People are weird. That is to say, I'm not every person who's ever existed, so I don't really know what's ticking over in their heads. I can only safely make those assumptions about myself, and even then it's a guess at best. However, I can project myself into their situation and ask what I'd do if I was them, which isn't useful at all but it does the trick. Where am I going with this, you ask? Well, in a nutshell, here it is: Why is "OK" or "pretty good" not very good anymore?
Yeah, maybe the metric I use to value-judge things is fundamentally different to other folks. I'm a confessed fan of Mr. Bungle and DragonForce, so let that be an insight into the odd definition of "good" I use. However, there are some points of consensus I seem to share with regular folk, so I'm not a completely lost cause. I couldn't put my finger on exactly when I started noticing this, but at some point in the not-to-distant past, I started to hear people rationalizing things by saying things like "yeah, it's good, but..." and then go on to extol the greatness of something else.
There are a lot of great things out there. Hoegaarden, Pink Floyd, Fight Club... these are all great. However, the "good"-ness of something doesn't necessarily detract from the "great"-ness of "great" things. Similarly, the "great"-ness of some things doesn't take away from the merits of others. You might eat the tastiest meal you've ever sampled, but does that make a sojourn to McDonalds after a few drinks any less enjoyable? Of course not, that double cheese whatever you order is still going to be as greasily fabulous as it ever was.
I don't want to give away any specifics, but in the past two days I've heard two separate friends NOT make an attempt to talk to a member of the fairer sex, one on the basis that there was a better looking woman in the room (sitting at a family dinner) and one on the basis that they're an awkward asocial. Also in those two days I had a friend reject the suggestion to check out a new band on the basis that another band was pretty awesome. Is there a limit on how much stuff you can enjoy, so we must make sure to only fill our lives with awesome things and not crowd ourselves with OK things? Fuck that shit, I'm gonna eat fast food sometimes, I'm gonna drink cheaper beer sometimes and I'm gonna accept that a good time can be a good time even if it isn't great. I haven't got Fillet Mignon and Moet & Chandon for dinner tonight, and I'm not bummed out about it.
Yes, there is a limit on how much stuff you can enjoy, it's called TIME!
ReplyDeleteBy that logic, why should you study, or work, or anything like that? You've got limited time, so just do whatever you want.
ReplyDeleteThe answer is because you want to optimize the time you have, and so sometimes you have to invest for later, or try something new, or take a chance. It'd be wonderful if we could spend our time only doing things we enjoy, but to have a really good, interesting life, sometimes you need to cast off the safety blanket and venture into fields unknown.
So..it's pretty much "why can't people accept my opinions as truth"? Also, I like the fact that you get annoyed over small decisions that mean absolutely nothing but parade on like each individual is an idiot for not doing so. Thank you for simplifying people down to such a small degree that you can just act like you know the definitive answer on everything. That's far from being arrogant at all.
ReplyDeleteIt's hardly "why can't people accept my opinions as truth," rather "what is people's resistance to new experiences." This is me venting my absolute disbelief that people can be happy without new experiences. It baffles me.
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