8 ms·
Take something you don’t like and try to like it
- esafak 1y agoOr don't, and cultivate taste, which is about having a rationale for separating the good from the bad -- and disliking stuff. It might not make you popular at parties though.
- aklemm 1y agoGood taste should be intriguing, so you might be doing it wrong.
- zwnow 1y agoIts also very subjective and dismissing people because they have "bad taste" is silly behavior
- rfrey 1y agoBut remain open to the possibility it's not your good taste that is making you unpopular at parties.
- williamdclt 1y agoI think that's orthogonal. The author is not saying that everything in every field is good: their TV example explicitly calls out bad TV. 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 1y agoAbsolutely! One can also recognize the good and the bad in a field that one dislikes, judged by its own criteria.
- manfromchina1 1y ago> I think that's orthogonal. 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.
- mythrwy 1y agoIt was an "order of magnitude" more prevalent on HN about 10 years ago. But this is orthogonal to the original topic.
- xenobeb 1y agoTaste isn't static over time either. My favorite thing is to rediscover something I thought in the past was terrible only to now find I love it.
- harperlee 1y agoWhat about the converse: showing your significant other e.g. the best film ever, only to discover with horror how bad your taste was a number of years ago?
- praptak 1y agoNo, fuck taste. It's either a class shibboleth or just a game of Calvinball where snobs trying to one up each other.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- celeries 1y agoI like plain oatmeal. I wouldn't say it's "good" in most qualitative senses. "Cultivating taste" might mean less capacity to tolerate or enjoy things that are fine-but-not-great.
- tripletpeaks 1y agoIt’s fine to like trash. 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.
- ljlolel 1y agoYou can do this with flavors or pain sensations by focusing on the feeling. You can also meditate on it then learn to mentally subtract it entirely, realizing that the experience is just an experience mediated in your system. Learn about how the mind flips and reverses and fills in vision from retina.
- aklemm 1y agoYes! This is underrated and something I work on with my kids, because it really is a pillar of good living. For me it's been everything from many foods, to basketball, to hiking, to art museums, and maybe someday I'll even tolerate musicals.
- nilstycho 1y agoDo you have any tips for how to work on this with kids?
- martindbp 1y agoWould like to know as well. Whenever I suggest something new it's a default "NO!". But if it just happens naturally it's ok. Like if I put on a song and suggest he listen to it, my kid will literally scream and cry like I'm torturing him, but if it happens to be on the radio while driving then suddenly it's fine and he'll love it. I think part of the reason is that everything is on demand these days, unlike when we grew up on broadcast tv and radio.
- koakuma-chan 1y agoArouse in the other person an eager want.
- nemomarx 1y agoA little embarrassing to admit this, but I find it harder to listen to a new song or genre if that's the main activity I'm doing - like sitting down to just focus on the song. If I put it on while washing the dishes or driving I don't feel as pressured about it. 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?
- Etheryte 1y agoCamps, hobbies and other such activities where they see others their age do things and have a good time. As a parent, you're not necessarily the coolest thing in the world. However their friends and peers with varied backgrounds can fill that role. I used to do youth work when I was younger and some of the biggest leaps of personality happened in groups with very mixed backgrounds. Poor kids, rich kids, sporty, dorky, introverts, extroverts and everything in between, in the right environment they'll rub off on one another in all the best ways.
- martindbp 1y agoI remember feeling vaguely threatened by interests that I didn't understand growing up. At one point for instance, my friend was really into anime, and I felt like it's too weird, like you'd need to be a very different kind of person to enjoy that kind of thing. Years later I decided to try it though, and still I have a bit of an aversion to a lot of the tropes of most anime, but there are also quite a few gems in there that I would've missed. I'm reminded of this often because it's common that people just have a blanket "I don't watch cartoons" attitude. I try to remember this when I have an aversion to some kind of music, literature, movie or hobby.
- toofy 1y agoyep, for me, the wild overemphasis on grunts, huuuhs, hmmm, uhhh, errr, etc drives me absolutely bonkers. it isn’t at all the animated aspect, i do love a few anime’s but the good ones don’t do that weird noise huh thing. the stories can be incredible i just wish i could watch them without ripping my hair out every time the characters do that.
- Cthulhu_ 1y agoI mean from a different perspective, western animation has similar tropes / issues; it's just that you grew up with it. I couldn't stand Pokemon, but in hindsight that was an anime too, just with Dutch dubs. Anyway, just keep in mind most anime is aimed at children/teenagers, if you watch it with that in mind or think of English voice acting and vocalizations in western animation, some of these things make more sense.
