Favorites

I do not understand the human need to pick favorites of everything. I've never felt that need. My belief is most people don't actually have a favorite of most things they claim. Instead I believe they pick a "favorite" based on what they believe it reflects upon them to have that specific one as a favorite. What characteristics do others assume of them for having that as a favorite, what images of them does it invoke in others, what associations have people made of that, that will now be superimposed onto them. I believe this the reasoning for most, but not all, favorites people pick of random categories. I believe this is a way of connecting to other humans, an attempt at communicating to the other who they are, in the presence of limited languages. It becomes part of the identity, like a sticker in a child's notebook. The specific combination and hierarchy being the chosen identity of the individual.

Even more so with the desperate search for "labels"... Always though the world would be a better place if people didnt care so much about fitting in. What they really are doing is depriving themselves of things they might like cause it doesnt fit within their "lable". So many seem to be completely lost unless they have their fixed place in society and all I see is they're shutting themselves off to so many great things... There are only a very few things I can honestly say I have a favourite of... And that's video games - Dragon Age (cause it's simply the most enjoyable game out there), and color - but my favourite changes with the circumstances, based on how they make me feel. 🤷‍♀️

Yes, self-imposed limitations abound.

I was earlier discussing how rare it is to meet people. Usually you meet a caricature or archetype of what humans think humans are supposed to be like.

Pretty much... The most genuine people I met was at the University. Most people doesnt even grasp the "belonging" they feel truly is limitations. Then again, the human race has a pack mentality so I assume the outliers wouldnt make it very long if we hadnt evolved to where we are... 🤔

I believe there's always been a place for outliers, sometimes in leadership of the group, other times as non-direct leaders like leaders of a practice. Faith healers and the like were likely outliers. Sometimes as criminals and outcasts looked down on as a way of creating more cohesion in the rest of the group. You can always find a use for parts that don't properly fit into a system. Belonging is over-rated. I'll take stable identity independent of external factors any day over belonging.

Kinda but I disagree with your example, since leaders of practices to me, is a type example of how even if you don't fit with most, you're desperate to unite people under the same lables as your own... perhaps I misunderstood your meaning since English is my second language 🤷‍♀️

I don't think that's an accurate description of all leaders. Plenty of times in the past it would have just been somebody chosen by others who just start following the person who isn't looking to fit in because the person not looking for a group or the like can seem the most confident and therefore the best choice to follow. Leaders, effective ones, are almost by definition different than the group they lead. Effective leaders are outliers. Why do you think so many believe in "great man theory" because so many of the leaders we've written about in our history books were themselves outliers. I don't think this part has anything to do with wanting others to have labels. You can't force someone who disagrees with identifiers to take on your identifiers. Societies are fine, communities are fine, they don't actually require integrating it into your identity it's just that people do. If there's a group of people, lets call them, weros or something. This group is called the weros, it's fine for the group to exist, it's fine for people to be part of the group, the issue arises when it becomes an identifier. Or, in other words, when you make it part of your identity to be one of the weros. In that same sense the leader of the weros isn't necessarily someone who just thought "you know what i really want to give people a label" they likely thought "you know what we're safer in numbers let's form a group" it's even possible it went more like "hey look a handful of people I'm gonna go talk to them... oh now they all want to follow me for some reason." Being a leader isn't characteristic of wanting to give people your label. I'm not sure when that was ever the case, when the romans conquered the gauls, while they may have been integrated were they really given the new label and taken the old? What about the united states, where the natives early on considered part of the overall label? I don't think that was the case. Labels are inherently exclusionary. They are a proxy for identity as in "I" and not "the other" but in this case "we" and not "the other". They're used by people to define the self in contrast to everything else.

Wowee sorry, tldr 😅🤣🙈

Not sure if I agree with the generalization of no one actually having favorites. I hate that question because I can think of is something I read/watch/listened recently. Then there's feeling of comparing apples with oranges. I love Catcher in the Rye and Piranesi but they are totally different creatures.

I didn't say nobody has any favorites, I specified twice I do not believe this to be all.

This is more about the tendency to pick a favorite of random pointless or obscure categories with no utility or function. I can understand having a favorite in a category you're very interested in or passionate about even if I don't necessarily do that. My favorite pet out of all those I've had is my current bulldog, he's very quirky intelligent happy and loving. There's function and reasoning. I do not have a favorite dinosaur, that doesn't make sense to me.

So, something like what's your favorite color, there is no need to pick one. Is that what you are talking about?

I suppose, I don't have a favorite color, but at the very least that category can be used. Though that may not necessarily counter the argument as the reasoning for picking the specific one and then utilizing it may be for that same reason.

So, picking a favorite if it's useful, is this what you talking about?

I just didn't want to be too harsh on picking favorite colors lest I be brigaded. Favorite colors are quite ubiquitous and people may have strong feelings toward the idea that it's not really something they intrinsically prefer but instead a carefully chosen identifier based on what their younger self wanted others to think of them. But yes, to be more clear, favorite colors do fall into the category I mentioned.

I was just being curious, not sensitive. I just wanted to understand it better.

I understand you weren't, it was not toward you. Were it meant for you I would have made it clear.

Because it doesn't make sense to YOU you think it doesn't make sense to others? Isn't a big biased generalization here?

I don't think you understand what any of those words mean or anything I said. It not making sense to me isn't the reason I do not have favorites of most things, I also didn't make the claim that it doesn't make sense to others. I do not feel any need to pick favorites of random categories, and it also doesn't make sense to me. My claim isn't that it doesn't make sense to me and that's why I don't have them and also because it doesn't make sense to me it doesn't make sense to anyone. My claim is that favorites of random categories, particularly, when the category isnt something the individual is actually passionate about, is likely not real. They have no real affinity to it, they simply pick it because of the association.

But how do you know it? You're in their head?

Okay so you believe. Is your post only mean to express your opinion? Or hear other voices and/or challenges your thoughts? I am genuinely asking.

Maybe. I have found that some people are just not that adventurous. They go to the same restaurants all of the time. They order the same food. Hence, they have favourites. I get bored doing that. The familiar is safe. The familiar is comfortable. Change is not. So, I see picking favourites less about "picking a tribe" and more about picking a comfort zone. Once you have a favourite, you don't have to take a risk - you can stay comfortable. Not to say that's true of everyone. I know people who are adventurous who through all of their experiences found one that they most treasure. But that's the exception among the people I've met in life, not the rule.

I think many find comfort in the familiar because of the it represents. The familiar they find comfortable is the identity, the other is the existential dread of not knowing who they are, not defining the self in a superficial way.

Having a favorite makes it easier to make a decision. I like a lot of things but if I have to choose only one among all the things I like, I would have a hard time choosing so I have favorites. Favorites lessens the options available.