Like many people, I once harbored the belief that there was within me something - some strain of endurance or achievement or good taste or culture or education or perspective or possibly just potential, that set me apart from what I would wish to view as the common herd. Then I found tumblr.
A few months after I first encountered the website, I created my own tumblr blog. For many years I have maintained files on my computer of interesting design ideas to replicate in the house I hope to build one day - or ways the cheap, old BMW motorbike I am looking at buying could be reworked to look uber-cool, concepts for photos I would hope to take one day once Claudia Schiffer comes to her senses and stops blocking my email messages - you know - that sort of thing. I have folders of photo ideas, recipes, ideas for novels and poems, interesting house designs, jewelry I could make, etc. So when I found on tumblr a constant feed of photos of gorgeous and interesting things, I quickly wanted to find a place to collect some of these so that I could replicate them later. Since it is much easier to move photos about within tumblr itself than it is to export them out, with the additional bonus that tumblr will host the collection for you, so you don't have to take up heaven-knows how much space on your own machine, starting a tumblr acct seems like path of least resistance.
Over the month or two that I have had the tumblr acct, my tastes and interests have meandered slightly, from the sartorial to the numismatic to the antique to the culinary to the plain aesthetic, and I have accumulated a large, large, large amount of photos which reflect my interests and personal taste to a high degree. So much do these photos appeal to my particular sense that sometimes when I open my tumblr blog, I find myself awed by the beauty of all the things I see before me, and the strength of the resonance surprises me.
From this I have learned two things. First, I have learned to better identify what it is about a scene that piques my interest. I am learning the particulars of the ranges of colors and compositions and elements that to me most appeal. Secondly, I have learned that my taste in aesthetics no more sets me apart from the common herd than a baboon's love for a banana. I am a most typical man - I am a product of my generation, and the media that feeds us all. My taste in things is not mine - it is my world's, and I simply swim in it.
A Motley Assortment
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