Table Of Contents
One of the many thorns of consumerism is being told what you should buy. It’s an ordeal I’m often happy to pass off to a google search with the included “site:reddit.com” substring. That way, only enthusiastic hobbyists and bots are telling me what to purchase.
I like to dig into new hobbies by combing through “top 10” articles and youtube reviews at first. It’s a good way to avoid buyer’s remorse and the quickest way to climb the price ladder. Having just thought to get into Vinyl, I end my week with a $350 record player I scored for only $225 from Facebook Marketplace.
It collects dust atop the bookshelf in my dining room.
Some of these scratches make the battle worthwhile. You leave more weathered and better prepared for the next fight. I’ve scammed myself enough times to look less of a fool the next time it happens.
But still, I’m a genuine fan of consumerism. This seems like a hot take, which is weird. I love gadgets!
Sure, there’s the second-order effects and all that, but there’s nothing quite like obsessing over what you want and having the postal work deliver a gift you bought yourself.
If there’s one lesson I can give from my order history, it’s probably best exemplified in an Adam Savage quote
I always start out with a cheap version … I found that it helped me shop for the good one
Always buy small, first. This is both in price and in quantity. If you don’t know whether you’ll love bouldering, go for the cheaper shoes. If you don’t know how much eggs you need, go for the smaller carton.
Your immediate reaction might be to say that quality shoes are a cheaper investment in the long-run and food is often cheaper in bulk. It’s the ole’ “It’s cheaper to be rich” allegory people like to quote. This is true, but it is still more expensive than not buying it at all.
In the longer-run, you may pick up hobbies that fizzle out and those that you keep with you. Owning a limited amount of time, you will likely pick up many more hobbies than you keep. The smarter decision is to play it safe and eat the cost when you inevitably upgrade for the few hobbies you stick with.
Yes, you will have paid more for the hobbies you enjoy by purchasing cheaper alternatives upfront, but you will have saved a lot more by not going overboard on the ones you neglect.
Also, as someone used to living in dense cities, this is a space-saving measure. I don’t have room for 20 bags of rice, even if it’s heavily discounted. I am paying a real price to store the extra volume.
Buy the cheaper hammer. When its quality begins to burden you, upgrade.
#Hobbies
This is likely all part of a larger theme. I love a new toy, but it’s ultimately the experiences it gives me that makes it worthwhile. I like learning about new things and getting good at new skills.
I’ll give up a lot, sure, but still take with me interesting ideas. There are overlaps across fields and sciences behind the arts. Fashion, interior decor, music, photography, comedy, and cooking all share a through-line.
Ask an artist about their passion and you’re likely to get different sorts of responses.
I’ve met folks with enough linguistic chops to ensnare you in their world. I’ve met folks with a wonder about them, whose every word made you feel more estranged from their perspective. And I’ve met folks who dedicated their life to a craft, but use language that degrades their output to a point where you pity the time they spent to produce it.
It was only years and years later when I realized that language is not the most convenient or accessible mechanism available. If an artist is unable to actualize their work in common tongue, it does not mean the art is without thought.
We imbue meaning in the joy of children, but their left frontal lobe still needs time to develop. You can find artistic value in church singing of a religious belief you are foreign to.
So what is good art? How do you produce it?
If you think you’ll find the answer here, I have a bridge to ship you. Instead, my advice is how to get better at producing it and how to better enjoy it.
I have no technical ability. I know nothing about music … I know what I like and what I don’t like. And I’m decisive about what I like and what I don’t like.
Rick Rubin is uncontroversially one of the most important and famous producers in modern popular music. He is an artist in an unusual sense. Asked time and time again, he freely admits to having no musical ability with the exception of the good sense to communicate his taste.
It is this, your personal preference, that you should hone.
There is a tremendous depth to the sciences of the arts. My recent dives have explored interior decor and fashion, fields I am notoriously and obviously terrible at exploring. These subjects require an introspection into both identity and comfort.
Your dress is an outward signal, itself a combination of how you want to be portrayed and how you like to portray.
