A Case for Being Selectively Influenced

Seth’s birthday is coming up this weekend. At present, that means there's an awful lot of Stars Hollow going on when screen time rolls around.

Seth is a metalhead with very eclectic tastes. He's also the last person who looks like he fantasizes about eating at Luke's or would care what's been going on at Miss Patty's School of Dance lately, but Gilmore Girls has actually become one of his favorite shows over the years.

Our birthdays usually involve rewatches of both The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogies, a tradition we accidentally invented years ago and just kind of stuck with over the years. Celebration themes are usually pretty Tolkien-coded for that reason, right down to the meals we plan and the T-shirts we pick out to wear.

But this year, we were already in the middle of a fervid Gilmore Girls rewatch, and we're apparently not mentally ready to take a break, even temporarily.

Even Seth’s presents somehow followed suit this year, as he's been just that into it. I got him a Luke’s Diner mug and saucer set, a metal “No Cell Phones” sign for his coffee area, and a Hep Alien shirt that I personally designed, because apparently this is who we are right now.

Seth even suggested potentially skipping Middle Earth this time, as the mood just isn’t quite there this year.

I've also just finished listening to Joni Mitchell’s Hejira for the first time because someone I follow on Substack recommended it to me. I’m making homemade chili tonight, another birthday-week request. And somehow all these unrelated things have assembled themselves into the atmosphere of my September 2026 so far.

I'm also realizing that I kind of like that — other people occasionally wandering into my carefully arranged little world and leaving a few of their own fingerprints on how the occasional day might play out (respectfully and with permission, of course).

The Underrated Pleasure of Being Influenced

If you know me, then it's impossible not to also know that I'm extremely fond of my own company. I also tend to be at least somewhat particular about what I read, watch, listen to, eat, think about, and do with a free afternoon.

Given enough free time and an internet connection, I could probably entertain myself indefinitely without anyone else's help — a situation I assume most very introverted, independent people can understand.

Once you’ve figured out how you genuinely like to spend your time, protecting it at all costs becomes second nature. You develop all these little personal rituals. You cultivate tastes and routines that suit you perfectly, while becoming positively allergic to the idea of letting outsiders into that system.

But I'm also learning that having a strong inner world doesn’t necessarily require sealing it in Lucite. Every once in a while, someone else does still show up with something interesting enough in hand that I just might let it through the gate, given the right mood.

Sometimes other people bring weird little gifts into your life

I grew up in a family where people were constantly trying to tell you what to like and how to like it, so I'm not exactly one for unsolicited suggestions as an adult. I do pay attention to things I see people saying they like and independently decide to give them a try if they sound like my thing.

Over a lifetime, the best of those little exchanges can add up in some pretty cool ways:

• Someone recommends an album you never would have chosen for yourself, and now it's the unofficial soundtrack to an entire era from your life.
• A partner loves a show, movie, artist, food, or place, and eventually you develop an entire relationship of your own with it.
• A total stranger's rabid enthusiasm sends you down a research hole about a subject you barely knew existed yesterday.
• You learn about another person’s unique way of making something and realize, years later, that you still do it that way.

That’s more or less how I wound up with Hejira in my lap today.

Music recommendations usually come from Seth, if they come from anyone. It's also been quite a while since I sat down and truly listened to an entire unfamiliar album instead of encountering music piecemeal through individual songs or random Spotify playlists.

But someone on Substack said, essentially, “Try this" as part of a discussion thread about album recs. So, yeah, I basically let a stranger dictate what a chunk of my Thursday afternoon sounded like, and it was actually pretty fun.

It was also a nice reminder that chosen influence is a completely different animal from the preachy kind that might come from a parent with a vested interest in the type of person you eventually become. Misanthrope that I am, I truly do lose sight of this sometimes.

How to Leave a Few Doors Unlocked

The internet has given us access to approximately 17 billion things we might theoretically enjoy. Plus, so many people seem to have opinions about what's good, which media are musts, and all the rest of it.

I've also saved enough interesting-looking things for several hypothetical future versions of myself to investigate one day. But allowing someone else to spontaneously interrupt your plans occasionally is worth trying, as well.

Follow a recommendation all the way through

I sometimes forget how much fun it can be to sit and actively listen to an album from beginning to end or watch a movie all the way through without simultaneously shopping for pantry stock-ups.

It's also sometimes pretty cool to give another person’s recommendation your full attention instead of simply going, "Cool, I'll check it out," before moving on and probably forgetting all about it. I had the impression this person made an effort to look at my page and get a feel for what I might actually enjoy before picking, so it was the least I could do.

That said, Hejira became more interesting to me because I listened to it as an album. I got to hear and appreciate it exactly as Joni Mitchell intended, including all of her changes in mood and interesting song progression choices. For an hour or so, I went exactly where Joni planned for this album to take me way back in 1976.

Borrow someone else's enthusiasm

Sometimes it's less about the actual recommendation and more about the person making it. When someone I genuinely care about, respect, or both becomes unusually animated about a book, film, place, food, or bizarre informational rabbit hole, I’m way more likely to eventually get curious enough about it myself.

Seth and I have been together for more than two decades, so our interests have pretty well contaminated each other by now. At this point, I often don't even remember who discovered a movie, show, or musical artist first. But if he's excited about trying something new (or revisiting something old), that often gets me excited, too.

Let new obsessions disrupt old plans

Our Tolkien rewatches have very much become a real tradition over the years. We looooove those movies and are extremely nerdy about that fact. There has been zero Middle-earth-related falling out, scandal, or irreconcilable creative difference at any point over the years.

But this year turned out to be unexpectedly coffee-flavored, so... maybe we'll skip our adventure with Gandalf this time. Or maybe Saturday will get here and find one or both of us desperate to see Bilbo get upset at all those dwarves eating his food and probably blowing up his toilet.

We've learned that going with the flow over the years can make for a fun change, as well as occasionally birth a new tradition.

Become someone else's pleasant interruption

Of course, I also realize that things I’ve recommended have wandered into other people’s lives now and then, as well.

People have absolutely told me that they still listen to Spotify playlists I recommended to them years ago or actually watched the weird movie I raved about on Facebook. (The fact that movie recs from me sometimes also result in the person going, "What the hell is wrong with you?" is beside the point.)

It makes me want to recommend things more often in my trademark "I'll just leave this right here" way that I have. It feels amazing to recommend something you love to someone else and hear that they now love it, too.

So We'll See How the Weekend Goes

Joni Mitchell got an otherwise boring Thursday off to a really great start today. Plus, there will be homemade chili tonight, Seth’s birthday is approaching, and Luke is waiting to pour us our next hypothetical cup of fictional coffee later.

Somewhere offstage, Gandalf is also packing a bowl with some Old Toby, wondering whether he's coming to the party this year. I genuinely don’t know yet, and part of me likes the not knowing.

Because for all my attachment to autonomy, solitude, and insistence on choosing the contents of my own life? I sometimes lose sight of the fact that quite a few of the things I love got there because somebody else once said, “Here. Try this.”

Plus, Gandalf is an immortal Maia. He's good.