The world is full of great things. Full of terrible things. Mostly it seems to be full of things I know nothing about. I like a lot of different things: movies, television, comics, art, books, trees, toys, video games, the outside in general, travel, music, good beer, somewhat good beer, and of course delicious food. It would seem like I'm fairly diverse in the things I like, but it's becoming increasingly apparent that for every interest I have there are glaring blind spots. Someone will tell me about a television show or album that they enjoy and I wonder how is it that something like that has escaped me? Maybe it's become easier and easier in today's world to customize our lives to the things we like. You go to a webpage and tell it your interests and it will start building you a feed of information. The better ones will help you discover new things, but most of them really just let you reinforce the wall of our own tastes.
I'm not saying it's bad to like what you like. It's more that it feels a bit overwhelming when there is so much content out there. How is one expected to keep up? Maybe we're not supposed to. Maybe it's alright to miss out on that one thing that you'd probably love, but just don't have space for in your life. How do you know when that's OK though? How do you know if you're spending too much of your time on the old standby when there are so many other options out there?
Like music? You could listen to new music every day for a year and not hear the same song repeated, if you didn't feel that compulsion to re-listen to old favorites. Hey I like Zeppelin as much as the next person, but seriously it's been forty year. Maybe it's OK to see how music has grown and changed since then. You never know, you may find something you like that was made after 1973. It's got me wondering how it happens. At one point the world was full of new and wonderful things. Everything felt fresh and exciting. Then we find something we like and say to ourselves "This is it. My search is over." This also leads to that feeling that certain things are now sacred and anyone or anything that attempts to build upon that is seen as an affront to the original. The problem with this is that most of the world is a remix. Everything is an iteration and for the generation that creates it, it feels like the source. My daughter is going to grow up in a world where Ninja Turtles and Transformers are these loud, garish, obnoxious movies of explosions and silliness, whereas I grew up with them being something completely different, while still being fairly annoying to my parents. It took me awhile, but I've gotten to a point where it's OK for the next generation to have their versions of stuff. It doesn't take away from my version. The remakes are made for me. They don't care about me or my old ass opinion, even though the property was originated when I was their target audience.
The whole thing has me wondering about the things I like. Do I like them because they are still interesting to me? Or do I like them because for as long as I can remember I have liked them? It's OK to ask yourself why you're interesting in something. It could be the previous version of yourself found it compelling, but the current version of you doesn't get the same thrill as you used to. For me it's caused me to reconsider how I spend my time because it's becoming increasingly valuable to me. Sometimes that means picking up something I put down years ago and seeing it with different eyes. Sometimes that means putting something on a shelf because it doesn't provide the same value it had in the past. Maybe by doing that I'll be able to open myself up to being able to see the new things out there that could blow my mind and make me ask myself how I've lived this long without knowing about them.
