"LIKE WHAT I LIKE"

Two Paintings, two art pieces, two ceramics, one bag, one sweater, one stone. What will your 9 photos be?

I’m a teenager in a department store with my mom shifting through a rack of clothes for girls my age. I see a plaid shirt I like and pull it out. I ask her what she thinks, and she dismisses it immediately.

“不好看”

I try to convince her otherwise but to no success. I put the shirt back on the rack.

I’ve always been particularly sensitive to other people’s judgement, especially my mother’s. It makes sense. Humans want to be liked and accepted. But I have a handwritten sticky note on my bulletin board this winter to “LIKE WHAT I LIKE,” even if someone else doesn’t.

I often hear this kind of advice for writers and artists. A note I wrote down from an online editing class with author Vanessa Veselka says writers need to develop a “belligerent defense of our artistic instinct.” In his newsletter Story Club, George Saunders describes similar advice in an exercise to seek your “Radical Preference.” He instructs readers to collect a handful of different stories on the Internet, in our libraries, or whatever is sitting on our bookshelves. He tells us to read a random paragraph from a section of each of these stories and then, instinctively and quickly, rank our preference for each. Then walk away.

On my bed next to my desk, I lay out a magazine, a collection of H.P. Lovecraft short stories, and other books one spring day to follow these steps. When I return from my break, I read the second part of the exercise: explain why I ranked each paragraph the way I did. “Don’t build up reasons” George says, “rather, recollect them.  What was it that put you off?  Why did the other win easily?  And so on.  Any answer is fair (except a false, constructed one.)” His instructions are vague on purpose. Whatever reason we have for liking or disliking something is valid and “can’t be defended and don’t need to be.” He calls this our Radical Preference.

I like the idea of understanding, respecting, and defending my radical preferences. I find the idea applicable not just to stories but to clothes, music, and art. And I think the advice is helpful beyond those pursuing life as writers and artists.

I like to take George’s exercise in another, real-time direction. Over a few weeks in December, I started taking photos of whatever items I saw that I instinctively liked. The photos below primarily come from around Portland: stores, museums, restaurants, and the like.

1) Painting in the Lincoln Hotel in Monterey Park, CA; 2, 3) Art by Shu-Ju Wang hanging in the Portland Chinatown Museum; 4) Painting hanging in Monte Rossa Cafe; 5, 7) Ceramics from Two Rivers | Weird Sisters store; 6) Bag from Staples; 8) Sweater in a mall; 9) Stone in the Portland Chinese Gardens

From these photos, my mom might like a few of these things more than the plaid shirt I picked out at the mall that day years ago. I did eventually buy my own plaid shirt. One day she bought me one, too.

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Before you go…

• Do you see any theme or similarities in my collection of nine photos above? How would you describe this group of preferences in a few words or phrases?

  • This weekend, try using your phone to take photos of whatever you see that you instinctively like. No second thoughts. Just a pull you don’t need to explain. I would love to see your collection, if you’d like to share.

• If you, too, like any of the things pictured above, here are some links for your curiosity:

  • Artist Shu-Ju Wang and the Portland Chinatown Museum

  • Monte Rossa Cafe

  • Two Rivers | Weird Sisters

  • Portland Chinese Gardens

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