Taste has historically been reserved for conversation about things like fashion and art. Now, we look for it in our social media feeds, the technology we use, the company we keep, and the people we hire.

When I ask people what they mean by “taste,” they’ll stumble around for a bit and eventually land on something like “you know it when you see it,” or “it’s in the eye of the beholder.” I understand. Words like taste are hard to pin down, perhaps because they describe a sensibility more than any particular quality, a particular thing. We’re inclined to leave them unencumbered by a definition, to preserve their ability to shift shapes.

’ve found a taste-filled life to be a richer one. To pursue it is to appreciate ourselves, each other, and the stuff we’re surrounded by a whole lot more.

I can’t think of a piece of writing that does this more effectively than Susan Sontag’s “Notes on ‘Camp.’” In her words, “a sensibility is one of the hardest things to talk about... To snare a sensibility in words, especially one that is alive and powerful, one must be tentative and nimble.

Things don’t feel tasteful, they demonstrate taste. Someone’s home can be decorated tastefully. Someone can dress tastefully. The vibe cannot be tasteful. The experience cannot be tasteful.

Someone could have impeccable taste in art, without producing any themselves. Those who create tasteful things are almost always deep appreciators, though.

we typically talk about it in binaries. One can have taste or not. Great taste means almost the same thing as taste.

They’re the people you always go to for restaurant or movie or gear recommendations. Maybe it’s the person you ask to be an extra set of eyes on an email or a project brief before you send it out.

It requires intention, focus, and care. Taste is a commitment to a state of attention.

As John Saltivier says in an essay about building a set of stairs, “surprising detail is a near universal property of getting up close and personal with reality.”

To quote Susan Sontag again, “There is taste in people, visual taste, taste in emotion — and there is taste in acts, taste in morality. Intelligence, as well, is really a kind of taste: taste in ideas. One of the facts to be reckoned with is that taste tends to develop very unevenly. It's rare that the same person has good visual taste and good taste in people and taste in ideas.” The sought-after interior designer may not mind gas station coffee. The prolific composer may not give a damn about how they dress.

Taste in too many things would be tortuous. The things we have taste in often start as a pea under the mattress.

it is often formed through the integration of diverse, and wide-ranging inputs. Steve Jobs has said, “I think part of what made the Macintosh great was that the people working on it were musicians and poets and artists and zoologists and historians who also happened to be the best computer scientists in the world.”

taste gets you to the thing that’s more than just correct. Taste hits different. It intrigues. It compels. It moves. It enchants. It fascinates. It seduces.

Taste honors someone’s standards of quality, but also the distinctive way the world bounces off a person. It reflects what they know about how the world works, and also what they’re working with in their inner worlds. When we recognize  true taste, we are recognizing that alchemic combination of skill and soul. This is why it is so alluring.

many snobs (coffee snobs, gear snobs, wine snobs, etc.) often have great taste. But I would say that taste is the sensibility, and snobbery is one way to express the sensibility. It’s not the only way.

If rich people often have good taste it’s because they grew up around nice things, and many of them acquired an intolerance for not nice things as a result. That’s a good recipe for taste, but it’s not sufficient and it’s definitely not a guarantee. I know people that are exceedingly picky about the food they eat and never pay more than $20 for a meal.

creating forces taste upon its maker. Creators must master self-expression and craft if they’re going to make something truly compelling.

artists are more sensitive. They’re more observant, feel things more deeply, more obsessive about details, more focused on how they measure up to greatness.

Picasso remarking that “when art critics get together they talk about Form and Structure and Meaning. When artists get together they talk about where you can buy cheap turpentine.” Taste rests on turpentine.

the process of metabolizing the world is a slow one. Wield your P/N meter well, take your time learning what you find compelling, and why. There are no shortcuts to taste. Taste cannot sublimate. It can only bloom. To quote Susan Sontag one last time, “taste has no system and no proofs. But there is something like a logic of taste: the consistent sensibility which underlies and gives rise to a certain taste.

Marx’s definition captures that taste isn't just having an eye, ear, or sense for quality, it’s about having an accurate filter for the choices that are uniquely you. As he explains, “There are occasional sui generis taste geniuses, but most people with good taste…are very curious and studious people who have learned it over time.”

A better barometer of whether someone has authentically cultivated their own taste—or merely adopted what the algorithm feeds them—is their enthusiasm for sharing what they’re into and why. For instance, I have little personal interest in exploring TV or movies, which admittedly might be off-putting to some. However, the last guy I dated had what I consider to be great taste in this area. Unfamiliar picks from the 1970s through the ‘90s, international and domestic alike – I loved that he could open me up to this world. His world.

if shared tastes are sometimes important and sometimes not, how should we incorporate taste into our dating decisions? According to Dr. Akua Boateng, a licensed psychotherapist with an emphasis in individual and couples therapy, how you and your significant other blend your interests is the real indicator of compatibility. “It really goes back to people’s psychology or politics of difference,” Boateng says. If differences are the kindling for conflict rather than connection, compromise, and acceptance, it’s doomed from the start. “If you're coming from two different worlds, and the things that make you tick and find joy are diametrically opposed, you're going to have conflict in how you spend your time,” she says.

“From 2009 through 2014, it felt like people were bringing real life, morals, values and judgements to the internet, whereas now it feels like we’re bringing internet values and judgements to real life and trying to force them into how we move and interact…” says Mark Sabino, a product designer and cultural critic. The ease with which algorithms relentlessly serve up “content” has brought a societal shift toward liking or disliking things that are relatable rather than personal.

