, I find the ride itself kind of soothing.
When I was in sixth grade I was given an assignment: pick a food you don't like, eat it at least once a day for a week, and then report your experience. Funnily enough, by the end of the week I didn't hate tomatoes anymore.
I applied that lesson to many other things since then and it works far more often than it fails.
I‘m wondering why nobody has brought up the term "acquired taste" yet. Such a beautiful expression, sadly I can’t find a good translation in most other languages.
I managed to acquire a taste for gin and tonic - I went as an adult from thinking it was the most revolting thing ever to one of the few drinks I occasionally find myself craving. Acquiring the taste clearly involved drinking the stuff but I have no idea how...
I still bitterly remember the one and only time I ordered a plain tonic water, thinking it would be seltzer. I understand now why they say the British cut the tonic with gin, and not the other way around.
I regularly listen to music that I would have sneered at, when I was younger.
I don't feel the need to blast it to the world, though. I have learned that music and art tastes are extremely personal, and that not wearing them on my sleeve, gives me the freedom to just like what I like.
I really enjoy being adventurous; especially in food. It took over twenty years of repeatedly going to Tokyo, to finally land something I Just. Couldn't. Eat. (Undercooked chicken)[0].
I also have learned that "Things are cliché for a reason."[1]
I tried salted licorice. Granted, I don’t really like sweet licorice, or anise, or fennel, or any of the liquors that use that flavoring, but I tolerate them. The salted licorice was the worst thing I’d ever tasted.
So I bought a whole bag of it and ate a piece every day or so. After a week, I wasn’t cringing as much. After two or three weeks I started craving it. By the end of the month, I liked it. I don’t love it, but I did buy another bag when that one was done. And yes I know the health risks, but I’m never going to be eating a bag or two a day.
The weirdest, though, was cilantro. I’m in the genetic group that thinks it tastes soapy. And yet, after trying it enough, I love it.
When I was young I had a weird cognitive bias where I would think that if something tasted curious or different, that it must be good for you in some way.
How to know that an article about licorice is from the US: they include the "black" qualifier. As if there were any other kind! To me (Swedish) the normal/expected qualifier is "sweet" (yes please) or "salty" (oh yes indeed thank you very much).
The concept of "red licorice" [1] is simply ... foreign. :) It's also fun and interesting as a word/food, since it focuses on the texture of a food and re-uses the word, even though the word is tightly coupled to the flavor.
Many things need to be understood to be appreciated.
For instance music: we tend to like what we know, and what we know is what we hear on the radio/everywhere we go. When people tell me they don't like jazz, I always find a jazz song they like. If they say they don't like rap music, I can always find one they like. Why? Maybe because it's closer to what they already understand (making it more accessible), or maybe it has been very popular and so they've already heard it countless times (in night clubs, on the radio, ...). Most people who dislike a whole music genre generally don't really understand it and haven't put any effort into it.
You don't like churches? Go to Notre-Dame in Paris, and have someone explain to you its architecture. How they built it, how you can date the parts of the church just from its architecture.
Don't get me wrong: it's possible to dislike stuff, and it's alright. But it's worth trying to understand before disliking.
Counterpoint, understanding alone isn't enough either if you don't have an affinity.
There's a few classical and jazz pieces that I like, but that doesn’t mean that I like classical music and/or jazz, even though I do get why other people do.
Same for your church architecture example. I can appreciate it on an intellectual level, but in the end I still find it mostly boring and not my kind of aesthetics.
Of course it is mainly from the architecture. When a person who is mentally base sees something which is impressive and beautiful, they are filled with resentment and hate. Even more if it was constructed by people from the past which he thinks he is supposed to be much superior to.
You must be in a very different part of the world than I am. One with grand cathedrals, perhaps. Where I'm from, a church is usually a big box with a brick facade, glass doors, paint over drywall interiors, and fake wood trim. Outside of the decorations, they're much like office buildings. They generally have a small steeple somewhere that holds no bell and only serves to identify the building as a church, because otherwise you wouldn't be able to tell.