- trivo 1y agoWhat's wrong with liking Oasis?!
- __alexs 1y agoThat's the spirit!
- kerrsclyde 1y agoBecause they fleeced their fans?
- zwnow 1y agoListen, I am 30 now. Not too old, still missing plenty of experiences in life. But I know what stuff I do not like, and I won't force myself to try and like them. 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.
- kingkawn 1y agoHow are you an old curmudgeon at 30
- neutronicus 1y agoHasn't had kids to push the Reset button, probably.
- zwnow 1y agoI am fully against forcing kids into this world with the way things are currently going. If I see a future I'd want to live in I'll think about kids.
- juanani 1y ago[dead]
- neutronicus 1y agoFair perspective. 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.
- zwnow 1y agoLong time depression, father dead at 15, half of family dead since, possibly adhd, moved places like 8 times, poor (thankfully no debt), balding, never had a relationship, constant anger due to the stupidity of other people (when reading comments on news articles as an example), and and and...
- nigger_nagger 1y ago[flagged]
- trentnix 1y agoAs a compulsive, I have the problem of liking too many things. I don’t drink coffee because in a month I’ll be neck deep in forums about the proper way to grind beans. I don’t own an aquarium because I’ll be obsessively learning about perfect water pH for the most exotic fish. I don’t drink hot tea because I’ll be studying growth patterns and how seasonality affects leaves and their flavor. I don’t drink beer because I’d be sucked into learning how to craft my own. 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.
- leetrout 1y agoWhat are some of your current obsessions? I enjoy learning and discovering so I enjoy tech and when I get into something the joy is from the rabbit hole and then I am done and move on. What has kept your interest?
- nathan_douglas 1y agoNot OP, but I was also replying and had thoughts along a similar vein. 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.
- ausbah 1y agokeep an open mind esp if it challenges your biases and as you age, and sometimes it worth being “just ok” with something if it’s a group context?
- aaron695 1y ago[dead]
- phazy 1y agoI‘m wondering why nobody has brought up the term "acquired taste" yet. Such a beautiful expression, sadly I can’t find a good translation in most other languages.
- arethuza 1y agoI managed to acquire a taste for gin and tonic - I went as an adult from thinking it was the most revolting thing ever to one of the few drinks I occasionally find myself craving. Acquiring the taste clearly involved drinking the stuff but I have no idea how...
- orev 1y agoA lot of tonic water brands have been adding more sugar, which might also explain changing preferences.
- tomjakubowski 1y agoI still bitterly remember the one and only time I ordered a plain tonic water, thinking it would be seltzer. I understand now why they say the British cut the tonic with gin, and not the other way around.
- flobosg 1y agoIn Spanish the translation is literal, gusto adquirido.
- cainxinth 1y agoWhen I was in sixth grade I was given an assignment: pick a food you don't like, eat it at least once a day for a week, and then report your experience. Funnily enough, by the end of the week I didn't hate tomatoes anymore. I applied that lesson to many other things since then and it works far more often than it fails.
- fuckaj 1y ago[dead]
- keepamovin 1y agoI needed to read this today. This person writes really well. Thank you for sharing this, OP!
- palata 1y agoMany things need to be understood to be appreciated. 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.
- loloquwowndueo 1y agoI like churches, I just don’t like going to church :)
- 1c2adbc4 1y agoFeel the same about hospitals
- amelius 1y agoIf you don't like to go to hospitals, then about the only option is to like your particular disorders. This may also be the only option for disorders for which there is no treatment, e.g. tinnitus.
- falcor84 1y agoThere's also the option of waiting until your untreated disorder puts you in a coma, and then you can enjoy hospital services without being conscious of your surroundings.
- falcor84 1y ago
- jebarker 1y agoSomething my middle-class British upbringing nurtured in me was incredible pessimism. Day to day this used to manifest as an assumption that I wouldn’t like any new experience, so I’d avoid them and stick to what I knew. My (American) wife pointed this out to me and life got much better when I learned to just give new things an enthusiastic and unprejudiced try more often.
- jjkaczor 1y agoI do this often with music - typically there is a single song from an album that I love - so, I try and place the entire album onto my device and then listen to it as a cohesive whole. Often, I end-up with 2-3 more songs that go into my regular rotation.
