Why bother having favorites

Learning to enjoy things with no immediate or any practical value

I used to think that having favorites, like a favorite color, show, or pastime, is quite pointless. Being quite a practical and logical person, I didn’t see the value in favorites.

But recently when I noticed my son develop his favorites, I realized I have changed—for the better.

But first, let’s talk about my son.

After our first trip to River Wonders to see the pandas, Jia Jia and Kai Kai, his favorite thing became pandas. He started saying “pandas” regularly and even wanted to see pandas once he knew we were going to the zoo in Perth. (Sadly, there wasn’t any.) He has kept this favorite for several months now, which is impressive for a kid who often loses interest in a new toy after just a few days.

Because of this, we have been visiting the zoo regularly. He is happy, which makes us happy, too. When our relatives want to buy him a gift, they often go with something with a panda. As it turns out, having favorites can have some practical value.

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But more importantly, having a favorite is the beginning of developing an interest.

Rebecca Wang

wrote, in How to Raise High-Agency Kids, about the importance of helping our children develop curiosity and interest, which I agree. It is something I’m still re-learning too. I commented on her essay:

New parent here, and this is something I think about a lot for myself and my kid. Besides helping my kid be curious and support him in pursuing his interests, it is also important to (somehow) help him learn that he will sometimes lose interest, it’s ok to revisit this interest in the future, and how to find new interests. I don’t know what’s the best approach yet, and I’ll admit I’m figuring this out for myself too.

I have a related personal example to share. When I discovered Studio Ghibli and watched Kiki's Delivery Service, Studio Ghibli and Hayao Miyazaki’s films quickly became my favorite. I watched and re-watched many of the films, often wishing I could watch them for the first time again. When my family and I went to Osaka, I visited multiple Donguri Kyowakoku (Ghibli Store) to take photos with the life-sized characters.

Studio Ghibli became a little spark of interest in me.

I became a little obsessed about Hayao Miyazaki and bought his book, Starting Point, and his favorite book, How Do You Live? by Genzaburo Yoshino. A close friend knows about my obsession and bought me Hayao Miyazaki, a beautiful hardcover book of his artwork and letters about him. When Studio Ghibli came to Singapore for its first official exhibition in Singapore, The World of Studio Ghibli, I went as soon as I could. Slowly, I learned more and more about the legendary animator and his studio and amassed more and more merchandise in my home.

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Besides making it easier for others to get gifts for me, there isn’t anything practically useful about this obsession of mine.

I thought about using coding, my recently developed favorite, as an example above because it is an extremely practical and valuable interest and skill and I can more easily convince you (read: myself) about the value of having a favorite. Measuring its value is also straightforward; just look at the salaries of developers.

Eventually, I preferred sharing about Studio Ghibli precisely because it is not economically valuable¹. But it has been valuable in making my life more colorful and meaningful. The films have inspired me in many ways, gotten me through tough times, created a common “language” with my wife, and given me things to look forward to (Ghibli Park!)

For many years, I was desperate for things with instant tangible, practical, economic value. If something didn’t feel immediately useful, if it didn’t increase my salary, if it didn’t give me a new skill that I could make more money with, I’d avoid it. For example, while most of my friends were enjoying their social life and getting hungovers at university, I was working part-time at a startup. That pursuit for only near-term practical value made a rather boring person.

It was only in recent years that I began to relax. Partially, I learned that something that might not be immediately beneficial could be valuable in the long term. But mostly, I started to appreciate things not for their practicality but for their own sake and for what they make me feel.

Sometimes, they do lead to something wonderful, like what happened to Richard Feynman, but it doesn’t have to. They can be wonderful for their own sake.

From his book, Surely you're joking, Mr. Feynman:

Then I had another thought: Physics disgusts me a little bit now, but I used to enjoy doing physics. Why did I enjoy it? I used to play with it. I used to do whatever I felt like doing - it didn't have to do with whether it was important for the development of nuclear physics, but whether it was interesting and amusing for me to play with. When I was in high school, I'd see water running out of a faucet growing narrower, and wonder if I could figure out what determines that curve. I found it was rather easy to do. I didn't have to do it; it wasn't important for the future of science; somebody else had already done it. That didn't make any difference. I'd invent things and play with things for my own entertainment.

So I got this new attitude. Now that I am burned out and I'll never accomplish anything, I've got this nice position at the university teaching classes which I rather enjoy, and just like I read the Arabian Nights for pleasure, I'm going to play with physics, whenever I want to, without worrying about any importance whatsoever.

Within a week I was in the cafeteria and some guy, fooling around, throws a plate in the air. As the plate went up in the air I saw it wobble, and I noticed the red medallion of Cornell on the plate going around. It was pretty obvious to me that the medallion went around faster than the wobbling.

I had nothing to do, so I start to figure out the motion of the rotating plate. I discover that when the angle is very slight, the medallion rotates twice as fast as the wobble rate - two to one [Note: Feynman mis-remembers here---the factor of 2 is the other way]. It came out of a complicated equation! Then I thought, “Is there some way I can see in a more fundamental way, by looking at the forces or the dynamics, why it's two to one?”

I don't remember how I did it, but I ultimately worked out what the motion of the mass particles is, and how all the accelerations balance to make it come out two to one.

I still remember going to Hans Bethe and saying, “Hey, Hans! I noticed something interesting. Here the plate goes around so, and the reason it's two to one is ...” and I showed him the accelerations.

He says, “Feynman, that's pretty interesting, but what's the importance of it? Why are you doing it?”

“Hah!” I say. “There's no importance whatsoever. I'm just doing it for the fun of it.” His reaction didn't discourage me; I had made up my mind I was going to enjoy physics and do whatever I liked.

I went on to work out equations of wobbles. Then I thought about how electron orbits start to move in relativity. Then there's the Dirac Equation in electrodynamics. And then quantum electrodynamics. And before I knew it (it was a very short time) I was “playing” - working, really - with the same old problem that I loved so much, that I had stopped working on when I went to Los Alamos: my thesis-type problems; all those old-fashioned, wonderful things.

It was effortless. It was easy to play with these things. It was like uncorking a bottle: Everything flowed out effortlessly. I almost tried to resist it! There was no importance to what I was doing, but ultimately there was. The diagrams and the whole business that I got the Nobel Prize for came from that piddling around with the wobbling plate.

Perhaps that is what life is all about.

Have some fun. It will all work out.

1. In fact, it is not only not economically valuable but also an expensive interest.