There isn't anything to hate about the architecture that wouldn't also apply to most public buildings built in the last half century.
Same here. Churches often have incredible architecture, art and acoustics. I really enjoy visiting them when there is no religious service. And I've been to some fabulous organ concerts at churches.
I wanted to say the exact opposite meaning the same. Going to a church or cathedral to see it, cool down or warm up is nice but I dislike the church of scientology, england and probably bunch of other churches
There's also the option of waiting until your untreated disorder puts you in a coma, and then you can enjoy hospital services without being conscious of your surroundings.
"I don't like X" is of course not an absolute statement (and neither is "I like X", for that matter). I don't like Hip-Hop. Of course there is some hip-hop that I think is alright, but by and large, "I don't like Hip-Hop" is accurate.
Different people are different, and different things resonate with different people. I find snobbery highly obnoxious, but to be honest my opinion of this kind of dismissal of different people liking different things with a fairly condescending "you have simply not understood it" is not much better.
As I said, it's fine to dislike something. I was just saying that it's worth trying to understand first: you may still dislike something that you understand of course.
> but to be honest my opinion of this kind of dismissal of different people liking different things with a fairly condescending "you have simply not understood it" is not much better.
You haven't put too much effort into trying to understand my opinion, have you? :-)
Liking certain songs within a genre doesn’t mean one enjoys the genre generally.
Usually the songs anyone can enjoy tend to be the ones that are the most palatable and are not as genre specific.
To some degree it’s a matter of semantics but to say someone enjoys a genre of music they should be able to enjoy the more esoteric songs in the genre.
I tell people I don't like country because I grew up in the country, and I'm sick of listening to relatable things like one lane roads and escaping cows one moment, then switching to bible-thumping alcoholism when the song changes.
Listening to any given country song might be lovely. Listening to the genre is painful. Sometimes the aggregate effect of a genre ruins the enjoyment of any given song.
It took me longer than it should have to start getting into classical music, because when I heard a piece that sucked I just assumed I didn't understand it and that classical music was too complicated. No, it's just that a lot of classical music sucks and is annoying to listen to. But a lot of it is fantastic.
Yeah I've been figuring that out myself recently. Turns out that I don't really like Baroque or Classical music, but I do like Romantic music. It was just a factor of finding that "classical" has more than one genre in it
No rap before Hamilton is under exposure to NYC boom bap.
Lin-Manuel Miranda is quite good but I am sure he wouldn't put himself on the level of Big Pun or Nas.
Miles Davis - Kind of Blue is the best selling jazz album of all time but it is still a specific sub genre of cool jazz that might put you to sleep.
Herbie Hancock - Head Hunters I think is the second best seller. I really don't know if I have ever read someone say Head Hunters sucks. It probably isn't what you expect in the same the way Hamilton sounded different to you.
I would go with those two and if you don't like either I wouldn't bother looking for more.
Most posts here seem to be offering easy on-ramp listening for jazz, but they seem at odds with the spirit of the original post. For jazz that is off-putting at first listening but rewards deeper study, consider Thelonious Monk (Blue Note sessions 1 & 2) or if you are really up for it, Coltrane's Interstellar Space.
Not OP and not a jazz expert, just throwing out a personal favorite. I think it is very approachable without sacrificing anything, and it has a recognizable melody (which might help or hinder the jazz appreciation cause):
My Favorite Things by Coltrane.
But I do know people who dislike jazz because of the unfamiliar rhythms and (wildly flexible) musical conventions, and that can be hard to overcome.
One aspect of trying something new is also separating the thing itself from the culture who form around it.
Sometimes the people around it are not to you’re liking, and it’s easy for that feeling to spill over into your perception, and you miss out on enjoying something you would have liked otherwise. Some examples with strong cultures: wine snobs, country music, and sci-fi nerds. If you don’t see yourself as one of “those people”, you could miss out on something you might otherwise enjoy.
