I guess I just like liking things

When I was in second grade, my class was discussing which day of the week was their favorite. I mentioned that I liked Sunday because Garry Shandling was on then. And every kid in the class (or at least what felt like every kid in the class) responded with "ewww." I was actually kind of hurt by that. And while you can excuse small children for being tactless, sometimes adults exhibit this kind of behavior too. And I just don't get it. Why can't we just let people like the things they like? I'm not a fan of Taylor Swift. (Nothing personal her stuff just isn't my cup of tea) But if a friend mentions how much they love her, I'll just let them enjoy themselves. Who am I to rain on their parade?

I started reading Harry Potter a lot later than most people. The last book was the only one I got to read "live". And I wanted to make sure I enjoyed the experience. So I made myself a costume and went to a few release parties, and my mom and I even made a cake to celebrate the occasion. And there were some folks who thought it was weird. Not just the costumes or the cake, but they thought the mere fact that I read a book the weekend it came out was weird. And while the healthy attitude to have is to just say "who cares what they think?" there's a part of me that wondered "why can't they just let me enjoy myself?"

Sometimes it feels like a lot of people like to view the world through a lens of negativity. Now, I'm not talking about pessimism, since I know that having an optimistic attitude isn't the easiest thing in the world for every person to have. No, what I'm talking about is the attitude that genuinely liking things just isn't cool. To be honest, I did feel somewhat like a dork when I dressed up like a wizard. And then within a few seconds I realized that everyone around me was acting pretty much the same way, so I just let loose and have fun.  And I really wish that more people in the world could just let themselves let loose and have fun. Be a goof once in a while.

The name of my blog, I Like Liking Things, is inspired by an episode of Community:

I feel like this line sums up my opinions about things pretty nicely. You don't have to like everything. But if you don't like it, just live and let live. I would never want my dislike of something to infringe upon your liking it.

Building a soapbox

Ever since I was a kid, I enjoyed reading reviews. After the Sunday comics, my favorite section of the newspaper was the entertainment section, the one that reviewed all the new movies coming out that weekend. Every Friday I'd sit there and read every one, even for the movies I had no intention on seeing. It wasn't just the newspaper either; whenever an Entertainment Weekly or a TV Guide found its way into our house I'd spend a lot of time thumbing through the pages. I guess I always found the reaction that a piece of art can provoke to be as fascinating as the art itself.

There was always a part of me that envisioned that being a critic would be a fun job. I had written a few reviews of various things as extra credit projects, and while I don't mean to sound conceited, I think my writing was pretty good. (For those of you not born in the 1980s, "don't mean to sound conceited" is indeed a reference to the Baby-Sitters Club.)

But there were two main reasons that I never pursued journalism as a career. One is because I know that writing professionally is not nearly as glamorous as it seems. Heck, it's already taken me several attempts to write this introductory blog post. The other reason is because I knew that it wasn't the easiest field to get a job in. At least, not the kind of job I envisioned.

But things have changed over the years. Thanks to a little thing called the internet, you don't have to work for a newspaper or a magazine in order to have your voice heard. If you want a platform for your thoughts, all you have to do is build one yourself.

So here we go. Let's see if this lasts.