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Take something you don’t like and try to like it

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Re: Take something you don’t like and try to like it

#171

Post by atoav »

cardanome wrote: post #100
trentnix wrote: post #16

As 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…

As someone with ADHD, for me obsessing over something to the point of needing to be reminded to eat and drink is actually extremely healthy. 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 tha…

Similar for my approach (although I haven't been diagnosed with ADHD). This is how I learned electronics enough to manage becoming a certified electrical engineer without ever officially studying anything even remotely like it. I was in the exam with people who did this professionally for half of their lives. This is also how I learned anything I ever did as a freelancer, including sound mixing for movies, VFX work, color grading, programming: I was curious about it, I was young, had time and just followed my interest. It is still how I learn new things, only now all the knowledge from other domains helps me doing it even faster.

The trick is to play judo instead of karate with your own drive. Instead of trying to stop your urge and force yourself to do the boring stuff, it can work to take your energy and just slightly redirect it to where you want to go and where it makes sense for you to go. Maybe you have the urge to play a video game and can redirect it to reading a book like homo ludens instead, or maybe you redirect it towards making a game? Even if you never finished it you learned something.

Re: Take something you don’t like and try to like it

#172

Post by stdbrouw »

netbioserror wrote: post #96
stdbrouw wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If 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…

You've never discovered something and felt the indescribable, joy-inducing draw of its appeal? Listened to some music and immediately jived with it? Blaming familiarity bias and "old man yells at clouds" is a disappointingly small-minded critique. It's the opposite: I've lived long enough to thoroughly experience the joy of newly discovering something that feels like it fits me perfectly; conversely, I've tried to ap…

... but the key thing is that I am not saying that you are an old man who yells at the clouds, rather that a lot of people worry about themselves that they might be getting unduly close-minded and that this is what the blog post is trying to address.

Your mileage seems to vary, but I find that for food and drinks in particular it's the acquired tastes you get the most enjoyment from in the end -- I haven't met many people who enjoyed their first glass of peated whisky, for example. Heck, even my best friends are definitely an "acquired taste", as is obvious to me when I introduce them to other people I know.

Re: Take something you don’t like and try to like it

#174

Post by harperlee »

xenobeb wrote: post #128
williamdclt wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I 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 sur…

Taste 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.

What 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?

Re: Take something you don’t like and try to like it

#175

Post by jajko »

freetime2 wrote: post #146
trentnix wrote: post #16

As 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 don’t drink coffee because in a month I’ll be neck deep in forums about the proper way to grind beans. This was me last week. I was looking to buy a new coffee grinder, and I just could not believe the way that people on the Internet talk about these things. One popular coffee YouTuber recommended a $200 hand grinder as an entry level grinder [1]. There's also a widely repeated concept in the community of the "en…

[dead]

Re: Take something you don’t like and try to like it

#176

Post by ahartmetz »

vova_hn wrote: post #157

> 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?

I 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.

Re: Take something you don’t like and try to like it

#177

Post by palata »

hiccuphippo wrote: post #121
palata wrote: post #30

Many 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 i…

I've been trying to acquire a taste for Free Jazz a few times over the years and haven't been very successful.

Yep, Free Jazz does that :-). And it's okay not to like it. But I find it great that you tried!

Re: Take something you don’t like and try to like it

#178

Post by sethammons »

stavros wrote: post #145
lvturner wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've eaten all sorts of strange and exotic things... but most seafood, I simply... cannot. Most of it smells like it is rotting to me and the taste is overpowering[0]. Trust me, I've tried countless times. Something that my wife will insist has no or little seafood in will taste like I am eating the entire ocean. People would tell me "Oh you don't know what you are missing out on!" so I would try to get myself to eat…

> Something that my wife will insist has no or little seafood in will taste like I am eating the entire ocean. I can relate, I'm the same with coffee and alcohol. Coffee just tastes like I'm eating/drinking charcoal, and alcohol tastes like bleach. People always go "oh but you can't taste the alcohol in this cocktail!". No, you can't taste the alcohol, it tastes like lemon-flavored bleach to me.

Wait - are there people who don't taste alcohol that way? I also taste charcoal for all coffee/espresso and people say the beans were burnt. Nope, my buddy ran a coffee shop and my kid is a coffee aficionado. All charcoal. But I just assumed everyone thought alcohol tasted like what I imagine bleach to give impressions of.

Re: Take something you don’t like and try to like it

#179

Post by Cthulhu_ »

o11c wrote: post #158
cardanome wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to be very judgemental about picky eaters and felt they are all super spoiled people but it important to know that there are vastly different reasons for being one. 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 i…

Also, most people can't express "this food is triggering a minor allergy, enough to make me uncomfortable but not recognize it".

There was a post on Reddit (which came from Twitter or whatever) just now about someone who got itchy when eating plums; some food allergies are minor or just unconscious. Others take a while to trigger a response (bowel issues).

But since spicy foods hurt and pineapple is tingly and that's normal, I suspect a lot of people with mild food allergies just... don't realise they have an allergy.

Re: Take something you don’t like and try to like it

#180

Post by stavros »

sethammons wrote: post #178
stavros wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Something that my wife will insist has no or little seafood in will taste like I am eating the entire ocean. I can relate, I'm the same with coffee and alcohol. Coffee just tastes like I'm eating/drinking charcoal, and alcohol tastes like bleach. People always go "oh but you can't taste the alcohol in this cocktail!". No, you can't taste the alcohol, it tastes like lemon-flavored bleach to me.

Wait - are there people who don't taste alcohol that way? I also taste charcoal for all coffee/espresso and people say the beans were burnt. Nope, my buddy ran a coffee shop and my kid is a coffee aficionado. All charcoal. But I just assumed everyone thought alcohol tasted like what I imagine bleach to give impressions of.

It very much seems that they do not.
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