Do you all ever wonder about this "five star" or "best" mindset?

umlautsuser123
2023-10-12T00:22:17Z

(Still trying to figure out what to post on this site; sorry if this is a bit abstract.)

I'm not sure what to call this culture, but it's the culture that dictates everything must be 4-5 stars or its nothing. There is a "best" dropship identical item on Amazon. There is a "best" hole in the wall restaurant. There is a "best" takeout place near you. There is a "best" way to do things.

It's not about "laying flat." Laying flat, as far as I understand it, is purely about not caring about the "best" professional life. What I think about is about how algorithms of "best" dictate what we watch, do, and consume, yet they are tied to false perceptions of what "best" can bring us and sometimes plainly false reviews. For example, you can have the "best" meal, but your actual best meal is the ramen place you went to when it was raining and the original restaurant you tried to go to was packed. It's completely unplanned and not thoroughly algorithm'd (though not calculation-free); it is the organic best that found us. Something about the sense of discovery can really just blow you away and surprise you.

I remember reading an article years ago about the joy and randomness of someone curating a collection of CDs, the way you could thumb through and look at the covers, and the whole "discovery" of it.

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