Favorites and Brain Trails

Yes it's only been three days, but it's a new week, I'm supposed to be studying, and so, right on schedule, my brain comes up with a new blog post.  Yay! -_-

It's not that I don't like writing for you guys it's just...I'm behind...yeah.

ANYWAYS

There's actually a funny brain story behind this post...OK it's funny to me.  But since it's my blog, I'm gonna share it.

So of course, when I'm going to study, certain prerequisites must be met:

1. I have to spend at least an hour doing random crap
2. My room must be clean
3. I have to have something to eat
4. And drink

Once all of these qualifications are met, sometimes the cycle must repeat, but often times I can finally sit down and get some work done.  

I was shuffling out to the kitchen to fulfill prerequisite #4, and, it being a rather chilly day, I said to myself, "Self, wouldn't a nice cup of your favorite French Vanilla tea be simply efficacious in getting your mind on things of a studious nature?" and so I replied to myself, "Self, that is a brilliant proposition, I believe I shall have such a beverage." 

To make a long story short, there I was, when all of a sudden, it hit me that I was all out of French Vanilla tea!  Again making a long story short, let's just say a fellow tea-drinker and I had the last two cups on Sunday.  So I settled for hot chocolate instead, which served to be more efficacious in getting me into a cuddly, let's-write-a-blog-post mood.  *sigh*

But thinking about that specific tea reminded me of a conversation I had with Isaac about it.  I had told him that French Vanilla was my favorite, but, when I came up from the basement after a relatively fruitless search for something else with a lemon tea in hand, I said that was my favorite.  Of course, Isaac being Isaac, he had to point out the discrepancy in my logic.  And as I was thinking about the horrific job I did explaining the difference to him, it reminded me of another, totally unrelated conversation I had with Tucker on the topic of favorites...

I had told Tucker that he was one of my favorite people, then later I told him that (I think it was either Jed or Isaac or possibly Emma) was one of my favorite people too.  Once again, there was a seeming discrepancy in my logic, and Tucker tried to argue with me that "favorite" was exclusive, and that I couldn't have more than one "favorite" person.  He even looked up the dictionary definition of "favorite", which indeed backed up his position on the word "favorite" being totally exclusive and only including a single person/thing.  

The problem with that is that he only had me discombobulated for a moment before my loophole-seeking side kicked in and I fired back with, "What if I have a single group--which is a thing--and those people just happen to be a part of that group."  Of course he couldn't argue with me.  I could have used the same argument with Isaac concerning the tea, I suppose, although he probably wouldn't just concede and let me win.  

However, this brought up an interesting thought... If you have more than one favorite, is it really your favorite?  The word favorite in and of itself connotes an elevated status--that that one "favorite" thing is higher than any other in its class.  If you have three or four favorite colors, do you really have a favorite?  If you have two or three favorite flavors of tea, do you really have a favorite?  If you have a group of ten people that are your favorites, do you really have a favorite person?  I don't really have an answer.  I have one prominent favorite color, and two favorite flavors of tea, and probably seven or so favorite people, etc., but are they really favorites if they aren't the one and only supreme favorite?

And this raises another question: Is it OK to have favorite people? I mean yeah, you'll have people you enjoy more than others, but is it OK to have favorites?  Preferring a certain group so much over the others that they would even be deserving of the title "favorite" sounds so...I don't know...bad?  And when the people that aren't your favorites find out they're not when they think they should be then it's a mess, you hurt feelings, drive people away, all that nasty stuff.  I mean let's be real here, tea isn't going to care if you like French Vanilla over Lemon.  But people?  If Steve finds out Bob likes Bill better than him, but Steve and Bob have been pretty good friends for a lot longer than Bob and Bill have, I'd guess that Steve would be pretty hurt and Bob would have some explaining to do.  

It's OK to have friends that you enjoy better than others.  Let's face it, you're not going to get along with everyone all the time.  Steve might have a really annoying personality and Bill doesn't, so naturally Bob would enjoy Bill better than Steve.  But I'm wondering if it isn't a good idea to just not have favorite people, and if you absolutely must have favorite people, keep your list to yourself.  You run a much lower risk of offending people you didn't want to offend if you keep it quiet.  

That was a rather round-about way to get to where I ended up, and I hope my brain trails weren't too hard to follow.  Also, sorry if I used too many big words and stuff.  I was hanging around Isaac this weekend and that tends to happen because he's always using big words. (See how I used efficacious so efficaciously Isaac. Haha)  

Anyways, you will now be rid of me for another week-ish.  Don't be too sad. ;) I'll be cooking up something new for you while I'm gone.  Now off to study-land!!!............