You won’t know it unless you know the original

There should be a German compound word to describe the emotion you feel when you encounter a famous thing and realize you’ve never actually seen it before that moment. (ikonewahen?)

I had seen thousands of pictures of the Sydney Opera House as I was crossing the Harbor Bridge in 2010, when my eyes unexpectedly fell on it. I know its iconic look from movies, travel websites, clip art collections and collections. Where in the world is Carmen Santiago – But it wasn’t until that moment that I realized I’d never seen it before.

This happens again on Saturn. I saw the ringed planet in perfect focus through a large reflecting telescope on Mauna Kea in Hawaii. It was spectacular. Voyager 1 photos and textbook diagrams did not prepare me for seeing a real, tangible object hanging in the empty space before me.

When I visited New York, I had no intention of seeing the Statue of Liberty because I knew it was the most exposed tourist attraction in the United States. On a dreary day in Battery Park, my heart stopped when my eyes took in her unmistakable form in the water. At that moment I felt her true charm and significance. finally i was experience That’s why I absorbed so many ideas about her in the first place.

In none of these cases did I believe that the thing in question was worth seeking out, which is why these encounters were accidental. I really think I think enough about them to “get it.” But I didn’t understand until I saw the original.

That’s a shame, because it’s the most eye-catching things that attract the most preconceptions. The more unique and meaningful an object is to humans, the more likely it is that your first, second, and hundredth encounter with it will be a bloodless depiction of that object. In your lifetime you will absorb countless Opinion Before you can experience the real reason all these opinions exist (if you ever experience them at all), you have to understand the nature of the thing—the opinions, the comics, the bad art, the jokes.

For example, you may not hear the music of Mozart serenade Didn’t expect commercials and bad comedy movies to use it to lampoon wealthy families. The best things always come with lots of luggage and the luggage arrives first.

Even if you do manage to access the original, it can be difficult to separate it from your preconceptions. If you think classical music sounds arrogant or pretentious, pay close attention to your thoughts while listening. The image of the picky rich doesn’t come from music sound – They come from psychological connections with other media described in this way. If you go to an orchestral performance, you’re likely to (1) not find it boring and tedious, and (2) find yourself surrounded by middle-class people in sub-optimal clothing.

Inevitably, original works receive far less attention than the ideas surrounding them, but the problem is growing exponentially. The more we enter the information age, the more our perception of the world comes from content About something noteworthy, and what is about that content, rather than the noteworthy thing itself. Jean Baudrillard predicted that culture would reach a point where everything is about reviews of reviews and no one even remembers what the original thing was. (I mean, maybe that’s what he said – I’ve never read any of his books.)

Imagine a dystopian world envisioned by Aldous Huxley, in which citizens can watch a classic film before they can watch it without completing a years-long stream of gushing reviews, behind-the-scenes documentaries, celebrity reveals, tributes, memes, satire, merchandise, satires of merchandise, homages to satire, and retrospective reflections on what kind of society we must become. Work today. Every great thing in this world is buried under a sedimentary layer of reviews about what you will see and what you will see, all from people who have never produced anything good.

This is not far from our situation. The best and most noteworthy things are often understood backwards. First, you’ll encounter a ton of reviews reviewing something world-famous. Then, a few years later, you might get a chance to see what that thing is.

Note that the second part – seeing what’s really going on – usually doesn’t happen at all. I complain about the news media all the time, which is another reason why I view the news media with great skepticism. Genres include completely Monetized descriptions of things you’ll never examine with your own senses: foreign conflicts, video clips with context added by partisan actors, bills and studies you’ll never read. You shouldn’t do the second part, if you do you will (I hope) lose all faith in the medium.

That’s where I end my old man’s rant. All of this is to say that I highly recommend seeking out the originals. All the images and ideas that coalesce around something noteworthy, those free-floating impressions that first come into your mind, are inferior to the things that inspired them. Anyone can come up with ideas and opinions; almost no one can build a cathedral, or a book that can be studied for centuries.

Go to original text. Find those things you’ve heard your whole life, especially if you thought you knew what their deal was.

Please try viewing this content when you visit the original itselfjust as it was at the time. Read the Declaration of Independence as if it were about to be angrily mailed to the King of England. wear revolver It’s like 1966 and the last Beatles song you remember is Ticket to ride. Then think about that person you know who said they were overrated.

If you focus on the original, you’ll almost always find something profound, and it’ll never be quite what you imagined. There’s a reason why every great original work touches so many hearts: it’s so good that experts can’t convey its magic to you. If they could, they would do it themselves.

***

Want to break the habit?

The most common giveaways are candy, alcohol, and doomscrolls, but you can do whatever you want. It’s completely free.

Register here

Stay healthy. save money. Sleep better.