On Suggestions
I can’t keep my opinions to myself. I have so many of them. They all, of course, especially in the case of suggestions, circle around the various media I consume. I don’t normally list them all, but I will just this once, as a brief demonstration of my obsession. My opinions encapsulate movies, shows, books, music, podcasts and comic books. I have definitely forgotten and left something out. When making suggestions, either if offering blankly, or in the rare case some poor unsuspecting soul asks for me to recommend something, I tend to defend it and push it on others fervently. This behaviour is understandably annoying to the people around me, but more so than they themselves may even know. That is because, as I’ve mentioned in a previous entry, a large portion of my opinions aren’t my own. That ratio tips wildly in the balance towards plagiarism when the opinion in question concerns a product of popular culture.
As a refresher, I am extremely naïve. What that often results in, unfortunately, is me co-opting opinions I encounter online (and it is almost always online) as fact. I did, though, a few entries back, write of some possible progress; that is, my awareness of this mental weakness is becoming more prevalent, and so I am growing more cognizant of my beliefs and their sources. Essentially, I need to treat my thoughts like a teacher does a failing student’s essay: extremely sceptical until they reach the bibliography.
But, back to the topic at hand. My intense suggestions can be almost as infuriating for me as they no doubt are for their recipients, all because I am defending an idea I don’t fully believe in. I do, for the most part, trust my online sources, but it is scarily easily for any video I watch, regardless of its (perceived) credibility, to make an impact on my mind. The strategy I’ve tried to adopt, then, is to start off solely recommending things I have myself consumed and enjoyed. This whittles down the list a lot, and at least allows me to support my typically hyperbolic statements with my specific reactions and experience of the product. With movies and shows, this tends to cut out the infamous examples that everyone knows are good, and that I can feel no guilt in suggesting, even if I have never seen them.
I read fewer books than I’d like (though I’m trying to change that), and so applying that strategy to the list wears it down perhaps too much. In this case, I follow the same (possibly hypocritical) process. Go for the insanely popular, crowd-tested books that they haven’t read, which I usually haven’t read either. The trend for myself in this instant is looking positive, as those baseless suggestions are what I use for my own ‘to be read’ pile, and so that experience and credibility behind the suggestion slowly comes into place. This entry has gotten weirdly specific and niche, and I apologise. Not enough to rewrite it, though. It has, nevertheless, been useful to articulate my inner machinations, putting nameless processes into writing, if not to show the madness of it all, at least to help me make sense of it.