Surprises and self-image

[redbird]

Back at Thanksgiving, after the intended challah came out as a rather different bread and I didn't want it, adrian_turtle said, in a very off-hand tone, "You don't like surprises." She said about the same the next day, I think in the context of my disinclination to try a new ice cream place in Harvard Square when it Toscanini's was nearby. It was the same matter-of-fact tone that she'd have used to observe that I like purple, but it startled me: that's not how I thought of myself.

We talked about that over the next couple of days, and since, and I've bounced it off cattitude.

There are ways in which she's right, of course. In particular, I'm a lot happier with "here's a new dish I invented, I think you'll like it" or "would you like to try this birch juice?" than with a food that I have reason to expect will have a particular flavor and texture, but doesn't. Even there, it varies: I was startled when I went to Tchang Kiang with rysmiel and papersky and the "shrimp with lobster sauce" turned out to be in a brown sauce, not the white sauce I'd get anywhere in New York, but after the initial surprise, I enjoyed it. I suspect the differences include my own state of mind, and what sort of sensory cues I get before I taste the thing. (The not-exactly-challah looked a lot more like a conventional whole wheat challah than the Montreal shrimp with lobster sauce looked like the New York one.

There are other kinds of surprises I like, including unwrapping presents. I don't usually want to be able to predict the plot of a book or play. Rereading, or watching a new production of something familiar, offers different pleasures, and I wouldn't be happy with, say, a production of Hamlet that changed the ending, or left out something that I was expecting to see. [Yes, almost all stagings of Shakespeare are trimmed at least a little, but there's a rough consensus on things that should not be cut.]

Not liking certain kinds of surprises appears to be recursive: it took me a while to get used enough to this idea to be willing to write about it here. A piece of that is that a lot of my friends consider neophilia to be an actively good thing. Some discussions of that suggest that if some novelty, or enjoyment thereof, is good, more must be better. Many mental traits that are valuable at some level can be taken too far, but that doesn't get much attention unless the subject is the excesses (OCD and mania come to mind, as does the "Focus" in Vinge's Deepness in the Sky).

When I started thinking about this, neophilia as a perceived good tied in with some of what roadnotes has said about being resilient, though I don't think that was her intended meaning: resilience is like having a healthy immune system, a useful way of dealing with life but that doesn't mean that you want lots of serious infections to fight off, and I'm not seeking out trauma, emotional or otherwise.

Liking or not liking surprises, or liking only some kinds, isn't a big deal: what feels important is being able to adjust my self-image if either I change in significant ways, or an untested assumption proves false.

There's a useful distinction between my enjoyment of learning or trying new things, and the idea that everything needs to be new: I can like new ideas and information without being delighted to find that everything I know is wrong.

It seems worth noting that the ways in which I am thrown by surprises are something I could probably have gone another ten or twenty years without noticing, if Adrian hadn't been close enough to see it, and looking at me with fewer assumptions about myself than I've accumulated over a lifetime.

Comments

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

I'm fairly neutral on surprises, but I like change. That is, I like new experiences, even--or, now that I think about it, maybe especially--when they are a variant of or a replacement for old ones, rather than being totally new.

However, I don't like surprises of the "challah" sort that you describe; I wouldn't call that a "surprise" at all, but probably a "disappointment," or even (not suggesting that your bread was!) a "failure." Unless I'm purposely mucking around in making something (cooking or whatever), I do want it to turn out the way I expect/plan.

(Aside: When J makes lobster sauce, it is indeed white, and he learned most of his Chinese food standards when he was going to law school in NYC.)

[calimac.livejournal.com]

I like surprises, variability, unpredictability, only within a strictly limited context of predictability. I like to hear actors' individual takes on famous dramatic speeches, and I want them to surprise me. But I don't want them to change the lines.

I like enough variety to keep from getting bored. But I'm not easily bored. I loathe the kind of change that people are thinking about when they say idiotic things like "Change is the only constant," because they're referring to the deliberate undercutting of established standards, not for compelling external reasons but just for the sake of tinkering with it. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. You're just making a lot of hard-won knowledge obsolete.

Software companies are like people who'd change stoplights from the red-and-green pattern to blue-and-brown. And then next year to orange-and-purple. Maybe those would be better (some colorblind people do have problems with the current system), but the confusion attendant on changing it would make it far worse.

[kateyule.livejournal.com]

I combine a strong desire for variety (choosing a new restaurant over old) with an equally strong dislike of change (old restaurant torn down). Comes down to whether or not I'm in control.

[boxofdelights]

I like the way Stef puts it: "I'm a consensual neophile." I like surprises when surprises are what I have agreed to.

[juliansinger.livejournal.com]

Yesss.

(Basically, if I'm expecting one thing and get another, that often leads to confusion if not sadness.)

[klingonlandlady.livejournal.com]

I agree with the consensuality aspect. "Let's try this new thing!" is fun. But when i'm expecting and looking forward to A and Q appears instead, i may feel a little let down by the absence of A, even if Q is an ok thing.

BTW lobster sauce in the Boston area is a vile brown corn starch gravy, only found at the cheap awful suburban chinese restaurants, and best avoided.

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

I used to love surprises, but since my mobility problems, I've found that surprises are often either impossible or very painful. Particularly with people I've only known online until then. No matter how often I tell them I can't walk far or sit up straight for long, my writing convinces them I'm fine. I don't think I want to write like a semi-invalid, so I wish they would listen to me.