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?
1) tell stories of how I came to enjoy something I previously had not
2) don't make anything contentious...respect preferences while insisting they can change those preferences if they want to
3) help them gain competence quickly in anything they may not love at first
4) exposure and enthusiasm about lots of things
5) never trashing things and never ever shitting on other people's likes.
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.
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.
Its okay not to like things.
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.
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.
You know that there are some things you don't like almost for sure. That makes all the difference.
I'm slightly older than you and keep running into things I used to dislike and that I surprisingly dislike less now. And that feels good.
Keeping the door open on disliking less seems critical to me.
edit: read your other comment, good luck, I wish you the best and I hope you can enjoy more things as time passes and find a path that suits you!
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.
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".
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.
What has kept your interest?
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.
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.
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.
I applied that lesson to many other things since then and it works far more often than it fails.
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.
This may also be the only option for disorders for which there is no treatment, e.g. tinnitus.
I still can't get my family to get into noise and pigfuck, any advice ?
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.
It's not a counterpoint, as I never said that understanding something meant that you would like it.
I just said that it's worth trying to understand before concluding that we dislike something.
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.
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.
> 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? :-)
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.
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.
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.
Also, "liking something intrinsically", what does that even mean?
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.
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 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.
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".
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.
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.
Excessive rigidity is an early death.
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.
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]
This is my new favourite writer
- 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.
I, on the other hand can take it or leave it. I sometimes wonder what that says about me.
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.
esafak•5h ago
aklemm•5h ago
zwnow•5h ago
rfrey•5h ago
williamdclt•5h ago
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).
esafak•4h ago
manfromchina1•3h ago
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.
praptak•4h ago
celeries•4h ago
"Cultivating taste" might mean less capacity to tolerate or enjoy things that are fine-but-not-great.
tripletpeaks•4h 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.