Epitome Anatomy: TASTE
EPISODE SUMMARY:
"The core of your taste is yourself."
Let's examine how personal taste is influenced by experience, culture, and confidence, and why it changes as we grow. From fashion and art to food and aesthetics, Wish discusses the distinction between simply following trends and creating a style that genuinely reflects who you are.
Listen to the Episode
MAIN TOPICS:
00:00 — The Problem With “Expensive” Taste
01:27 — Defining Taste
02:50 — Why Discernment Matters
06:01 — Taste Beyond Money
09:47 — How Personal Style Evolves
12:28 — Taste Is About You
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Wish Ronquillo Peacocke (00:00.226)
I sometimes roll my eyes at myself because I do have expensive taste. I don't know why and where it's coming from. I grew up in one of the provinces in the Philippines and I did not come from a Nepo land or a corrupt government office and my family was just right in the middle of comfort. We grew up simple and you know my aunt was fabulous.
But growing up in the province is quite humble. But to modern society, taste is in the eyes of the beholder. That's true enough, but I do have some qualms about the thin line between good taste and tackiness of it all.
Welcome to Human Thesaurus Presents Epitome Anatomy. My name is Wish, a retired tech operator, indie author, cat mom, and self-aware life explorer. Epitome Anatomy is an opinion piece on the power of words and their ethos that I extracted from this life. Ready for the epitome of taste? Let's go!
Our keyword is taste. There are different connotations of this word, but we'll focus on its judgment and approving undertones. So in this case, taste means a person's ability to judge and recognize what is good or suitable, especially relating to such matters as art, style, beauty, and behavior, according to Cambridge Dictionary.
The word taste derives from the Middle English tasten, borrowed from the old French taster meaning to touch, feel or try. This traces back to the Vulgar Latin, you know how much I love vulgar Latin. Tastare, an iterative form of Latin taxāre, which means to touch sharply, which ultimately comes from tangere and
Wish Ronquillo Peacocke (02:26.22)
Meaning to touch. The development of this word is interesting. In the 1300s, the English word taste was used in the context of to touch or to handle. But from the late 1400s, the meaning "exercise the sense of taste" is recorded.
Wish Ronquillo Peacocke (02:50.242)
I am a very judgy person. I know that. But I think we all are. We just don't want to admit it. But I hope that there's no hostility involved when it comes to being judgy. I just tend to judge people, but it's not talking shit. Okay? I don't normally discuss this. It's just me. It's my self-conversation. Look at this. Look at that. my god. She looks awesome. my god, that looks horrible. Like I have that.
With my closest friends, they know how judgy I am because I have this discerning taste with things. I think all of us can have discerning taste. There should not be any shame in it. It's all about your confidence of what you really, really like. I normally know what cocktails would do well and what wine would pair well to what the
things. So there are different like food style or art. There's also the personal preference. I still roll my eyes at myself, really. I don't know how I got here. Like I'm just a small town girl and what happened? I'm so judgy. But you know I I think I embrace it. I embraced it. I think my taste literally is positive.
Because I've got a very good palate. So my literal taste. I taste more different layers of flavour than most people. And I like that because during blind taste tests, I am normally accurate. As accurate as I could be, as my knowledge can serve me as well. There you go. That's how we're gonna start that.
I'm talking about taste because everybody, like I've listened to what, how many podcasts for? And everyone seemed to talk about taste nowadays in terms of tech bros in relation to tech bros and AI and what's going on with social media and stuff like that. Which is so funny, but I I kinda understand where they're all coming from. It
Wish Ronquillo Peacocke (05:07.98)
doesn't mean that taste is all about user experience and user interface, but probably that's also part of it. Yeah. my gosh. I just have this realisation that yeah, taste must be equivalent to user interface. And I suppose that a very good UI/UX person, a designer
That means they've got good taste if their UI and UX is very, let's say, not just functional, but they look pretty. As a matter of fact, taste is still relative in a way. Relative and subjective. Because we all have different let's say disciplines and observations and preferences. So taste are quite different to
From each other. There's really this line between sometimes some people think they're the bees' knees because you know they own a chrome gold-plated Mercedes or something. But that's tacky, man. They think they're the shit, but that's tacky. I'm actually picturing the green almost throwing up emoji right now. But yes, taste. Taste, I think, is developed and you can develop it.
And it's not about being rich or poor at all. It's not. It's resourcefulness and it's also knowing and understanding, for example, colour theories and textures and patterns. Like in any hobby or like in any skills, you learn the rules of that particular discipline. And once you know that particular discipline by heart, you can break it. You know colour theory.
