The Why of Orange Popsicles
First of all, I love orange. The color, the flavor, the fruit. I was born in Syracuse, New York, home of the Syracuse University Orange. My first bike was orange. I loved orange juice, orange flavored candies and treats and when we moved to Florida, we lived in Orange County. There’s my orange cred.
One day in my teens, I was at a friend’s house. We were hanging out and he offered some popsicles, or, at least believed that there were some popsicles left in the freezer and that I could grab one. I found the box and peeked inside. There were only orange popsicles left. Now, some people would just think that this was a stroke of luck because orange was my favorite. I immediately thought: Holy shit, these are the popsicles nobody wanted. Wait, they don’t like orange? They wanted the cherries and grapes first?
That’s how my brain works. I thought of the why instead of just enjoying what was in front of me. My most wasteful assumption in life is that there is an answer to every question. Sigh.
I was curious about this for decades. I even made a project about it in high school. I moved past popsicles and went to directly to music. Why do certain personality types prefer certain genres of music? Is there a correlation…is there even a relationship at all? Guess what? The results are inconclusive. And that is the theme of today’s puzzle. The results are inconclusive, but Jim kept asking the question over and over.
Music. Movies. Books. Food. Alcohol. Weed. Marriage. Being single. Having kids. Living in the city vs. living in the suburbs vs. a rural area. Why, why why. After I managed to shave off 80% of my judgey thinking, I was still curious. I wondered why. I managed to come up with one theory that may have addressed the behavior of people toward their preferences, but never the exact why.
When it comes to any medium, there are three general approaches. Intellectual, emotional, and detached. Each person approaches each medium with one of these methods. They change from medium to medium, and most people do not know or care about their own method, they just know what it is.
For example – You may have an intellectual relationship to film. You like true auteurs, you have no use for popcorn movies. However, you also have an emotional relationship with music. You like what you like, and that might be bubble gum pop songs. You have no intellectual ties to music at all. And with books and TV and food, you truly don’t care. Whatever is on is on, you’ll read whatever, and you eat what is in front of you. You are detached.
Another person only cares about music. Has studied it, understands it, internalizes it, but could give a shit about movies. He also eats only the best food he can, and on the weekend he indulges by watching reality TV trash.
When you start down these roads in life you eventually remember back to your school days. One important lesson that school has is: Someone has already thought of all of this. Sometimes it leaks outs in our cliches. ‘To each his own.’ ‘Different strokes for different folks.’ ‘There’s no accounting for taste.’
Hey Jim, there’s no accounting for taste.
I read an article a few years ago about cold beer. The rest of the world drinks their beer at room temperature, while North Americans (Canada and Mexico included for the most part) prefer beer cold. The researchers spent time and money trying to figure out what it was about us that liked cold beer. Water, access, income, lifestyle, refrigeration, cans or bottles or kegs or taps. You know what they discovered? People in North America like their beer cold. That’s it. There is no reason. It’s a preference.
I’m lucky enough to have an active mind. It’s keeps me coming back to blog writing and putting books together. Overall, I like it. There are just some roads I wish I hadn’t gone down. There are threads that didn’t need pulling and I understand that at the beginnings of these journeys a little wisdom and direction could have helped. But the fact is, I traveled these roads for some reason. I wonder why?