Not long ago I was driving a rental car with Tennessee plates through a bad part of Queens, NY about 15 minutes from where I live. I unknowingly made an illegal left turn and was pulled over by a police officer.
As I waited for the officer to approach the car I sat behind the wheel trying unsuccessfully to slow my heart rate, waiting to hand over an Arizona license I prayed was still valid. Arizona licenses are good for 40 years but I had left that state almost a decade earlier and never looked into what “valid” actually meant.
After a quick check of my record from his car, the officer let me go with a warning. I have no doubt it was because I appeared to be so clueless he just pitied me. But before he let me go he said one thing.
Be careful around here, ya know… this isn’t the best area.
I have lived in New York City long enough to know that was a serious understatement. The area wasn’t the best because it was dangerous. He might as well have told me:
This isn’t the best area to not get mugged.
It was a bizarre turn of phrase, almost as if he was contractually obligated to not offend the neighborhood. The police officer’s phraseology wasn’t unique to him. His “not negative” word choice was something I had heard quite frequently.
The question “Do you like it?” regularly prompted the non-answer:
It’s not my favorite.
An answer to a question nobody had asked. As if the follow-up directed at them should be; well, what IS your favorite?
Each time I heard people speak like this it rang out like a note played off key. I mentioned my observation to others. Nobody had noticed it. The more I paid attention, the more it drove me crazy.
I blamed the phenomenon on linguistic laziness; an unbearable societal need to fit in without making waves. I felt frustrated so many people had stopped paying attention to the words they use and the weight they carry, to what they say or imply.
Then, one day, my girlfriend asked me how I felt about cauliflower and without even thinking I responded:
It’s not my favorite.
The plaintiff had become the defendant.
Knowing my girlfriend’s incomprehensible love of cauliflower, I had panicked and worried I would offend her if I told her the truth. The vegetable was an unwanted, albino, stir fry, filler food.
“It’s not my favorite” no longer felt like a trend. It was a virus and I had been infected.
It is a bizarre and disjointed response that establishes a relative position as opposed to an absolute one and doesn’t answer the question. Like asking somebody if they were hungry and having them respond:
I’m not the hungriest I’ve ever been.
Ok well, how hungry are you? Are you hungry at all?
Our language has moved into the realm of the extreme. We love to tell people about our favorites, about the bests, and the worsts. Our headlines influence how we share our (not so) private thoughts. In fact, it feels like a big part of the zeitgeist involves constantly giving social media answers to questions nobody has asked.
What are you doing?
What are you eating?
How do you feel about everything we’ve never asked you about?
Since so much is being shared descriptive language has escalated towards emotional hyperbole to stay relevant in the social media cacophony. We feel obligated to take up extreme positions and fear nuanced ones. Anything in between the extremes ends up unheard and thus irrelevant. Just as not knowing the answer makes many (including myself) feel unintelligent, being lukewarm on something seems to make people equally uncomfortable.
We binge on things we love and hate. We have access to everything we want 24 hours a day. For the most fortunate in this country, it is no longer a question of access but control. When you can have everything you want, all the time, why wouldn’t you?
The bar for stimulation and excitement has been set so high. Those things that used to excite us no longer come close. We have to go deeper, farther and faster to experience enjoyment.
The forefront, the top, that is the real estate most important in our current time.
Subtlety, nuance, and the middle ground don’t typically receive equal attention. And yet, they are perhaps the most crucial elements to how we see and perceive the world.
It is the fluctuation between the severe and the barely noticeable that allows room for interest, insight and critical thought.
Which brings us back to that which is not our favorite.
There is an innate fear and reticence in proclaiming something is “not your favorite.” Perhaps even the inability to illuminate just what it is one does not like about said subject. Maybe it is a gut feeling with no true understanding of why.
I know I don’t like it but I’m not sure why, so I will default to my favorites.
Our ability to create and share has grown exponentially. And thus, a deeper understanding of our emotions and what we share is just as important. Neither exists in a vacuum. The middle can get lost when favorites are so readily at hand; when we can so easily order up the same things that work for us every time, any time we choose.
That is what worries me.
The language we use informs the world around us. It is what creates the relationship to what we encounter. Fewer words mean simplistic relationships. Many words mean the opportunity for more complex relationships. And while not all relationships need to be complicated, their intricacy should be determined by the height to which that relationship can be explored.
The phrase “it’s not my favorite” becomes dangerous when it’s ubiquity determines our feelings about all things. Our relationships become, not representations of our experiences but rather, our relative connectedness to a single inaccurate phrase.
It separates the world into a binary experience. That which is and that which is not.
Our relationships with people, experiences, and emotions are constantly evolving and our language should represent that. It is incumbent upon us to pursue understanding, not only of ourselves in whatever way we can achieve it, but in our relationships to people, experiences, and emotions.
So when we have the opportunity to express ourselves, as this glorious future has allowed, our response will not consider our favorites, but a simple truth, which we have hopefully taken the time to consider.
—
If you believe in the work we are doing here at The Good Men Project, please join like-minded individuals in The Good Men Project Premium Community.
◊♦◊
◊♦◊
Get the best stories from The Good Men Project delivered straight to your inbox, here.
◊♦◊
◊♦◊
Sign up for our Writing Prompts email to receive writing inspiration in your inbox twice per week.
The Good Men Project is an Amazon.com affiliate. If you shop via THIS LINK, we will get a small commission and you will be supporting our Mission while still getting the quality products you would have purchased, anyway! Thank you for your continued support!
Photo: Getty Images