This doesn’t seem very related to the content of the OP. You don’t mention having a fangirl reaction to either of your friends (who, by the way, sound like bad friends). It sounds like you just didn’t distinguish between the folowing phenomena:
A domain expert has a lot of knowledge about her domain, and is therefore better at making anticipation-controlling statements about it than non-domain experts.
A domain expert has preferences about parts of her domain that disagree with the preferences of non-domain experts for various reasons.
That is, I think it’s reasonable to hypothesize that musicians have very different preferences about music than non-musicians for various reasons, e.g. because musical training modifies how a musician experiences music or because of tribalism and identity issues. For example, when a classical musician tells you that rap music is a piece of crap, I don’t think they’re making an anticipation-controlling statement; they’re cheering for the classical music team. They may also be making a statement about their own preferences, which are probably informed by their training and don’t need to impinge on your preferences.
Exactly! There was tribalism/identity mixed up in their expertise for both of them! But I was only doing step 1 from the list but none of the others. So I had no tribe on my side to back me up against the strength of theirs, which put me in this weird, vulnerable position that led me to the flawed conclusion that I wasn’t allowed to hang out in the music axis of thingspace at all. But, when you do the other steps, it’s just things you put into your ears, and compared to all the other things out there in the world to do, it’s nothing to really to fight over or get freaked out by. “You’re judging me for things I put into my ears? Really?”
Also, I feel like it’s pretty common to have bad friends in middle school. =/
Ohh! Yeah, it was a reply to your “closing the awesomeness gap” comment. Dealing with awesome people without having to close the awesomeness gap between us? Especially people that have a mixture of awesomeness AND tribalism issues going on. ^_^
This doesn’t seem very related to the content of the OP. You don’t mention having a fangirl reaction to either of your friends (who, by the way, sound like bad friends). It sounds like you just didn’t distinguish between the folowing phenomena:
A domain expert has a lot of knowledge about her domain, and is therefore better at making anticipation-controlling statements about it than non-domain experts.
A domain expert has preferences about parts of her domain that disagree with the preferences of non-domain experts for various reasons.
That is, I think it’s reasonable to hypothesize that musicians have very different preferences about music than non-musicians for various reasons, e.g. because musical training modifies how a musician experiences music or because of tribalism and identity issues. For example, when a classical musician tells you that rap music is a piece of crap, I don’t think they’re making an anticipation-controlling statement; they’re cheering for the classical music team. They may also be making a statement about their own preferences, which are probably informed by their training and don’t need to impinge on your preferences.
Exactly! There was tribalism/identity mixed up in their expertise for both of them! But I was only doing step 1 from the list but none of the others. So I had no tribe on my side to back me up against the strength of theirs, which put me in this weird, vulnerable position that led me to the flawed conclusion that I wasn’t allowed to hang out in the music axis of thingspace at all. But, when you do the other steps, it’s just things you put into your ears, and compared to all the other things out there in the world to do, it’s nothing to really to fight over or get freaked out by. “You’re judging me for things I put into my ears? Really?”
Also, I feel like it’s pretty common to have bad friends in middle school. =/
Right, but what does this have to do with worship? It doesn’t sound like you felt any temptation to worship your friends.
Ohh! Yeah, it was a reply to your “closing the awesomeness gap” comment. Dealing with awesome people without having to close the awesomeness gap between us? Especially people that have a mixture of awesomeness AND tribalism issues going on. ^_^