I hated natto (fermented soy beans) but I knew how beneficial it was to my health ,plus it's very affordable. Forced myself to eat it everyday for a week and now I love it. Staple of my diet
This particular approach, intelligently applied, ultimately leads to a kind of freedom. Most of our preferences are simple conditioning, prejudices really, and only serve to constrain optionality.
- A few weeks ago I looked up some music from my youth: Korn, Deftones, System of a Down, Limp Bizkit, Slipknot, Mudvayne, Slayer, Testament, Iced Earth. I played much of this to death back in the day. And ... I found I don't really care for much for most of it now. I also no longer care much for the "Trash metal classics" I liked at the time such as Testament, Slayer, and Iced Earth.
- I did like Papa Roach's Infest album though. I have no idea why I like that one now and not the other nu-metal type stuff that I liked back then.
- There are many things I "should" like because they're adjacent to things I do like, but that I nonetheless don't like. Sometimes I can find reasons for this. Often I can't. Deep Purple's Made in Japan is one of the best albums ever created and I will punch anyone who says any different into paralysis. Yet I don't care much for most other Deep Purple albums. This makes no sense to me.
- For a while I was really into prog rock. There are still tons of prog rock stuff I like, but also ... tons that I liked ~15 years ago but care much for any more.
- For years I didn't like wine (red or white). I really wanted like wine and I tried many times, but I just didn't like it. Then I didn't try for a few years and a friend brought some wine over for dinner and tried out of politeness, and ... I liked it! I've had tons of (red) wine since, and never had a bottle I strongly disliked.
- When I stayed at a hotel in England years ago I got a few of those little plastic jam containers for toast, which included Marmite. I didn't really know what this "Marmite" thing was. Instant regret ensued, much to the amusement of my girlfriend. Being Dutch I do like salty liquorice, which is similar in a way I suppose. Yet I dislike Marmite (without being aware that it's controversial).
I don't really have a deeper point; just some observations I guess. Cultural and psychological factors absolutely play a role, but I also think it's just a matter of different people being different, and people just changing over the years.x
I also think it's okay to dislike things as long as you're not a dick about it.
This was a great read. I find myself becoming the grumpy complainer as I age, but as the post says, the torture is mostly in my head. It's good to keep that in mind; I can't always control my environment, but I can always control how I experience it.
I also enjoyed the writing style, and wandered onto another post. First sentence:
> I’ve always seen cathedrals as presenting a kind of implicit argument to atheists. Something like: God must exist, because otherwise it would have been insane for people to build [a cathedral]
I make it a point to retry foods I "don't like" at least once a year to confirm if I still don't like them. More often than not, that experience alone gets me to like the thing. Liking things is more fun than not liking things. Why wouldn't I want to move as many things as I can in my life from the dislike bucket to the like bucket?
To be honest, for any given thing, liking or disliking it seems pretty inconsequential. Ideally, you would like the things you can't avoid, and dislike the things you can't get. Everything else doesn't really matter too much.
What I find a practical, related advice is “If you want to get good at something, you have to make yourself glad that you’re doing it.”
This involves reminding yourself why it is that you want to get better at it, perceiving the process of learning as an interesting challenge, and in general generating interest.
There is a lot of creativity in how you actually do this. It is a skill in itself, and a very useful one, especially for skills where you find yourself lacking patience and motivation.
The hardcore version: "Embrace the Suck".[1] That's by a Navy SEAL. Those guys are chosen for not giving up. This guy may go a little too far in that direction.
You can do this with flavors or pain sensations by focusing on the feeling. You can also meditate on it then learn to mentally subtract it entirely, realizing that the experience is just an experience mediated in your system. Learn about how the mind flips and reverses and fills in vision from retina.
