Thoughts & Things

Revisiting Media I Previously Disliked

We all have certain media we don't like. A show we couldn't stand, a book that was a nightmare to get through, a movie that made you fall asleep, a song that annoyed you, and so on. It's really easy to decide you can't stand that particular thing, and avoid it indefinitely. I do it regularly, quite honestly. That said, I think that sometimes it's important to re-examine things we previously didn't like.

It's all to easy to simply forget about the things we didn't like. Over time, though, our opinions change, our interests change, and we change overall as people. Being human means constantly changing, and evolving into a new you. It stands to reason that if we have changed as people, even in the most subtle way, that our opinions of things might have changed as well. Maybe you've gotten sick of your favourite song. But maybe an old song you couldn't stand before has become something you connect with.

As we change, our perspectives change. I know that while I am essentially the same person I was five years ago, I am also a very different person than I was five years ago. My interests have changed, matured, adapted, just the way I have matured and grown to care about different things than I once did. In some ways, the change over five years has been drastic. If I look further back than five years, I know a lot of things have changed. That said, if I look even two years back, I've still changed in even that much time.

Recently, I have definitely grown very interested in revisiting the media that I previously wasn't fond of. I plan on restarting books that I previously did not like enough to finish reading (mostly classics). I have returned to TV shows that I previously didn't care for, and although one of them only cemented my negative views (Seinfeld is overrated as heck), I have absolutely fallen in love with another (King of the Hill). I am also looking at returning to movies I had a hard time watching before.

As we change, we need to re-experience things we previously disliked. It's okay to still dislike them. I just think it's vital that we continue to give things a chance as we grow as people. It isn't fair to ourselves if we treat all of our opinions as solid. Our opinions of media are just as fluid as we ourselves are. The best thing we can do for our own interests is to continue to try new things, and to re-examine things from our past.

(I have committed to blogging daily with Give It 100. This is Day Eighty-Three. Eight days of leave taken total.)