Overloaded: Is there simply too much culture?

This is something that we need to adapt to, and I think it's quite possible to adapt to it.

For example, when I was a teenager, a good chunk of my friends and schoolmates listened to the same bands as I did, or at least there was a substantial overlap. I was much too young for the heyday of MTV, but the big names pushed by the record companies were still ones everyone knew and had opinions about, and only occasionally would we introduce each other to our personal discoveries.

Nowadays, with the friends I've made over the past few years, there's usually little or no overlap. So the inevitable 'what kind of music do you listen to?' has changed from 'oh, I like X too! / I don't like X because Y' to a different exercise where you need to communicate why you're really into a certain ukulele youtuber or a Chinese operetta or a Brazilian hip-hop subgenre, to someone who's never heard of them. And then listening and asking interesting questions when they do the same for their favourites.

The rare times you do find some overlaps become pleasant surprises - one of my best friends is into blackgaze and ambient, I'm a folk- and metal-head, and finding out that we had a few experimental/avantgarde bands like Unexpect and Deathspell Omega in both our playlists was delightful when we first met.

Then, as agency is attained, you get increasing exposure to the great unfiltered, and you find hidden treasure and trash and you learn what you actually like and dislike - in preparation for the filter you apply to your own children - which helps to define you, to yourself.

Then you get a job, partner, mortgage / rent, kids, and, just the requirements to being able to afford all that goes with that, removes the time required for 'agency' and so you're locked in a fairly tight decade-era of culture for the rest of your life unless you actively choose otherwise; seeking out the alternative, following rabbit holes, opening yourself to the full spectrum of colour that is within surprisingly easy reach, following threads that your natural tendency for the easy path would be to drop.

Most of my favourite music that I listen to now is recent. My old favourites are from when I hadn't heard my new favourites. Some of my new favourites are contextual around life stages and activities I hadn't reached or participated in earlier.

I missed Mad Men, tried to start it a couple of years ago, realised it's 92 hour-long episodes, and worked out that I didn't have the enthusiasm for it after getting through a few episodes because the combination of my friend-base and entertainment value I was getting from it didn't add up to being worth 92 hours of my time.

Recently watched Berserk upon the recommendation of a work colleague. Worth it.

Squid game, worth it. For me anyway.

Live action Cowboy Bebop, enjoying it a couple of episodes in, will continue.

Know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em. But first, you gotta know yourself.

Listen to music you don't like to better calibrate what you do like. Watch the occasional blockbuster movie to help your appreciation for real film.

Can't see, hear, taste, or do it all, find your own channel but make sure to rub up against the edges regularly enough to determine if you need to change channels but didn't realise it yet.

Culture is about stories from which life lessons are learnt, and there are a lot more TV shows, movies, and songs than there are life lessons, so as long as you check those edges occasionally, you'll be pretty well covered.

The Wire destroyed and rebuilt my view of the world, and work, and government, and leadership and morality. The song King Kong as covered by Tom Waits recalibrated my musical brain (which was already uniquely calibrated by Mr. Bungle in the late 90's), The Mighty Boosh and Rick and Morty have been journeys into imagination like I never dreamed.

No. There's not too much culture.