You Only Like It Because

In which Ducks rambles about things rather incoherently because things never sound as good on paper as they did in her head

You know how when you're younger adults always ask you those questions? How old you are, what you want to be when you grow up, what your favorite color is? I guess it's a requirement for all teachers and friends of Mom's and Sunday school helpers or something, to bombard small children with these questions.

Anyway, when I was younger and they would ask me those kinds of things and they wanted to know what my favorite color was, I always said brown. Every time. Just “brown”. And then I'd hide behind Mom's legs because I was not an outgoing small child.

My older sister, who like all older sisters was a bit bossy and controlling and thankfully has grown out of that phase, pointed out that I only said brown because it was the color of horses, who were then- and still are- my favorite animal. And, as that was indeed the reason, I felt as though she had uncovered some sort of big dark secret that no one should know about. I felt ashamed, and started telling everyone that my favorite color was blue.

Now despite my rambling, there actually is a point to that story, and the point is this: I had no reason to be ashamed of saying my favorite color was brown. There was no reason to be ashamed of liking the color brown because it reminded me of all the horses I did not yet own. Obviously my seven-year-old brain did not understand that, especially as at the time I idolized my sister and did whatever she said, but looking back on it now I can see that I was right. And maybe this example is a little silly and a little impractical, because who cares about favorite colors anymore? But I've found that though the story is silly, the point does still apply. Because people get this all the time. “You only like that movie because your favorite actor was in it.” “You only like that game because the graphics are good.” “You only like wearing that because your friends do.”

People don't seem to understand that there is nothing wrong with that. It's like saying “you only like kittens because they are soft and cute.” Well, yeah. What other reason is there to like kittens? That's what kittens are.

Life does not come with a manual of rules that say “You must like Thing if and only if you like all parts, the parts as a whole, and the pieces that make up the parts, equally, and you must prove to everyone that this is the only reason you like Thing.” No. People are different, there's no denial of that, and being different, they have different tastes and different aspects of Thing that they like. And that's fine. If they only like the Lord of the Rings because Orlando Bloom is in it, well, that's their problem and not yours.

*gets off soapbox*