My Favorite Shirt
I have a shirt that is blue and wrinkled. There's some small holes in it and the print is cracked and faded and worn. It's my favorite shirt. I've worn it when I found love, and I've worn it with I lost it. It was in my suit case the last time I visited my family for Christmas and it's sitting comfortable in my drawer now, freshly cleaned and pressed. There are a couple holes around the seams and I've repaired it more times than I can count.
I cannot bring myself to demote it from going-out shirt to bedtime garb or to a cleaning or painting rag. Not this shirt. It's my favorite shirt.
Occasionally I will be happily out-and-about in my favorite shirt and somebody will ask me why I don't get a new one. They'll point to the cracked and faded print, the obviously hand-sewn stitches, just the general state of it. Normally I just laugh and shrug it off and tell them "this is my favorite shirt, I don't think I could ever get rid of it." Recently though, more and more people have been telling me that I need to replace it. That if I don't replace it nobody will take me seriously. This confuses me because my shirt is still very much a shirt, and it does all the things a shirt should do. For me, it's the best shirt. Yet they persist.
I don't actually remember when I first got the garment, but it has been with me for a very long time now. One of the things that I'm most proud of is that it still (mostly) fits. When I'm wearing it, everything feels like it just kind-of 'clicks.' I couldn't tell you how much time I've spent wearing and maintaining it, but it's a lot. Ask me, dear reader, a question about this shirt and i will turn it into an answer.
If you're wondering about that small divot just below the collar I could tell you about the hook I used to hang it on in my doom room so often it left a permanent impression, or if you asked about some of the faded speckled stains I could tell you about my adventures first learning to really cook for myself. Perhaps you're curious about the small tear around the back that I clumsily sewed up one winter. I had slipped on some ice and twisted my ankle and had to hobble back home.
Yet people insist this is no longer a "good" shirt. They work to delight me with features of new shirts that sparkle or cut-in just right, that have exotic necklines or colors, and could improve my appearance with oh-so-little effort. If I don't like them, well they have an offering for that too. I can try more shirts! Any shirt I can imagine, they have a nearly infinite collection. Whatever the end result, they insist that I really do just need a new shirt.
I entertain them of course, everybody else is buying new shirts and I certainly don't want to be the only one without. One-by-one I try on the new shirts and one-by-one I find flaws. This one doesn't really cut-in just right, and that other one is way too big, and I don't know that I look better in any of them truth be told. Some of these shirts are deceptively expensive, others have designs or patterns on them that make me scratch my head. "Why would they think this is the kind of shirt I wanted?", I ask to myself.
They suggest I should try layering the shirts to get a better result. What better way to compliment a shirt than with another shirt? It was in fashion in the 90s.
At this point I have tried a lot of shirts. So many in fact, that I'm starting to question where all these shirts are coming from. The seemingly infinite variety is dubious. Are these sustainably sourced? Who is making all these shirts? Who is funding this enterprise? Turns out, the answers to all those questions isn't great.
In fact, unbeknownst to me when they saw my favorite shirt they started offering the same. After all, if I love it so much, surely others will too! and wouldn't that be great for their burgeoning shirt empire? I should put it on, roll around in it for a bit, give them feedback on how it feels. They know I'll love it of course, because why wouldn't I? It's my favorite shirt.
So reluctantly I oblige. What I got was something similar-but-not-the-same. It wasn't wrinkled with faded print and stitched-up holes, no speckled oil stains on the front. "We've improved it" they said, "engagement has been through the roof! People love how crisp and clean the print is and how it cuts-in just right."
It certainly felt like my favorite shirt, but it felt like my favorite shirt when I had first bought it. Before it was my favorite shirt. So I sat there for a while donning this new-and-improved version of my shirt, but it never felt anything other than uncanny. I returned the shirt, and when they asked for feedback I just said "I'm sure this shirt will please a lot of people, but it's just not for me."
At the end of the day what I was sold was not my favorite shirt, nor was it truly new or improved -- and I had wasted a lot of time trying on new shirts. The stories and the experience are what make the shirt my favorite, the process of living with it and working on it. And those are unique to me, they don't transfer.
Be cautious of anybody who tells you that you just need a new shirt. They usually don't have a favorite one and if you listen to them, neither will you.
You can ask me about my favorite shirt though, I will be wearing it for as long as it still does all the things a shirt should do.
(this was a post about AI)