As we grow together within relationships, we’re continuously collecting new markers of taste to bring home to our person. It’s an exchange in perpetuity – memes, restaurants, recipes – whatever moves you to feel something, you’re likely sharing with your partner. As Portrait of a Lady director Céline Sciamma told The Independent, “A relationship is about inventing your own language. You’ve got the jokes, you’ve got the songs, you have this anecdote that’s going to make you laugh three years later. It’s this language that you build.”

As much as taste can be a connector and a litmus test, it’s unreliable as a fixed lens for selecting partners. Instead of evaluating every prospect based on how they match up “on paper” to your taste do’s and don’ts, both Marx and Boateng point out that taste is one of multiple characteristics that can influence the quality of relationships. But if you just can’t get over someone’s allegiance to Taylor Swift or Burning Man, Boateng says, “It could be a sign that how this person operates in the world is just not intriguing to [you]. It's not problematic or bad. It's just not uniquely intriguing to you.” And here, you should definitely trust your taste.

There is nothing wrong with wanting a big fanbase or making money with your talent. In fact, I’d argue that we all have this desire (as a writer, I definitely do). The problem arises when these things become goals in and of themselves. Artistry is the soul of creation, and over-engineering it for the sake of a certain outcome kills that soul.

There are writers and there are grifters. There are artists and there are content creators.

This isn’t about highbrow versus lowbrow art, but rather algorithmic versus authentic creation.

creative works cannot be deeply transformational for your audience if they are not meaningful to you first.

Film geeks don't have a whole lot of tangible things to show for their passion and commitment to film. They just watch movies all the time. What they do have to show is a high regard for their own opinion. They've learned to break down a movie. They understand what they like and don't like about a film. And they feel that they're right. It's not open to discussion. When I got involved in the movie industry I was shocked at how little faith or trust people have in their own opinions. They read a script and they like it - then they hand it to three of their friends to see what they think about it. I couldn't believe it. There's an old expression that goes something like, He with the most point of view wins.

When I am in good hands I open myself to a state of curiosity and appreciation. I allow myself to suspend preconceived notions. I give you freedom to take me where you want to go. I immerse myself in your worldview and pause judgement.

That trust doesn’t come easily. As an audience member it’s about feeling cared for from the moment I interact with your work. It’s about feeling a well-defined point of view permeate what you make. If my mind was changed, I must have been in good hands.

I know I am in good hands when I sense a cohesive point of view expressed with attention to detail. I can feel it almost instantly. In any medium. Music, film, fashion, architecture, writing, software. At a Japanese restaurant it’s what omakase aims to be. I leave it up to you, chef.

Nobody tells people who are beginners — and I really wish somebody had told this to me — is that all of us who do creative work … we get into it because we have good taste. But it’s like there’s a gap, that for the first couple years that you’re making stuff, what you’re making isn’t so good, OK? It’s not that great. It’s really not that great. It’s trying to be good, it has ambition to be good, but it’s not quite that good. But your taste — the thing that got you into the game — your taste is still killer, and your taste is good enough that you can tell that what you’re making is kind of a disappointment to you, you know what I mean? A lot of people never get past that phase. A lot of people at that point, they quit. And the thing I would just like say to you with all my heart is that most everybody I know who does interesting creative work, they went through a phase of years where they had really good taste and they could tell what they were making wasn’t as good as they wanted it to be — they knew it fell short, it didn’t have the special thing that we wanted it to have. And the thing I would say to you is everybody goes through that. And for you to go through it, if you’re going through it right now, if you’re just getting out of that phase — you gotta know it’s totally normal. And the most important possible thing you can do is do a lot of work — do a huge volume of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week, or every month, you know you’re going to finish one story. Because it’s only by actually going through a volume of work that you are actually going to catch up and close that gap. And the work you’re making will be as good as your ambitions. It takes a while, it’s gonna take you a while — it’s normal to take a while. And you just have to fight your way through that, okay?

I was talking recently to a friend who teaches at MIT. His field is hot now and every year he is inundated by applications from would-be graduate students. "A lot of them seem smart," he said. "What I can't tell is whether they have any kind of taste."

Mathematicians call good work "beautiful," and so, either now or in the past, have scientists, engineers, musicians, architects, designers, writers, and painters. Is it just a coincidence that they used the same word, or is there some overlap in what they meant? If there is an overlap, can we use one field's discoveries about beauty to help us in another?

“Taste is the ability to infuse a product with emotion. In a taste-based industry, its products are stripped down to their very core: how it makes its users feel. We see this phenomenon happen in books, music, movies, games and increasingly tech products

Life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact: Everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you. And you can change it, you can influence it

Film geeks don’t have a whole lot of tangible things to show for their passion and commitment to film. They just watch movies all the time. What they do have to show is a high regard for their own opinion. They’ve learned to break down a movie. They understand what they like and don’t like about a film. And they feel that they’re right. It’s not open to discussion. When I got involved in the movie industry I was shocked at how little faith or trust people have in their own opinions. They read a script and they like it – then they hand it to three of their friends to see what they think about it. I couldn’t believe it.

Rick Rubin on trusting your own taste: “You can’t second-guess your own taste for what someone else is going to like…Do what’s personal to you, take it as far you can go and people will resonate with it if they are supposed to resonate with it.”

I never had an arts education. I can barely draw straight lines. What I do have is a love for words, the history and delightful orgy of words, and a constant sense of discomfort about how things are hardly ever the way they should be.

I’m thinking now about how school encourages students to bullshit. I have friends who are literature teachers who constantly get frustrated by how their smart students give them stupid but vaguely plausible answers – I remember what it was like to be such a student. The student isn’t interested in being honest about his feelings – he just wants to be done with his homework and go on to play.