- famahar 1y agoI hated natto (fermented soy beans) but I knew how beneficial it was to my health ,plus it's very affordable. Forced myself to eat it everyday for a week and now I love it. Staple of my diet
- rubenvanwyk 1y agoImagine people in politics adopt this mindset? The world would be a much more tolerable place.
- thsvrrck 1y agoyup cannot imagine how much better the world would be if we would just force ourselves to appreciate each other, despite our differences.
- netbioserror 1y agoActively trying to like something is already a sign that you don't like it intrinsically. Continuing to try strikes me as...some expression of over-socialization. It's okay to pursue things you actually like for your own sake.
- yepguy 1y agoI do this with sports to fit in better and make it easier to socialize. 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.
- netbioserror 1y agoSo you're lying to yourself to fit in instead of exploring the wider world to find undiscovered potential interests that bring you joy. I used to be like that. The earlier you stop, the more content you'll be. If you're worried that you might have bad taste, you're only thinking about how you're perceived by others, not about using your short time on Earth wisely.
- yepguy 1y agoThat's a very uncharitable interpretation of what I wrote. No, I'm not lying to myself, and what I'm doing is almost the opposite of worrying what other people think. I'm trying to let good art affect my soul and keep bad art from corrupting it.
- stdbrouw 1y agoIf there is an ideal amount of some personality trait then for most people the advice would be "do more of this" even though for some others it'll have to be "do less of this" depending on where you're coming from. When I was young I definitely did a bit of over-socialization (everybody seems to like music festivals so I guess I must like them too if I don't want to be a weirdo?) but as you can see in the comments to this post, as we get older it's easy to get into a pattern where anything you're not familiar with is instantly met with suspicion or derision, and a lot of people don't like this about themselves, which is why this blogpost resonates with them. Also, "liking something intrinsically", what does that even mean?
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- donatj 1y agoI had something of a semi-intentional palate reset in my early twenties. 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.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- colechristensen 1y agoThere are a lot of negatives attributes to people that they think are fundamental to themselves that folks identify with which turn out to be... well... bad habits and bad attitudes.
- donatj 1y agoI agree completely. Understanding the level of control you really have over yourself is key to unlock so many good things.
- astura 1y agoI had a very intentional palate reset in my late teens going into my early 20s. 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.
- techpineapple 1y agoSomething’s I’ve noticed are better in a context; or similarly, I choose not to like them because time / my life has gone a different way. 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.
- ergonaught 1y agoThis particular approach, intelligently applied, ultimately leads to a kind of freedom. Most of our preferences are simple conditioning, prejudices really, and only serve to constrain optionality. Excessive rigidity is an early death.
- tananan 1y agoI like this post. 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.
- cosmic_quanta 1y agoThis was a great read. I find myself becoming the grumpy complainer as I age, but as the post says, the torture is mostly in my head. It's good to keep that in mind; I can't always control my environment, but I can always control how I experience it. 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
- semv3r 1y agoMichael Jackson was an unfortunate example to choose.
- arp242 1y ago"Taste" is such a funny concept: - 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.
- orev 1y agoOne aspect of trying something new is also separating the thing itself from the culture who form around it. 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.
- pezezin 1y agoI have that situation with anime. Yeah, I know that there are loads of awesome anime, but most anime fans are a bit... intense.
- noman-land 1y agoI make it a point to retry foods I "don't like" at least once a year to confirm if I still don't like them. More often than not, that experience alone gets me to like the thing. Liking things is more fun than not liking things. Why wouldn't I want to move as many things as I can in my life from the dislike bucket to the like bucket?
- fluoridation 1y agoTo be honest, for any given thing, liking or disliking it seems pretty inconsequential. Ideally, you would like the things you can't avoid, and dislike the things you can't get. Everything else doesn't really matter too much.
- ChrisMarshallNY 1y agoI regularly listen to music that I would have sneered at, when I was younger. I don't feel the need to blast it to the world, though. I have learned that music and art tastes are extremely personal, and that not wearing them on my sleeve, gives me the freedom to just like what I like. I really enjoy being adventurous; especially in food. It took over twenty years of repeatedly going to Tokyo, to finally land something I Just. Couldn't. Eat. (Undercooked chicken)[0]. I also have learned that "Things are cliché for a reason."[1] [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVRylssdu-o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVRylssdu-o [1] https://littlegreenviper.com/the-road-most-traveled-by/ https://littlegreenviper.com/the-road-most-traveled-by/
- Cthulhu_ 1y agoSame, although there's a lot of music I still won't intentionally listen to, I just can't vibe with it. That said, Radio Paradise's web radio channels are a great way to explore a wide range of music.
