001Changed
I've written before about feeling like I'm just an amalgam of other people's experiences, and if you dig deep enough through them you'll eventually find... the other side. Nothing at the centre, no core to call my own.
We're not writing about that tonight.
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A few months ago, I held really firmly to the idea that I didn't enjoy jazz.
I just never understood the point, y'know? there's effectively an infinite quantity of genres, and everybody has a couple at least that they don't vibe with. It's not a death sentence for anybody when that's the case.
I tend to hold quite strongly to my opinions about things, once they're formed. I'm certainly not immovable, and I do my best to be open-minded, but... new things scary. It can take a lot of conscious effort, conscious energy that has to be spent for me to experience something new for long enough to form an opinion about it... and this is doubly true if I'm trying to change an existing neutral/negative opinion.
So for most of my life, I disliked jazz, and I was adamant about keeping it that way.
Then a couple months ago, some friends took me to a nice bar one night, and there was a live band playing jazz.
It was gorgeous. I felt good. I think I've been enamoured ever since.
Next tuesday I'm going to my first proper jazz drumming lesson. today I bought a motherfucking drum kit (shitty electric one go brrr). i have this vague hope that I'll get good enough to play with my housemate soon1.
now maybe I get to spend a bunch more of my life enjoying jazz instead.
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I'm not a huge fan of soup.
This is a texture thing mostly. I'm much more deeply autistic than I try and let on, and the whole combination of... wet things and solid things together can creep me out pretty badly, texturally. It's inherently unpleasant for reasons I can't fully verbalise.
So, the easiest thing is to just... not eat soup. I never felt I was missing out on much anyway. Western (read: French) style soups are pretty bland and uninspired on the whole. I make a rare exception for minestrone, and maybe beetroot soup sometimes if I'm feeling generous, but thats just cause I love beetroot.
For all that, I love cooking soup. The process can be quite fun; it's one of those dishes you can fuck around with if you want to, adding whatever you want and spicing it with weird stuff and generally not following the rules.
So I'd enjoy making it from time to time, but rarely eat it.
and then... aforementioned housemate introduced me to literally all the soups that weren't invented by the french.
Don't get me wrong, I stuck to my dislike for a long time. I would go out of my way to avoid having to eat soup when other people were ordering it, often making things more complicated for them in the process.
But one day we got dumplings, and I thought I would just have dumplings, picking them out of the soup and eating them as dry as I could manage.
Instead I was convinced to try a little of the soup. It wasn't... as bad as I thought.
A few weeks later we got hotpot together, the soupy kind. and I was feeling brave, and I was a bit more daring than I usually would have been.
...and then, on a particular night that I think will stick in my head forever, I was up a little late with aforementionedx2 housemate. I don't know where our girlfriend was - possibly asleep in the next room. I think that's what I remember, but... maybe I just like to imagine her nearby and cozy.
[housemate] made herself some soup, something with noodles and a lot of spicy and some random vegetables. Just a snack, really. quick and easy to make, easy to eat. The kind of thing I wouldn't have dared touch previously.
it was really, really good. I have never felt more content sitting at a table with someone than I did in that moment, 11pm in the half-dark of the kitchen light.
today we were all out for a walk together, and I suggested we get dumplings and soup for lunch, since we hadn't for a while. With just a tiny bit of emphasis on the soup part.
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I never used to like meat with bones in it, or tofu, or spicy food. I especially wouldn't try new things when there was a possibility of having something I already knew and understood.
I used to be dubious of a lot more genres of music than I am now. I had a moment the other night where someone put the Beatles on, and because I am a compulsive Beatles hater, I got halfway through my big internal sigh - before I thought, "No, I'll try this again. Maybe I'll enjoy it this time."2
I didn't really understand photography as an art form. I was fascinated by the process of it, the mechanisms, and I still am - but I had no interest engaging with it beyond that. Until a few months ago, a couple friends started talking about what it meant to them, and one night I messaged one of them wanting to connect and understand. Now I think about bringing a camera with me almost every time I go out.
I think about movies and games and programming in ways I never did before.
I hear birdcalls and wonder what they are, try and spot them, instead of just thinking they're pretty.
I'm trying to learn the words of some particular songs so I can sing them with someone else. I'm not sitting here pointlessly despairing that my music taste isn't somehow 'unique enough'. I wanna learn to play bass better so I understand.
i wanna make games that make people think about themselves - the same way that a couple of really good narrative games made me think deeply about myself for a while. Games i only played because a couple of friends shared them with me.
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its sorta hard to find the balance sometimes, between who I am and what I like and what I think of things, and the way my friends experience the world.
but neither of them is actually better than the other, as it turns out. And given enough time, both tend to become a little more like the other.
I think thats beautiful. I like being like my friends.
I think I'm glad to have been changed.
Some stuff will never be the same, and that's really fucking okay after all. I enjoy the world more now.
💚