Building a sense of personal beauty isn’t self-indulgent.

It’s self-knowing.

It’s a conversation between who you’ve been and who you’re becoming.

Self-discrepancy theory , proposed by psychologist E. Tory Higgins, says that negative emotions often arise from the gap between our actual self and our ideal self (who we hope to be) or ought self (who we think we should be).

Every time we outsource our taste — dressing, decorating, creating to impress instead of express — that gap widens.

But every... See more

We’re all borrowing from a shared creative ecosystem. Collecting cues, quirks, and influences that reflect our unique way of seeing.

Taste isn’t perfection. It’s the collection of small, imperfect clues that form your worldview.

And for the record, it’s not bad to like the mainstream.

If you’re rejecting things purely because they’re popular, that’s... See more

At its simplest, taste means the ability to recognize and appreciate what is beautiful, good, or appropriate.

To me, it’s the quiet art of knowing what feels like you (a muscle built through observation, intuition, and repetition).

It’s how your inner world becomes visible.

It’s not about having “better” taste, but truer taste.