The usefulness of preferences

Sometimes the most interesting questions come at the most unexpected times.

You don’t seem to have many preferences. Is that useful?

This is one of them. I’m fascinated by many thing in life, I appreciate music, design, architecture, nature, books and countless other things. But if you ask me What’s your favorite... I’d probably don’t have a straight answer to give you. And honestly, I don’t even think it’s that useful to have an answer to those questions in the first place. Why do I even need to have a favorite color, or a favorite food, or drink, or friend, or star? Why do I need to pick between the countless movies out there and elevate one as my favorite? How do you even make such choice? How do you pick your favorite food? How can you choose a favorite among hundreds of great books? How do you compare Hesse’s Siddhartha with Bostrom’s Superintelligence? Where do you even start?

There’s something perverse in all this, our tendency to compile lists, to try to find some sort of order in our lives. Don’t even know why it matters or what’s the point.

What’s the point in having a favorite star if I then don’t have the time to lay down and admire them? And if I do have the time, what’s the point in having a favorite, when the whole sky is a unique spectacle? What’s the point in having a favorite book when there are thousands out there, waiting to be read? Isn’t more important to spend the time looking for the next one rather than picking one from the ones you have already read?

And the same is true for almost everything else. Best friend? Simply glad to have friends. Favorite color? Grateful to don’t have Achromatopsia and being able to see colors at all.

So, to you, who asked the question, if you’re reading this, I’m sorry to don’t have an answer for you.