“Fools learn from experience. I prefer to learn from the experience of others.”
– Otto von Bismarck
“Fools learn from experience. I prefer NOT to learn from the experience of others.”
– Me
That makes me sound like a fool though. But hear me out.
We all love to hate, don’t we? Yes, we do. Let’s say someone, with their excitement going through the roof, approaches you and shares with you that song / movie / tv show / book they love and they want you to feel the same like they do. Oh, the societal peer pressure! Since you are known to be civil, you say, “sure why not” but internally you want your phone to ring so that you can say “hold your thought” and pray that the thought while being held vaporizes and the topic gets changed. Or, sometimes, people declare that they love a certain piece of art. You may or might not have experienced it. But again the inner judgemental voice gives 1 star to that choice already while you grin with the superiority of your intellectual choices.
I try to not hate things at first sight but sometimes I do. Someone was telling someone else about an artist they liked. My initial reaction was obviously, bah humbug! Then I stumbled upon the Top 50 Hits trending on Spotify. Have you heard the music nowadays? I tried to listen to the so-called songs. It was not too long before I had to use Johnson’s & Johnson’s Ear Buds to get the cacophony out of my ears. But then I listened again, and one more time and then I got some of it. Some of that was still music. Then I listened one more time and it did start to sound somewhat enjoyable. Sigh, it takes multiple listenings nowadays to like things others like. Music is supposed to be universal but clearly it is not. What’s trending nowadays might force us to modify our taste too. We might be quick to jump the gun and declare some sort of music totally rubbish. But if given some more time, it might be some artistic value in it.
Or maybe, I can sleep better if I believe that music nowadays is just a fad and the world will make better music again soon and my license to hate remains valid.
Header Photo by Zoltan Fekeshazi on Unsplash.
