Joan Westenberg, "Don't Become a Connoisseur"
The trap of connoisseur-ship is that it disguises consumption as cultivation. You end up poorer in money and narrower in the range of things that can make you happy, but you get to feel like you’ve achieved something meaningful.
The lesson here is simple: be very careful about what you let yourself get good at noticing. Every distinction you learn to perceive is a new way for the world to fail your standards.
She’s on a tear, lately. Throughout the article I kept nodding and thinking about how I don’t care about coffee, I just drink it.