taste :3

The best definition of taste I found comes from painter John Folley. He says “‘Good taste' is simply to have a well formed opinion, in accordance with the realities of the Good and the True.” There are tasteful and non-tasteful choices. Taste reveals its purveyor to be a good decision-maker.

So what did the Beatles mean when they sang, “I am the egg man, I am the walrus?”

Lennon says he wrote in response to people trying too hard to find meaning in Beatles lyrics. “Let ‘em try finding something in this,” he said.

He’s right, but he’s also wrong. The meaning people find in art is as valid as they believe it to be, including whatever... See more

My artist friends have excellent taste, and they are certainly not the richest group of people I know. One hypothesis is that creating forces taste upon its maker. Creators must master self-expression and craft if they’re going to make something truly compelling.

You also need to know how to do something before you know what to outsource to other people or tools. The best human-AI collaboration requires humans who could do the work themselves but choose strategic assistance at little expense to their core craft. When we outsource before developing judgment, we become dependent without ever becoming... See more

The process of cultivating taste is a lot like the writing and editing process. Here’s George Saunders on the revision process. “The way I revise is: I read my own text and imagine a little meter in my head, with “P” on one side (“Positive”) and “N” on the other (“Negative”)... This involves making thousands of what I’ve come to think of as... See more

Taste is not the same as correctness, though. To do something correctly is not necessarily to do it tastefully. For most things, correctness is good enough, so we skate by on that as the default. And there are many correct paths to take. You’ll be able to cook a yummy meal, enjoy the movie, build a useable product, don a shirt that fits. But taste... See more