Building your own taste by your own rules

Taste is not simply knowing what is desirable. It is developing the capacity to decide what is desirable to you, and to understand why.

In Distinction, sociologist Pierre Bourdieu explored how aesthetic preferences are shaped by social position, education, and cultural capital. What we consider beautiful or sophisticated is not formed in isolation; our preferences are influenced by the environments in which we grow up and the social worlds to which we aspire.

This complicates the comforting idea that taste is entirely personal.

Sometimes we like something because we genuinely respond to it. Sometimes we like it because we recognise its status. Sometimes we like it because we have learned that liking it makes us appear like the sort of person we wish to become.

There is no shame in being influenced. All intellectual development begins somewhere, and nobody constructs a worldview from nothing. The challenge is learning to distinguish between what attracts us, what impresses us, and what we have been taught to desire.

This is why you cannot Pinterest your way into taste.

You can collect images of beautiful interiors, save photographs of women whose wardrobes you admire, and construct an impeccable visual archive. But a collection of references is not yet a point of view. A mood board can show you what you like; it cannot, by itself, explain why you like it, what you reject, or how your preferences relate to your larger understanding of the world.

Taste requires encounters. It requires reading beyond the familiar, looking at art that initially leaves you indifferent, listening to music you do not immediately understand, and learning enough about a subject to distinguish genuine excellence from a fashionable reputation.

It also requires the courage to dislike something everyone else seems to adore.

The objective is not to become immune to influence. That would be impossible. It is to become conscious enough of your influences that they no longer operate entirely without your participation.

Developing taste is, in this sense, an intellectual exercise. It asks us to examine our preferences rather than merely display them.

And there is something quietly radical about a woman who can appreciate luxury without worshipping status, understand a trend without surrendering to it, and recognise beauty without needing everyone else to agree.

The most sophisticated thing you can possess is not impeccable taste. It is an independent judgment.

LEAD YOUR OWN PARADE

AT SOME POINT, EVERY AMBITIOUS WOMAN ENCOUNTERS THE UNCOMFORTABLE REALISATION THAT THE WORLD WILL NOT ALWAYS PROVIDE THE INSPIRATION SHE NEEDS.

THE BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS BECOME REPETITIVE. THE SAME REFERENCES CIRCULATE THROUGH THE SAME DIGITAL SPACES. THE ALGORITHM DELIVERS AN ENDLESS PROCESSION OF THINGS WE HAVE ALREADY SEEN, PACKAGED AS IF THEY WERE DISCOVERIES. WE BEGIN CONSUMING OTHER PEOPLE'S IDEAS OF AN INTERESTING LIFE WHILE POSTPONING THE CONSTRUCTION OF OUR OWN.

WE BECOME EXCELLENT SPECTATORS.

RECOGNITION IS NOT THE SAME AS CREATION. ADMIRING SOMEONE ELSE'S INTELLECTUAL WORLD DOES NOT AUTOMATICALLY BUILD OURS.

THE PHILOSOPHER HANNAH ARENDT DISTINGUISHED BETWEEN DIFFERENT FORMS OF HUMAN ACTIVITY, GIVING PARTICULAR ATTENTION TO ACTION AND THE CAPACITY TO BEGIN SOMETHING NEW. HER WORK OFFERS A USEFUL REMINDER THAT HUMAN BEINGS ARE NOT MERELY OBSERVERS OF THE WORLD; THEY ARE ALSO CAPABLE OF INTRODUCING SOMETHING INTO IT THAT DID NOT PREVIOUSLY EXIST.

YOU DO NOT NEED TO WAIT UNTIL YOU FEEL SUFFICIENTLY QUALIFIED TO BEGIN.

WRITE THE ESSAY BEFORE YOU HAVE MASTERED EVERY AUTHOR WHO COULD HAVE INFLUENCED IT. START THE MAGAZINE BEFORE YOU KNOW EXACTLY WHAT ITS FINAL FORM WILL BE. LEARN THE INSTRUMENT, TAKE THE CLASS, PUBLISH THE ARGUMENT, ASK THE QUESTION, AND ALLOW YOURSELF TO PRODUCE WORK THAT IS STILL VISIBLY DEVELOPING.

ORIGINALITY RARELY ARRIVES AS A PERFECTLY DRESSED REVELATION. MORE OFTEN, IT EMERGES THROUGH THE UNGLAMOROUS PROCESS OF MAKING THINGS, DISCOVERING WHAT DOES NOT WORK, AND FOLLOWING A QUESTION LONG ENOUGH FOR IT TO LEAD SOMEWHERE UNEXPECTED.

CREATIVE BLOCK CAN SOMETIMES BE A PROBLEM OF INSUFFICIENT INSPIRATION. BUT IT CAN ALSO BE A PROBLEM OF EXCESSIVE CONSUMPTION. WHEN EVERY AVAILABLE HOUR IS SPENT ABSORBING OTHER PEOPLE'S WORK, THERE MAY BE VERY LITTLE SPACE LEFT FOR OUR OWN THOUGHTS TO BECOME AUDIBLE

The solution is not necessarily to find better references. Sometimes it is to close the references and begin.

Your intellectual life should not resemble a museum in which you carefully preserve the achievements of other people. It should be a workshop in which their ideas are allowed to collide with yours, producing something that neither could have created alone.

Read widely. Observe carefully. Borrow intelligently. Then make something.

Not because the world is waiting for your contribution, but because your mind deserves the opportunity to discover what it can do.

Admiration is a beginning. It should not become your permanent creative residence.