An old bit in Harper's Index quoted that the average number of time you have to taste something you have an aversion to and develop a taste for it is 12. Like most statistics in Harper's Index, the veracity of that number is questionable and amusing. However, the idea that you might just need to try more than you think is what's thought provoking about citing this probably fallacious statistic. (Harper's Index was basically a nicely arranged list of thought-provoking cited statistics you weren't supposed to take at face value, arranged in a way to create a narrative arc.)
Another piece I read on this topic was aimed at foodies. The thrust was basically: "You're trying to broaden your horizons by trying different obscure dishes from other cuisines. Why not revisit the foods you hated as a child? I used to hate eggplant and thought it was slimy and now I love eggplant."
There's something compelling, in matters of taste, about addressing a huge blind spot you have been avoiding tackling instead of hyper-specializing in your chosen niche.
I do this often with music - typically there is a single song from an album that I love - so, I try and place the entire album onto my device and then listen to it as a cohesive whole. Often, I end-up with 2-3 more songs that go into my regular rotation.
Yes! This is underrated and something I work on with my kids, because it really is a pillar of good living. For me it's been everything from many foods, to basketball, to hiking, to art museums, and maybe someday I'll even tolerate musicals.
Camps, hobbies and other such activities where they see others their age do things and have a good time. As a parent, you're not necessarily the coolest thing in the world. However their friends and peers with varied backgrounds can fill that role. I used to do youth work when I was younger and some of the biggest leaps of personality happened in groups with very mixed backgrounds. Poor kids, rich kids, sporty, dorky, introverts, extroverts and everything in between, in the right environment they'll rub off on one another in all the best ways.
Would like to know as well. Whenever I suggest something new it's a default "NO!". But if it just happens naturally it's ok. Like if I put on a song and suggest he listen to it, my kid will literally scream and cry like I'm torturing him, but if it happens to be on the radio while driving then suddenly it's fine and he'll love it. I think part of the reason is that everything is on demand these days, unlike when we grew up on broadcast tv and radio.
A little embarrassing to admit this, but I find it harder to listen to a new song or genre if that's the main activity I'm doing - like sitting down to just focus on the song. If I put it on while washing the dishes or driving I don't feel as pressured about it.
Maybe this is involved a bit? asking your son to listen to something could be making it an activity, maybe put it on while you do something else and then ask his thoughts on it after?
Limit options. If the only, say, film options are five movies they’re resistant to watching, it’ll take very little time for them to break down and try one.
You do also have to restrict plausible substitutes, like if you do this with movies you need to either cut off or do a similar thing with video games.
Worst case, they don’t try the things you presented, but do go outside. Oh no, what a tragedy, lol.
Musicals are fine (even the stage version of Lord of the Rings) but opera took a lot of persuading for me to actually to go and see one live - and it was quite an incredible experience.
Or don't, and cultivate taste, which is about having a rationale for separating the good from the bad -- and disliking stuff. It might not make you popular at parties though.
I think that's orthogonal. The author is not saying that everything in every field is good: their TV example explicitly calls out bad TV.
What they are saying is that you can make yourself enjoy a field _at all_, in which you can then apply taste. For example I don't like whisky, but that's not a matter of me applying "good taste": I would never claim that whisky is bad in general and if I really tried I'm pretty sure I would start being able to enjoy whisky and separate the good from the bad (at least subjectively).
One time on 4chan I mentioned I liked how users on HN like to pepper their speech with little math words like so: "Love is orthogonal to distance, modulo trust, and the parameters aren’t marginal". People wouldnt believe me this was normal talk. Case in point. Although this was more prevalent on HN about 10 years ago. Or maybe now as well. I dont read comments as much these days.
What about the converse: showing your significant other e.g. the best film ever, only to discover with horror how bad your taste was a number of years ago?
It’s best to be able to tell it’s trash, because if you can’t then it means you’re missing what you need to fully appreciate really good things, which is less than ideal.
But it’s totally fine to like it. Zero shame.
