With all that said, though, as I grow older it feels like “good art” is becoming harder to find. My personal hypothesis on this is that part of what makes art into a personal favorite is related to the amount of novelty, or rate of personal change, associated with my circumstances when I first encountered it. I find that I can game that system by trying new music, shows, etc at times when I am particularly receptive to change—while traveling, exploring, experiencing major shifts in interpersonal relationships, etc.
I experience that, but I think it’s not just a novelty thing, it’s a raising the bar thing. If you compare everything against, say, the top 1% of everything you’ve experienced, that will inevitably become a harder and harder bar to clear. This is definitely something I do feel with movies.
With music, I have a different process—I’m cycling. I discovered heavy metal back when I was in college, then prog rock, then I had a musical theater phase, now I’m really into rap. I don’t dislike any of those old genres I went through either, I like them all, but I shift my focus and then when I’m sort of done with one genre I put it on the backburner and move to something else.
Something that also happens is that as we age we lose energies, including mental energies, and so maybe we’re less willing to invest into getting into something that doesn’t immediately click with us. With literature, I have to admit that from an “objective” level the quality of what I read has probably gone down since my childhood. I used to read lots of different things, now I only find enough energy to read stuff that is either very easy or that I really specifically enjoy. Haven’t managed to consistently stick with something like a great classic for years (last one I picked up was War and Peace. It’s not bad by any means, but I just quickly end up finding something else and then I put it on pause and then I forget about it).
I experience that, but I think it’s not just a novelty thing, it’s a raising the bar thing. If you compare everything against, say, the top 1% of everything you’ve experienced, that will inevitably become a harder and harder bar to clear.
This. Happens everywhere, even on LW.
For example, after reading hundreds of amazingly well written essays it’s natural to then treat the vast majority of writing you subsequently encounter as noise.
I experience that, but I think it’s not just a novelty thing, it’s a raising the bar thing. If you compare everything against, say, the top 1% of everything you’ve experienced, that will inevitably become a harder and harder bar to clear. This is definitely something I do feel with movies.
With music, I have a different process—I’m cycling. I discovered heavy metal back when I was in college, then prog rock, then I had a musical theater phase, now I’m really into rap. I don’t dislike any of those old genres I went through either, I like them all, but I shift my focus and then when I’m sort of done with one genre I put it on the backburner and move to something else.
Something that also happens is that as we age we lose energies, including mental energies, and so maybe we’re less willing to invest into getting into something that doesn’t immediately click with us. With literature, I have to admit that from an “objective” level the quality of what I read has probably gone down since my childhood. I used to read lots of different things, now I only find enough energy to read stuff that is either very easy or that I really specifically enjoy. Haven’t managed to consistently stick with something like a great classic for years (last one I picked up was War and Peace. It’s not bad by any means, but I just quickly end up finding something else and then I put it on pause and then I forget about it).
This. Happens everywhere, even on LW.
For example, after reading hundreds of amazingly well written essays it’s natural to then treat the vast majority of writing you subsequently encounter as noise.