How to know what to like

I’ve been moaning for a while about how it’s not really winter, but now that winter has suddenly dealt us a right hook, I’m left reeling and not at all enjoying it. Well, apart from the fabulous view from my office window, of course… You don’t get beauty like that without -25 C (-13 F).

Which leads me to the problem of liking things. “Oh for fuck’s sake,” I hear you say, “is that a problem, too? Is this girl never satisfied?” Well, yes and no. I do have bursts of uncontrolled excitement, but afterwards they leave me embarrassed. To quote a friend, “No one can be as enthusiastic as Ingela.”

But there’s also the side of me that likes to pick things apart to see how they work, and that includes happiness and humour. Perhaps it ruins the fun for everyone else to have it dissected, but then that’s life, and the only known cure is a tad drastic.

Anyway. When I long for winter, it’s the image of winter I long for. Frosty windows, aurora borealis, glittering snowdrifts, piercing stars and tumbling flakes. The postcard version of winter. The surreal blue glow of the moon over a frozen lake.

And then there’s reality. When you venture out into that sparkling white landscape, it soon reminds you of your mortality. I’m not talking about the shivers you get from mild slush. I’m talking real, dangerous cold. The -37 C (-34 F) of my childhood. The kind of cold that makes you realize that if you were stuck in a broken-down car in the middle of nowhere, you wouldn’t survive. The kind of cold that pierces down, fleece, flannel and cotton like it’s nothing. The kind that comes straight at you from outer space.

So do I really like winter, or am I just romanticizing it? Well, that depends on whether the purely visual experience counts. Similarly, you could question whether you really like people, or if you only like their uncomplicated facade…

I don’t really know where I’m going with this, to be honest. Just that liking things isn’t uncomplicated. What about the thing is it that you like? The complete reality of it, or just one aspect? Do you like thinking of yourself as someone who likes the thing, say a certain band? Does liking it demand complete loyalty of you, and would you be excluded from a group of fans if you admitted to not liking, say, a certain song?

We don’t just like things because they please our senses. We like things because we want to fit in. We like things because it makes us into particular kinds of people that we wish to be. Our hobbies, clothes, food habits and taste in music build our identities and showcase them to the world. Otherwise we wouldn’t have guilty pleasures, or hesitate before we allow Spotify to post what we listen to on Facebook. Because shock horror if someone saw our vulgar disco playlist!

This may be a hard pill to swallow. The things that give us joy feel very intimate to us, and it can be difficult to acknowledge that part of why we like something is the prestige attached to it. But sometimes that knowledge can help us let go of things that we can’t really relate to — things that we’re tired of pretending to like, just because everyone else does. It can also help us confess that we like things that people around us think is rubbish.

So go on, eat that over-the-top dessert with chocolate sauce, marshmallows and sprinkles, and listen to that maligned teen pop idol if you want. Allow yourself to long for the image of winter, and nip out for five minutes to look at the stars before scuttling back inside to watch TV. It’s all good.