And it doesn’t make people bad who can’t tell the difference between trash and good stuff, they’ve just prioritized different (and, maybe, less, but who cares) stuff than you have. Though when they try to make recommendations it’s fair to totally ignore them. Even if you are looking for a particular kind of trash, you need a critic who can tell good from bad (but appreciates that even bad things have an audience) if you want a good hit-rate. And when those sorts start to opine that actually good things are bad (because they haven’t developed the ability to appreciate them) it’s fine to regard that behavior as boorish, because it is. It’s basically the inverse of snobbery, and yeah, it’s also shitty.
“While you can’t always control your situation, you have tremendous power over how you experience that situation. You may find a cramped flight to be a torture. But the torture happens inside your head. Some people like your situation. You too, perhaps could like it.”
Or like the Russians say, "Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional."
Listen, I am 30 now. Not too old, still missing plenty of experiences in life. But I know what stuff I do not like, and I won't force myself to try and like them.
I hate sports, I tried liking it, did not work out (heh pun intended).
I hate cooking, I try it every other day, I will never like it.
100%. I think the article makes space for this, too. In 3, 4, and 5 the author describes the experience of bouncing off of something despite trying to like it as well as _thinking_ you like something despite not _really_ liking it. Both types of experiences resonated with me.
I think the key here is that you did try, you gave cooking and sports an honest chance, and it turns out that you're not into them. It doesn't feel like many people would put the effort in to really figure out if they _would_ like something that's initially uncomfortable or difficult. I think that's what the article is responding to - I read the overall thesis as "you might actually end up liking something that you don't like initially" rather than "you will like anything given enough effort".
Ah I can see that as well, I think you should discover new stuff all the time, but for some things you just know you won't like it, despite never having tried. Karaoke for me.
In order to be sure you don't like something you have to try it a number of times before you can sure you dislike it. But its also important to assess what you dislike about it to ensure its not peer/societal pressure based or other potential assaults on the self rather than core to you.
Long time depression, father dead at 15, half of family dead since, possibly adhd, moved places like 8 times, poor (thankfully no debt), balding, never had a relationship, constant anger due to the stupidity of other people (when reading comments on news articles as an example), and and and...
> constant anger due to the stupidity of other people (when reading comments on news articles as an example)
Holy cow dude, cut this one right the fuck out. Absolutely eliminate that portion of your day. Cold turkey straight to zero. Right now. Reading Internet comments that make you angry is like choosing to stick your face in the exhaust of a diesel truck. There's no reason to do it. Just don't.
I get that. For lots of articles there are people giving additional context which i find highly interesting. As a German, nowadays I just see a lot of hate towards immigrants or women, which deeply saddens me.
It's your life, but I promise you no amount of "highly interesting" is worth "constant anger." If you stop reading that garbage for a couple weeks, I promise you will wonder why on Earth you were ever wasting your time on it.
I've met several people in my life that are like you, at least from what it sounds like in the description you give. Constantly anger and bitter. Probably for good reason, at least initially. And these people were smart people, hard working, honest.
But here's the secret: If you behave like this, then people will only interact with you when they want something from you, leading to an even more bitterness and unfriendly demeanor, leading to even worse interactions with other people.
Instead fake being nice and friendly and people will be nice and friendly with you and after what might feel like forever you will become genuinely nice and friendly. Giving you the possibility to enjoy better people and the better side of people.
This advice basically is "be fake and people will eventually like you" which is one of the reasons im constantly pissed off about other people. I respect authenticity and I do not need people in my life preferring a version of me that's not authentic.
Im content with being alone a lot, its preferable for me to having a lot of acquaintances.
I have a good circle of friends which is enough.
Honestly, for me the joy of life was front-loaded. Childhood was great, lot of stress and alienation since, with joy taken where I can find it but not a typical condition. My almost-six-year-old seems to be loving childhood as well, so I hope that even if things go really pear-shaped for civilization in the next couple decades he'll regard having lived as a net win.