- ChrisMarshallNY 1y ago> Radio Paradise's web radio channels Thanks for the tip!
- hiccuphippo 1y ago“While you can’t always control your situation, you have tremendous power over how you experience that situation. You may find a cramped flight to be a torture. But the torture happens inside your head. Some people like your situation. You too, perhaps could like it.” Or like the Russians say, "Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional."
- Animats 1y agoThe hardcore version: "Embrace the Suck".[1] That's by a Navy SEAL. Those guys are chosen for not giving up. This guy may go a little too far in that direction. [1] https://www.amazon.com/Embrace-Suck-Navy-SEAL-Extraordinary/dp/0306846349 https://www.amazon.com/Embrace-Suck-Navy-SEAL-Extraordinary/...
- therealfiona 1y agoI use a Mac for work. I've gone from "eww God no" to, "Meh, it is fine minus the keyboard." That is about how all these exercises have gone for me over the years. It becomes tolerable at best. Still hate it at worst.
- cmpalmer52 1y agoI tried salted licorice. Granted, I don’t really like sweet licorice, or anise, or fennel, or any of the liquors that use that flavoring, but I tolerate them. The salted licorice was the worst thing I’d ever tasted. So I bought a whole bag of it and ate a piece every day or so. After a week, I wasn’t cringing as much. After two or three weeks I started craving it. By the end of the month, I liked it. I don’t love it, but I did buy another bag when that one was done. And yes I know the health risks, but I’m never going to be eating a bag or two a day. The weirdest, though, was cilantro. I’m in the genetic group that thinks it tastes soapy. And yet, after trying it enough, I love it.
- kelseydh 1y agoWhen I was young I had a weird cognitive bias where I would think that if something tasted curious or different, that it must be good for you in some way. E.g. the odd taste of licorice. Must mean that it was healthy or good right? Turns out licorice really isn't good for you. https://www.heart.org/en/news/2022/10/28/black-licorice-is-a-candy-that-should-inspire-caution https://www.heart.org/en/news/2022/10/28/black-licorice-is-a...
- unwind 1y agoHow to know that an article about licorice is from the US: they include the "black" qualifier. As if there were any other kind! To me (Swedish) the normal/expected qualifier is "sweet" (yes please) or "salty" (oh yes indeed thank you very much). The concept of "red licorice" [1] is simply ... foreign. :) It's also fun and interesting as a word/food, since it focuses on the texture of a food and re-uses the word, even though the word is tightly coupled to the flavor. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquorice_(confectionery)#Red_liquorice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquorice_(confectionery)#Red_...
- pezezin 1y agoWe do have those funny coloured "licorices" in Spain, but anybody with have a brain knows that the real one is black, and the others just happen to share the same shape xD Having said that, my favourite is that salty stuff you guys have up there in the North.
- bravura 1y agoAn old bit in Harper's Index quoted that the average number of time you have to taste something you have an aversion to and develop a taste for it is 12. Like most statistics in Harper's Index, the veracity of that number is questionable and amusing. However, the idea that you might just need to try more than you think is what's thought provoking about citing this probably fallacious statistic. (Harper's Index was basically a nicely arranged list of thought-provoking cited statistics you weren't supposed to take at face value, arranged in a way to create a narrative arc.) Another piece I read on this topic was aimed at foodies. The thrust was basically: "You're trying to broaden your horizons by trying different obscure dishes from other cuisines. Why not revisit the foods you hated as a child? I used to hate eggplant and thought it was slimy and now I love eggplant." There's something compelling, in matters of taste, about addressing a huge blind spot you have been avoiding tackling instead of hyper-specializing in your chosen niche.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- vivzkestrel 1y agosince you mentioned spinach in your post in point 2, i wanna add that try eating palak paneer once. you'll fall in love with spinach after that
- vova_hn 1y ago> On planes, the captain will often invite you to, “sit back and enjoy the ride”. This is confusing. Enjoy the ride? Enjoy being trapped in a pressurized tube and jostled by all the passengers lining up to relieve themselves because your company decided to cram in a few more seats instead of having an adequate number of toilets? Aren’t flights supposed to be endured? Wait, is liking to fly actually that unusual?
- xoqem 1y agoI had this same reaction! All of the process of getting to and from the airport, and through security, etc, isn't my favorite. But once we're actually flying, I find the ride itself kind of soothing.
