It is becoming clear to me that certain things become near impossible as I grow older. (I’m 24, but I’ve been told, repeatedly and with great conviction, by people close to me that I have the mind of a 40-year-old.) One of those things is picking favourites.
I remember how simple things used to be 15 years ago. I had a favourite sport, cricket, with which, although I never played myself, I was obsessed with. My favourite country was Russia (I had the odd proclivity towards communism until I reached the age of reason, which in my case proved to be 19.) There is probably a list of favourites I must have maintained at some point or the other, forgotten now as most things are with time.
The point is, it used to be easy.
Now, if someone asks me to pick a favorite anything, in my mind it registers dangerously close to an insult.
Having thought about this, I can think of a few reasons why.
- My 10-year-old self did not have a fair understanding of the variety of things out there. Having no access to internet must have had a lot to do with that. I simply had to decide what I liked most out of the handful of movies I had seen, or the songs I had listened to. The half life of favorites is much shorter in the age of Netflix.
- My younger self probably didn’t care about being judged for my choices. Even now, I think I’m immune to everyone else’s opinions of me for the most part, but there is a small but irreconcilable part in everyone’s mind that worries, isn’t there?
- Having a list of favourite things probably doesn’t mean anything much to me now. Back then they were talking points, now I barely want to talk to anyone. I have also outgrown the urge to appear interesting.
I’ll stop before this evolves in to a (unintended yet) unnecessary thread of deepities. This is a long-winded way of saying that I won’t have an answer if you were to ask me what my favourite colour is.
I can live with that.
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