I hate cooking...for others. Three kids, wife - everyone has a different taste. I put peppers in pasta sauce, my boys won't eat it. I make it a bit too spicy, my wife won't eat it. I had a joy for cooking when I was younger because I surprised myself with how tasty I could make things but constantly trying to please family is just grueling as it's required to do the lowest common denominator.
But I agree overall with your point. There are some things that I just will never like. I will try new things, but I quickly realize I'm not vibing with it and need to stop pretending.
Just let them go hungry if they don't want to eat it. Hunger is the best spice, so eventually they'll eat or make something themselves. Going without food for a day won't kill anybody.
Something’s I’ve noticed are better in a context; or similarly, I choose not to like them because time / my life has gone a different way.
Like I like going to state fairs, and I like country music in that context, even if I wouldn’t choose to put it on the radio at home. I don’t watch snarky reality tv like the real housewives, but I might enjoy it surrounded by my snarky gay friends or put another way - if people I like like like something I can appreciate it with them.
Cross cultural experiences when traveling fit into this category too. Lots of things I wouldn’t sort of pursue in my own but leave fond memories with strong emotional resonance in retrospect.
Actively trying to like something is already a sign that you don't like it intrinsically. Continuing to try strikes me as...some expression of over-socialization. It's okay to pursue things you actually like for your own sake.
I do this with sports to fit in better and make it easier to socialize.
I do this with music, films, and books because I think some things are objectively better than others in ways that don't always line up with my own tastes.
So you're lying to yourself to fit in instead of exploring the wider world to find undiscovered potential interests that bring you joy. I used to be like that. The earlier you stop, the more content you'll be. If you're worried that you might have bad taste, you're only thinking about how you're perceived by others, not about using your short time on Earth wisely.
That's a very uncharitable interpretation of what I wrote. No, I'm not lying to myself, and what I'm doing is almost the opposite of worrying what other people think.
I'm trying to let good art affect my soul and keep bad art from corrupting it.
If I hadn’t pursued things that initially didn’t click for me, I’d be missing out on what are now my favorite… everything, really, and still stuck with some things that are by-comparison so bad that I can’t believe I ever liked them, at least not to the degree that I did.
I don't dismiss new things off-hand. I explore them until I'm sure that initial distaste is real. And I definitely don't bash my head against them over and over, to the point of wasting time. We are not obligated to like anything on anyone else's account.
If there is an ideal amount of some personality trait then for most people the advice would be "do more of this" even though for some others it'll have to be "do less of this" depending on where you're coming from. When I was young I definitely did a bit of over-socialization (everybody seems to like music festivals so I guess I must like them too if I don't want to be a weirdo?) but as you can see in the comments to this post, as we get older it's easy to get into a pattern where anything you're not familiar with is instantly met with suspicion or derision, and a lot of people don't like this about themselves, which is why this blogpost resonates with them.
Also, "liking something intrinsically", what does that even mean?
You've never discovered something and felt the indescribable, joy-inducing draw of its appeal? Listened to some music and immediately jived with it? Blaming familiarity bias and "old man yells at clouds" is a disappointingly small-minded critique. It's the opposite: I've lived long enough to thoroughly experience the joy of newly discovering something that feels like it fits me perfectly; conversely, I've tried to appreciate other things enough times to know never to waste my time trying again. Especially for the sake of others.
I've learned that liking things behaves a lot like attraction. It has no reasoning or logic, it happens organically, and when you know, you know. Thus, I would never deign to pretend to like something I've found I don't.
... but the key thing is that I am not saying that you are an old man who yells at the clouds, rather that a lot of people worry about themselves that they might be getting unduly close-minded and that this is what the blog post is trying to address.
Your mileage seems to vary, but I find that for food and drinks in particular it's the acquired tastes you get the most enjoyment from in the end -- I haven't met many people who enjoyed their first glass of peated whisky, for example. Heck, even my best friends are definitely an "acquired taste", as is obvious to me when I introduce them to other people I know.