Things I've Noticed

Quick Quote on Living

"Living is dwelling on the future."

+ Atul

Not Liking What Everybody Else Likes

Popularity is a good trait to have for a product that is being sold.  It means more people know and like the object and that usually means more money.  Popularity happens because something in a popular item strikes a chord with a large number of people.  Before long, seemingly everybody has seen a certain movie or read a certain book.  The fact that so many people like it means it has some basic positive attributes but maybe not much else.  And those positive attributes tend to be shared with many other popular things.

I find that I tend to like non-popular things more than the ones everybody says I’m supposed to like.  It could be my psychological complex about being unique that drives me to not like what others like.  Hopefully it’s something more.  Unpopular items have characteristics that few people appreciate.  I appreciate them more simply because their characteristics are different.  Maybe it’s my way of supporting people who think outside-the-box, like I tend to do.

Not liking what everybody else likes has its issues.  I can’t relate to what everybody is talking about when it comes to the latest book or latest Apple device.  Even if I wanted to see, read, and listen to what everybody else has owned or experienced, I wouldn’t know where to begin as I am so far behind.  Do I start with The Godfather or the latest comicbook superhero movie that I'm supposed to like?  I get sick of the hype and the arrogance around something being so popular that I “must” see it.  That’s OK, there are many other things to talk about.

The advantages to liking what few others do is that I can buy items like used CD’s for less money.  Nobody else wants a CD by the Devlins or Whale… but I do.  (Few people want to buy CD’s in general.)  Liking what others don’t like takes you to the fringes and helps spur creativity.  If I only watched what the masses did, I’d be exposed to the same things they’re all exposed to.  Those stimuli have given society what we already have.

Another aspect of this tendency is that I find undiscovered diamonds in the rough.  In doing so, I get the satisfaction of sharing with others something that they didn’t know about before.  Finding the new and the obscure does take effort.  Doing what everybody else does is mindless.  It’s easy and it’s less risky.

As I’ve said before, “The road less traveled is the road more lonely.”  But I’ve also said, “when you blend in, it’s as if you don’t exist.”  I’ll like what I like and I don’t care who else likes it or that I don’t like what others like.  It’s too late to change now anyway.

+ Atul