Saturday, January 13, 2007

Eating habits

Many people like to comment on the way I eat. In order to save time, I write this FAQ preemptively.

Q: You don't eat meat with bones. You're lazy.
A: Nope. The definition of lazy is not doing things that you're supposed to do to avoid trouble. I stress "supposed to do". Although I'd like to avoid trouble, eating meat with bones is not a duty of anyone. If the duty doesn't exist in the first place, the issue of laziness doesn't exist either.

Q: You don't eat seafood, except sashimi and sushi. It is inconsistent.
A: If you think that having exception is inconsistent, not eating all seafood is consistent, then I beg to differ. "Not eating all seafood" is equivalent to "Eating all food, except seafood". Contradiction.

Q: You eat fast. Why not eat slowly and prolong the enjoyment?
A: Perhaps for some people, the joy acquired per unit time (dj/dt) is about the same at any eating speed. But for me, when I eat fast, the value of dj/dt can be so high so that the total amount of joy (the area under curve in the graph) would be higher than if I eat slowly.

Q: If you've never tried this, how do you know it's not good?
A: I have tried many things. It's just that I deem them not good after trying. It doesn't take 20 years to try these. In addition, not every instance requires trying. Existing knowledge can provide much insight on the chances of good or bad. Why do people not eat shit without trying? Because our knowledge tells us there is a very high probability that it wouldn't taste good. By the same token, if I have tried yellow watermelons, red watermelons, and they taste about the same; Red apples and green apples are about the same. And I've tried green kiwifruits and deemed that not tasty, then I don't need to try golden kiwifruits.

1 comment:

kcng said...

I very much enjoyed this post. It does answer many questions/comments that people have. I know many of them.. my mom and dad ask you. I hope they read this.