There’s a very specific kind of discomfort that arises just before clicking “send.” A subtle, almost imperceptible tension settles in—the point where personal taste meets the fear of mediocrity. It’s a tension I’ve grown accustomed to over time, or at least have come to accept as another toll in the journey of any project.
Sometimes, when I review a piece of work, I know exactly what’s wrong. Other times, I don’t. I just sense that something’s off, something isn’t quite working. Even without pinpointing it, I can tell when it happens. Only by sifting through everything do I eventually uncover what was amiss. Like a doctor making a diagnosis, probing: Does it hurt here? And here? What if I press here?
Today, I want to talk about taste—not judgment. Judgment allows you to justify decisions; taste makes your eyes light up before you’ve even made them. And because this eye-brightening is seemingly irrational, bodily, and of mysterious origin, I find it more challenging to discuss. I’m typing this text on my phone, fumbling through. I trust that if I keep holding onto it like a compass, I’ll eventually find my way.
To me, taste is a kind of tacit judgment. It’s that feeling you get when something isn’t right, without being able to articulate an aesthetic theory or reason. A sort of ingrained memory that tells you when something is on the right track and when it’s not. But what kind of muscle is taste? Does it activate through practice? Can it atrophy if neglected? What happens if haste leaves no room to hear its whispers?
Today, I want to talk about taste—not judgment. Judgment allows you to justify decisions; taste makes your eyes light up before you’ve even made them. And because this eye-brightening is seemingly irrational, bodily, and of mysterious origin, I find it more challenging to discuss.
The other day, in Máximo Gavete’s newsletter Honos, dedicated to philosophy, design, and culture, I read: “Taste is organized sensitivity. It’s having gone through a repeated operational experience enough times for the eye, the hand, and the mind to recognize themselves in the form. Taste is not a cerebral dictate but an embodied memory. It forms in that gaze that lingered on something one more time than the rest. It strengthens in that neck that turned slightly a thousand times upon sensing an element was misaligned. It settles in that back that straightened, just a few centimeters, before each good composition. Taste is the sediment that settles in the body through the constant exercise of a practice.”
Such a precise and precious definition—two adjectives differing by only two letters must surely share something in common. Is everything precise also precious, and everything precious precise? Sorry, I’m digressing. It’s a definition I appreciate because it puts into words what I had only intuited. Is having taste also recognizing yourself in someone else’s gaze?
Perhaps taste isn’t so much about knowing what you want to do, but about knowing when not to. About detecting that slight misalignment, that “not yet,” which can’t be justified but makes itself felt. Maybe having taste is learning to live with this kind of provisional, incomplete knowledge—yet sufficient to keep going.
Like this text, for instance, which I’m still not sure is entirely finished. Maybe if I let it sit for a day, I’ll clearly see what’s wrong. Or maybe nothing is wrong. Or maybe there is, but that’s okay. Perhaps having taste also means learning to live with the constant suspicion that you could always do a little better.
Warm regards from H6 bus,
Ingrid