- Cthulhu_ 1y agoI do too,kind of, but I don't like the atmosphere / air in planes; too dry, smelly, too warm and too cold at the same time, there's just something environmentally "wrong" in planes. Maybe that's just a matter of getting used to it though.
- ahartmetz 1y agoI really like flying. I've flown gliders as youth and young adult, so I'm a small-time aviation enthusiast, and all the plane's movements make sense to me. I remember when they didn't. My favorite flight was to Gran Canaria - the pilot did a visual approach as if he was landing a glider. Engines completely idle (very quiet!), plane over the ocean, airport parallel to the right. Turn right a few km after passing the airport, straight for a few seconds, turn right again, glide down. An exciting one was an aborted takeoff when already pretty fast, but comfortably before decision speed.
- neuroelectron 1y agoAlmost all TV is, in fact, bad.
- ulrischa 1y agoOr take someone you don't like and try to like him or her. This is hard
- esafak 1y ago"Love the one you're with."
- revskill 1y ago[dead]
- JR1427 1y agoI have long been telling people the story of how I taught myself to like tomatoes. It really worked. I have loved tomatoes since that fateful day when I was about 17. Until then, I would bite something with tomato already anticipating that I wouldn't like it. To teach myself, I would imagine the feeling I had before biting in to something I really liked, and I would think "Yummy! I can't wait to bite this yummy tomato!".
- TheCapeGreek 1y agoInteresting. I always found it to be about the actual ripeness/general produce quality of the tomato. E.g. an "average" tomato in many countries being used in a dish = fine, but wouldn't eat it alone. I just find them sour and flavourless. An Italian/Greek grown tomato however is truly delicious.
- metalman 1y agoAs stated in the article is the absolute last thing I would ever do in my personal imediate and intimate space, but for education ,work, public and customer facing parts of my life,doing just what is stated has been a game changer for getting things done, AND, I cant stress enough, enjoying the things I do for myself in my personal time and space as the contrast seems to energise everything.
- highfrequency 1y ago> Sometimes we dislike things simply because we have a concept of ourselves as not liking them. Astute!
- osullivj 1y agoIf you want to learn to like country music, listen to Margo Price, not Garth Brooks.
- dnissley 1y agoNo one is proposing a list that is tailored to the HN audience? That people should try to like? Here's a start: - Ads - Regulations - Trump - The EU - Social Media - Musk - AI - Venture Capital - Unions - Peter Thiel - China - Cryptocurrency - The United States - Zuck - Taxes - Big Tech - Recommendation Algorithms - Billionaires - Google Search IMO it's a good sign if you can think of something to appreciate in all of these things, even if you can't bring yourself to like them. To appreciate them is to understand them at a deeper level, since it's all too easy to hate things you don't understand.
- grues-dinner 1y agoI think all those things just go to show that if you take anything to an extreme, it becomes a problem, especially if you do so in order to extract maximum money from it. "All things are poison, and nothing is without poison; the dosage alone makes it so a thing is not a poison."
- vintermann 1y agoI see two (really just one) reasons to try to learn to like something you currently don't. The first one, and the only real one, is to get closer to other people. Someone you like, who you want to understand, and maybe more like. Someone it's worth becoming at least a slightly different person for, in terms of how you approach the world. The second reason is boredom. It's actually just the first reason in disguise. But this is why recommendation algorithms and culture-related ads can be so viscerally offensive. "Hello kids! Want to be more like Spotify's ideal of the perfect music consumer?" and the answer of actual kids is often yes, because they think other kids will say yes too, and they'd be too lonely only liking things no one else likes.
- godshatter 1y agoI'd throw brain plasticity in there. I'm worried about this given my age (getting close to 60) and I will sometimes bounce off of a song or a TV show or a movie or a book immediately and then force myself to go through it and see if it really is that bad or not. Sometimes it is, but often there's stuff to like if you're looking for it even in the worst of it's kind.
- arkey 1y agoWhat about because something is objectively good for you? For example, you could learn to like fermented foods (if you don't) because they are very healthy for you.
- cyrialize 1y agoI do this with music. I like to pick a genre I haven't gotten into, find an essentials chart for it, and then listen to an album. This is how I fell in love with alternative country, power pop, r&B, drum & bass, and so on.
- Charon77 1y agohōrensō no ohitashi, made from some exotic vegetable I’ve never seen before. That's spinach