In my initial endeavor, I attempted wackier and louder clothing than I was previously comfortable with. I spent a bit too much on choices I instantly regretted. Many attempts later, it felt like I was still significantly behind my friends in good taste.
How was it that people I knew had access to an intuition that I seemed so far from understanding? It was obvious that they dressed well, but if you were to ask them for the method to their choices, you wouldn’t get much of substance.
I spent some time reading articles and watching videos which brought me steps closer to better dress, but it still struck me how clearly the experts had not troubled themselves to learn the basics as I have.
Truthfully, there is much less of a framework to learn when you are trendsetting. Picasso wasn’t reading articles on ink splatters. So what was his framework for good art?
Again, it is the intuition. It is the emotion of the art that guides you. The thing that you cannot and should not put into words.
Good art is about identity; either of the viewer or the artist. There is nothing without the intellectual or emotional introspection. If the former is easier to grasp, it would behoove you to learn the latter. Get good at knowing what you like.
#Across the fields
It starts as a simple phrase and quickly expands to consume every topic you think about.
I enjoy cooking. It took me a while, but now I really find it meditative. More than another hobby, getting good at creating food gave me the senses to explore the food I ate.
I don’t follow recipes as much as I follow a rough framework of correlations between ingredients and cooking processes. Detaching myself from instructions gave me the tools to correlate the inputs with the outputs. I understand the impact of baking soda, par-boiling, high heat, oil, cumin, hydration, etc.
Eating at a restaurant now gifts me new perspectives. I taste the tomato and I feel the crunch of a convection oven.
This process has also let me cook for myself. I make food that I enjoy instead of from what the recipe normally outputs. I can adjust and add for my own palate. This initially made me nervous to cook for others - what if they don’t like what I do, I thought.
As it turns out, the expression of your interests has often a much larger overlap with the interests of others. You are both more and less unique than you think. On average, a correct expression of my interests will make a much more positive impact than my attempt at an expression of theirs.
I cook food that people like, on average, because I cook what I like.
This is something I have been practicing for far longer in a different domain. I like to make people laugh, but more importantly I like to make myself laugh.
The least funny people I know only make jokes for others. Their terrible jokes not only fall flat, but create a palpable cringe from the loud violation of the social contract - a failed request to be enjoyed. To be funny, you must first enjoy yourself.
It takes good insight to know when a joke is appropriate. There is a lot of social science and practice that goes into good joke telling. But at some point, you don’t really think. If someone asked you, it would be hard to explain. It’s just funny. You feel it more than you understand it.
Comedy is subjective in a real sense, but is objective in another. It is the same with all experiential arts. The qualia of your audience defines their experience. It creates the incongruency of enjoyment. Still, a perfect representation of what you enjoy guarantees a larger overlap with the enjoyment of others. My enjoyment on its own can be infectious.
With music, you’ll find more parallels. I like this quote from Finneas.
It’s really important to like something or not like something, because your taste is what really matters … Do I think it sounds good? Then it’s correct, even if it’s wrong.
– Finneas, Tape Notes Podcast
When you first start to make music, you might enjoy the idea that the product is your own. In most crafts, this is part of the pride. This is a very useful emotion, but it is not the enjoyment I am referring to. There will be a point where you have worked past the pride of your own labor and onto the amusement of your output. It is this that is special.
Not everyone will enjoy your music, but if you’re producing what you really enjoy, you will produce something important.
#The visual arts
So we’re back on my recent exploration and the realization that inspired this article. Interior decor and dress - how do you learn to enjoy what you don’t craft?
The advice I got recently shaped how I approach these fields and has made a really positive impact on my output.
It was to go on pinterest or google images and just scroll. Collect photo after photo of pictures you like. Do not analyze too deeply, just intuit. Let your heart lead. Soon, you will have a collection of pictures that provoked a positive response. Now you may introspect.
Do this regularly. What about these pictures did you like? Was it the colors, arrangements, orientations, textures, or lighting? Collect more, refine further.
Eventually, you will have built yourself into a sommelier of the experiences. You attain the gift of emotional expression and save yourself from the less valuable experiences.
You will have gotten great at knowing what you like.