"What I like, dislike, love or hate, is none of your business." Thank you for your whole article behind that sentence, articulating just where I have been arriving in my own thinking. I've realised that one answer to "You can't say that anymore" is "According to who?" People are earnestly creating a noose to strangle themselves with.
Of course, I don't advocate at all for saying things for effect. I get just as tired of the other side of this coin. But there's a world of difference between what's in your head and real harm caused in the world. People who won't accept that are best ignored.
I've tried your comment a couple of times but, on my world-changing mission, want people to see "the truth"! Really, thinking about it all to myself has helped.
Ha! Yes, this is actually something I have to actively try to guard against. The moment I want anyone to see something *my* way, that I'm exposed to an external factor. The best way I found to be less annoyed about other people's views was to care much less about them. All I do care about is when they want to park their moral tanks on my lawn.
Although it is necessary to find people who are in sympathy with one or the world wouldn't go round at all. I'm learning to care less but unfortunately still care more. One can ditch those who are completely hostile and embrace those who are closer. It's the middle lot who are the most difficult!
If that helps, I've just come back from a week-long Italian holiday where I was expecting to eat like a pig and enjoy it all. I landed with a stinking cold that hasn't left me yet, and I can't smell or taste a single thing even if it lands on my nose and starts chewing on it. As something that started out as a joke, I asked people to describe to me the taste of what we were eating (a bit like you describe a view to a blind person). Oddly, I very much enjoyed seeing people engage with the game to help me experience a pleasure I was unable to have first hand. I had different expectations of this holiday, but all it took was to allow a little playfulness in the process and be undeterred in my intention to enjoy the food. There are very few objectively nasty things life sets aside for us. Largely, perception rules.
This is an interesting twist on the idea of niceness & not-niceness arising from forecasting error. Is it the case that your prediction that eating would be, say, a 3 (with the loss of taste) but was actually lots of fun because the game made it a 4?
If so, this is why I like my theory. Because it means you don't need to have an objectively great experience to have a great experience, which feels kind of liberating.
I'd say before the cold I was expecting a 9, and the cold made it into a 1. But this is a purely academic and post hoc exercise, because thanks to my game I had no interest in measuring misery I wasn't feeling. In Italy food is a convivial matter on top of being top notch stuff, so I guess it was easy for me to shift my attention to other salient aspects of the experience and enjoy it anyway. I loved the look on my mother's face as my little one dipped biscuits in whipping cream at breakfast the way she used to, and I laughed to tears with my brother at some silly memory over a slice of cake that literally left no memory of its taste (though I'm told it tasted of freshly picked almonds, and the best whipped cream). People went out of their way to play with me, which made me forget how the game had originated. Playing was more important than anything else (which is wisdom I've recently absorbed from the best Smurf who ever lived), and I got to do that extensively. On the whole, I'd say I got the 9 I was hoping for initially, just on a different scale.
"What I like, dislike, love or hate, is none of your business." Thank you for your whole article behind that sentence, articulating just where I have been arriving in my own thinking. I've realised that one answer to "You can't say that anymore" is "According to who?" People are earnestly creating a noose to strangle themselves with.
Another answer is 'Yes I can. I just did.'
Of course, I don't advocate at all for saying things for effect. I get just as tired of the other side of this coin. But there's a world of difference between what's in your head and real harm caused in the world. People who won't accept that are best ignored.
I've tried your comment a couple of times but, on my world-changing mission, want people to see "the truth"! Really, thinking about it all to myself has helped.
Ha! Yes, this is actually something I have to actively try to guard against. The moment I want anyone to see something *my* way, that I'm exposed to an external factor. The best way I found to be less annoyed about other people's views was to care much less about them. All I do care about is when they want to park their moral tanks on my lawn.
Although it is necessary to find people who are in sympathy with one or the world wouldn't go round at all. I'm learning to care less but unfortunately still care more. One can ditch those who are completely hostile and embrace those who are closer. It's the middle lot who are the most difficult!
If that helps, I've just come back from a week-long Italian holiday where I was expecting to eat like a pig and enjoy it all. I landed with a stinking cold that hasn't left me yet, and I can't smell or taste a single thing even if it lands on my nose and starts chewing on it. As something that started out as a joke, I asked people to describe to me the taste of what we were eating (a bit like you describe a view to a blind person). Oddly, I very much enjoyed seeing people engage with the game to help me experience a pleasure I was unable to have first hand. I had different expectations of this holiday, but all it took was to allow a little playfulness in the process and be undeterred in my intention to enjoy the food. There are very few objectively nasty things life sets aside for us. Largely, perception rules.
This is an interesting twist on the idea of niceness & not-niceness arising from forecasting error. Is it the case that your prediction that eating would be, say, a 3 (with the loss of taste) but was actually lots of fun because the game made it a 4?
If so, this is why I like my theory. Because it means you don't need to have an objectively great experience to have a great experience, which feels kind of liberating.
I'd say before the cold I was expecting a 9, and the cold made it into a 1. But this is a purely academic and post hoc exercise, because thanks to my game I had no interest in measuring misery I wasn't feeling. In Italy food is a convivial matter on top of being top notch stuff, so I guess it was easy for me to shift my attention to other salient aspects of the experience and enjoy it anyway. I loved the look on my mother's face as my little one dipped biscuits in whipping cream at breakfast the way she used to, and I laughed to tears with my brother at some silly memory over a slice of cake that literally left no memory of its taste (though I'm told it tasted of freshly picked almonds, and the best whipped cream). People went out of their way to play with me, which made me forget how the game had originated. Playing was more important than anything else (which is wisdom I've recently absorbed from the best Smurf who ever lived), and I got to do that extensively. On the whole, I'd say I got the 9 I was hoping for initially, just on a different scale.