On choosing a life that actually tastes like yours
A reflection on how we learn what we’re supposed to want — and how to choose differently.
In the short film The World Is Not Your Oyster, food becomes a language for something deeper: the quiet tension between the life we are told to want and the life that actually feels like ours.
The film plays with a simple idea.
Many of the metaphors we inherit about life assume that everyone desires the same menu.
The same ambitions.
The same milestones.
The same version of success.
But what happens when the life presented as “obviously desirable” simply doesn’t taste right to you?
This reflection explores that question.
If you would like to watch the film first, you can do so here →
The mythology of the desirable life
Every culture develops its own vision of the life that is supposed to be appealing.
Sometimes it’s achievement and recognition.
Sometimes stability and security.
Sometimes a very specific image of creativity, ambition, or independence.
These visions are powerful because they appear universal.
They are presented as the natural direction of a successful life — the path any reasonable person would want to follow.
But beneath that certainty is an assumption that often goes unnoticed:
that everyone shares the same taste.
The sociologist Pierre Bourdieu spent much of his work explaining this phenomenon. In Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, he argues that what we call “taste” — in art, lifestyle, ambition, even food — is deeply shaped by social environments.
Preferences often feel personal. But they are also cultural signals.
They tell us what a certain group considers admirable, refined, or successful.
Which means that many visions of success are not universal truths — they are simply dominant tastes.
How expectations quietly shape identity
From early on, we absorb signals about what kind of life deserves admiration.
What kind of ambition receives recognition.
What kind of path appears respectable.
Psychologists describe this process as socialization — the gradual internalization of norms that guide how individuals imagine their future.
The sociologist Erving Goffman offered another useful lens in The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. He suggested that much of social life resembles a form of performance: individuals adapt their behavior to match what their environment expects.
Over time, these expectations can feel indistinguishable from personal desire.
You pursue a path because it feels reasonable.
Because it is admired.
Because it seems to make sense.
Not necessarily because it genuinely resonates.
This is why certain life choices can look perfect from the outside while feeling strangely misaligned from within.
The courage of personal taste
One of the quiet turning points in adulthood is realizing that meaning is rarely inherited fully formed.
It is assembled.
Often slowly.
Often experimentally.
The philosopher Charles Taylor describes identity as something that emerges through what he calls strong evaluations — the internal process of deciding what truly matters to us.
This process rarely happens in isolation.
We begin with cultural scripts.
But eventually many people discover that what nourishes them does not perfectly match the life they were encouraged to pursue.
Perhaps the rhythm is different.
Perhaps the ambition is directed elsewhere.
Perhaps the values guiding their choices are not the ones most loudly celebrated.
This moment can feel disorienting at first.
But it is also the beginning of authorship.
The moment when a life stops being only inherited and begins to be shaped.
A small practice for choosing your own direction
If this idea resonates, you can explore it through a simple reflection.
Start by asking yourself:
Which parts of my life feel genuinely chosen?
And then a second question:
Which parts feel inherited?
Inherited ambitions.
Inherited definitions of success.
Inherited timelines about where life should lead.
Psychologists sometimes call this process self-authorship, a concept developed by the developmental psychologist Robert Kegan.
Self-authorship does not mean rejecting society.
It means gradually shifting from living by external expectations to organizing life around internally chosen values.
This shift rarely happens dramatically.
More often, it unfolds through small decisions — moments where personal meaning becomes slightly more important than inherited scripts.
The film reminds us that the most meaningful life may not resemble the one presented as universally desirable.
Sometimes it simply tastes different.
If this reflection resonated with you, you can watch the film here →
And if you enjoy exploring ideas like this, Letters is where these reflections continue — slower, deeper, and more thoughtfully developed.
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With care,
La Séance
Self-care for the inner life.