Taste
Paul Graham · 2021
"Good taste isn't subjective. It's the accumulated recognition of what actually works."
People say taste is subjective to avoid confrontation. But masters in every field agree, roughly, on what's good — because they've seen many examples and internalized what makes some endure. Taste is pattern recognition trained by exposure and honest attention.
Taste is developed by two habits: consuming a lot of the best work in your field, and asking why it works. Not just admiring, but analyzing — why does this sentence land, why does this design breathe, why does this argument hold? Over years, you build a mental library of what's real, and your first drafts start closer to the target.
According to PG, the fastest way to develop taste is to:
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The explanation above is written with AI assistance. These are the originals — go to them to check it.
- Is There Such a Thing As Good Taste?paulgraham.com
Man's Search for Meaning
"Meaning, not pleasure or power, is the primary human drive — findable even under the worst conditions through what you create, what you receive, or the attitude you choose toward unavoidable suffering."