Thread by @xuenay

Just realized that me always having had a hard time picking a favorite movie/book/whatever has been an instance of being out of contact with my body/felt senses.

In retrospect it's kind of obvious: my thought was usually "things are good on so many different dimensions, how could I possibly ever rank them?" Like this novel might have good world-building but the other one has better characterization so how can I tell which one is better.

Which I now recognize as an instance of the classic "I don't trust/have access to an intuitive judgment of this, so I want some explicit algorithm that lets me make a rational decision" source of paralysis.

Especially since there was a tinge of defiant pride in it: others just unthinkingly name their favorite thing on gut feel, while I'm rational and recognize that these are incomparable qualities, thus am too good to think fallaciously and name a favorite anything.

(In my experience, if you ever find yourself thinking "I'm too rational to X", then you're probably looking at a defense mechanism.)

I realized this a moment ago when I was asked to name my favorite female scientist, and I started my usual "I'm bad at naming favorite-". Then suddenly a particular friend popped into mind, and just intuitively felt like she fit all aspects of that specification.

I couldn't pick a favorite by conscious deliberation, but if I let my subconscious sift through all the data about different people and let it express the judgment as an intuitive sensation, then the answer was quick and obvious.

To add: also sometimes one may be afraid of their intuitive answer because they want a more socially justifiable one.

I asked my mind for my favorite movie and it came back with Star Wars: A New Hope.

I was kind of like, ehh, really? but looks like it's pretty convinced of it.