A Bitter Lesson

I have been ordering coffee without sugar for almost two month now. To tell the truth, coffee sans sugar can be quite hard on the taste buds. Sometimes they are rather bitter, other times they are simply tasteless. Initially I was reluctant to admit that, and preferred to think of it as part of the "transitional period", firmly believing my palate will eventually adjust to the new taste. It did, eventually, though that doesn't mean sugarless coffee starts to taste sweet. That just doesn't happen.

Instead, I began to accept the bitter taste (there is no acceptance for tasteless coffee though; they are simply bad). I realised coffee is supposed to be bitter and not sweet. Sure it is possible to sweeten it by adding sugar, but then you won't be drinking coffee but some mixture of coffee and sugar. As far as sampling good coffee goes, the sugar just gets in the way.

This concept can be extended to other things. Music video, for example, adds moving pictures to a piece of music. Nearly all the time the video portion adds nothing substantial to the music. They don't tell a story, or even show anything related to the theme of the song. In short, they are random images that gets in the way. The video acts just like a sweetener, distracting you from the main focus -- the music.

Alas, everyone needs to taste something sweet once in a while in order to remain sane. My goal is therefore balancing the need to sample the true qualities of coffee or music or story, and the desire to just enjoy them without engaging the part of my brain that judges their qualities.