The limitations to researching everything
And how material things are an extension of yourself
For years, I have spent hours thinking and researching what a perfect form of literally anything at all means to me. I spent the pandemic trying to make a perfect choc chip cookie (it’s the Claire Saffitz recipe, mostly), bought every corn chip at the store to find the best one blindfolded (it’s Doritos and CCs), and even had an air purifier shipped from the US (it wasn’t worth it).
But researching everything is exhausting. I don’t want to do it all the time. Equally, it’s a great passion of mine. If I’ve got something on my person, or in my house, I’ll almost certainly be able to tell you the 6 alternatives I considered, and if you’ll allow me to talk about it; why I went for the one that I did.
Lately I have been thinking about the limitations of the research, and why I didn’t buy a cowboy hat in Texas, which is, for all intents and purposes, the best place to buy a cowboy hat.
1. The limitations of researching a hat
I didn’t want to research the best cowboy hat when I went to Texas. It was a very important purchase for me to make, and I had some great fantasies about wearing a large hat on the flight home because, oh no! It wouldn’t fit in my luggage!
The aesthetic of this felt important - what a perfect way to end a trip to Texas! With a silly cowboy hat! Wouldn’t that simply be a symbol of a trip of America, and a funny story to tell?
But as I stopped to look at a big hat at every opportunity that I could, none of them felt right. This wasn’t for lack of trying. I tried on a lot and sent photos to friends trying to see if they agreed with my hat. It was not right.
It also felt antithetical to research a hat on what was a very spontaneous trip. Shouldn’t a hat feel spontaneous to buy also?
In the end, I did not find the hat I wanted. Instead, I came home with an apron from Buc-ee’s, which I can only explain as Disneyland if it was a petrol station. This felt like a better physical manifestation of the trip.
2. The limitations of researching books
You know how a lot of people make jokes about having more books than they can ever read? I also make this “joke” about “books” that I “haven’t got around to”. By this I mean I have a lot of books that I’ve bought and haven’t got around to reading.
Books are a wonderful way to manifest the kind of person you want to be. I quite like my book collection in that it’s a great way to review and understand what kind of person you are, who you want to be, and what kind of person you were at a specific point in the past.
To me, books (when they aren’t being actively read) serve as an external illustration of who a person is. It’s kind of like a better personality test. If a discerning person took a look at your book collection, I’m sure they’d come close to summarising the kind of person you are.
Activity: in your home, pick up the the 3 books closest to you (that you own, read or unread) and reflect on what kind of person you were aspiring to be when you attained that book. It’s kind of not that deep most of the time, but it’s a beautiful introspection.
Anyway, unless you have a book reviewer whose opinions you really like, books are such a large sheath of information that all the bits of it are going to resonate differently with different people’s experiences. Goodreads reviews are great, but all it ever does is serve as a reminder that even the greatest novels have its critics. You’re better off just honouring your own interest and making up your mind on if it’s a good book or not.
If books are an extension of your personality and interests, don’t choose not to get a book because someone said they didn’t like it. It might just be that it wasn’t a great representation of their own inner workings, you know?
3. The limitations of researching things with a powerful aura
Buying a brand new car without researching if it was the best car for me was a $30,000 decision which took me about 3 years to make. In that whole 3 years, I was solely focused on buying a Suzuki Jimny, based purely on how much the aesthetic of the car moved me. But a car is one of the things that everyone tells you to research, so I was left drifting in a limbo between desperately wanting a Suzuki Jimny but not wanting to do the research in case all signs pointed to not getting a Jimny.
After years of indecision, at the end of probably the 200th conversation we’d had about a Suzuki Jimny, my partner told me, “you’re not going to find anything you want more than a Jimny, so you may as well get the Jimny.” It was this that closed the deal. After 3 years, I finally succumbed to its powerful aura.
And yes, it screams at me when I fly down the freeway, and yes it uses far too much fuel than I’d like, and yes, it’s terrible for when you want more than two passengers. But for all its flaws, I am in love with this car and it’s the best big ticket purchase I’ve ever made.
This is not to suggest that you should be buying cars without researching them.
This is not a Car Buying Tips newsletter. If there isn’t a car you have a singular love for, then please don’t buy the first car you think is a cutie.
The research from inside our hearts
But there are times when:
You love a thing, or
When a thing speaks to you more than anything else, or
A thing is beautiful in a way that you cannot describe
Being moved by an object is, in a way, part of your research and journey to the perfect version of you. Ultimately, we want the things around us to make us happier. Figuring out the criteria for what those things are, most of the time, is important. I wouldn’t have great stationery, delicious butter, or LED face mask if I didn’t spend most of my time researching.
Ultimately if we are trying to lead beautiful lives, then allow yourself to pick the thing that will make you happy. Sometimes, this means picking the thing that somehow feels like an extension of yourself, or the self you want to become. Or, more importantly, it’s picking nothing at all. The vibe of things is sometimes far more important than the time you spend researching.
Practical and not conceptual tips on vibe-centric decision making
If there’s something you want in your life, leave it alone for a week (or three years) and see if you’re still thinking about it. If you are, this is a good indication you prefer the vibe.
Avoid using this as a reason to impulse purchase. In fact, treat it as the antithesis of impulse purchasing — it would have been very easy to buy a cowboy hat (or whatever the equivalent of a cowboy hat is in your universe) — but only make that purchase if it feels truly serendipidous.
Don’t do this when there’s a correct answer. “Going with your gut” is dangerous when you actually need logical facts and reasoning. For example, don’t get the cage free eggs over the free range eggs if the former has nicer packaging. There are more subtle examples than this, but you get it.
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Okay, I hope I’ve talked you out of whatever your version of a cowboy hat is. Take care, see you in a fortnight!