And this one should not clash with that colour, etc. Once you have that, you can break those rules and be more bold or even subtle or you know there are differences. So I think taste is developed in a way that you're quite self-aware of your preferences, balancing that with the disciplines that you know, and breaking some of those to make it tailor fit.
Wish Ronquillo Peacocke (07:29.272)
To yourself as an individual. And what's happening right now, we're such a visual world nowadays, especially with the likes of Instagram and TikTok. And even like all the user interface that we like are quite not just functional, but they're now pretty nowadays as well. So I think now we have more options of, and also Pinterest, right? We we can now
The things that we like and we don't like, and we can collate them and we can make it our own. That's where you how you develop taste. It's having those storyboards or look books, and what's happening right now though is that for example, there's this such thing called as Instagram face. I think that the recent beauty trend is making everybody look the same. And for me that's not
Coming from taste. That's coming from one insecurity. Number two is like being lost and not having your own individuality and embracing your own beauty. So taste and insecurity are not the same. They're not. When you develop taste, it's more inwards. It's more looking into yourself and your preferences. Really? There's a lot of things now that are tacky.
And there are lots of things now that are tasteful. For example, some cultures, like I won't pull off a Japanese or a Korean cute style. I can't. It's a mishmash of everything and yet they look so amazing. Different genders. It's just amazing. But not everybody can pull that off. It's their own personal style. There's a taste involved there that works for them. There's
kind of a discernment that happens in there as well. I think self-awareness. But yeah, there are lots of tacky vo versus tasteful. It would be fun to have like a TikTok account or or just like a YouTube channel where I just say tacky, tasteful, tacky, tasteful. Like there are visuals. No, I'm not gonna put that out there because it's still trying to put people down. Because you also needed to know that there's an evolution when it comes to taste. You know, you
Wish Ronquillo Peacocke (09:47.394)
You move on with life and you can evolve your preferences and you evolve your fashion, for example. I've evolved so much when it comes to fashion. I always have this one thing. I'm always strategic with colors. My personal style kept on evolving because I keep an open mind when it comes to that. You know, as I grow up, I can afford a little bit more, so I could
Again, it's not about the financial on the side of it. It's really more of there are some things that I wanted and I could afford to kind of tailor them for me. I always never lose my individuality when it comes to that. I always go for my personal tastes for everything. I always go with my discerning palate for everything. People-wise, fashion-wise, beauty-wise, colour-wise, art-wise, all of that.
Thankfully, my husband and I never fight about aesthetics because we both like the same things. We have somewhat similar taste. So I'm very happy about that. That's how you find a good partner. I do appreciate and shout out to people who keep on developing their personal taste and style. I'm going to give you an example. I've got this I've got several groups of girlfriends.
I've known them let's say from between 10 to let's say 40 years. And I've seen them evolve. Most of them. I could see some of them are really boho, some of them are very, let's say, all black only, but with different kind of textures. There are some of them more, let's say elegant.
Or sporty, they're all got their different individual style. And throughout time, right, we all mature and grow up. But you can still feel that vibe with them. It's just more and more elevated. It's so fantastic to see. So these are the people that I appreciate because I could see that they never lost themselves. Not even girls, actually, even my guy friends, they evolve.
Wish Ronquillo Peacocke (12:06.732)
They mature, they they went through different life experiences, but they never lost their own personal style and taste. I appreciate that about people. And that's probably a very good point to make here. Taste is all about your own personality. You don't need to
Overcompensate or go overboard by mirroring or copying other people that you see on social media. It may not be for you. You need to understand your own proportions, you need to understand your own likes and dislikes and create something for you through that. Your core it's yourself. The core of your taste is yourself. It's not about showing off to other people. What makes you feel good will make you
Have a better sense of taste. What you see out there with that chrome-plated Mercedes or a derelict, like a Zoolander derelict that's now in the sole of Balenciagas and these pair of rotting t-shirt for 1200 pounds. I mean that's not about it. It's not about the price, it's about how you carry it.
How do you feel good about that taste? How about you? How do you discern your taste? Where are you at in your personal style? Are you there yet? Are you still trying to concoct something? Do you go with the hive mind or do you go with your own lane when it comes to fashion, art, or food? Please comment. I'd love to hear from you about this.
I do have a direct message via text or voicemail on top of each of my episode summary, so please check that out. Until next time. Ciao!
Wish Ronquillo Peacocke (14:18.956)
Like, subscribe and share wherever you listen to podcasts. You can also visit humanthesaurus.co that's where my show notes are. Epitome Anatomy is produced by me and Jeremiah Ronquillo. Music by Ketsa UK. All rights reserved by Wishblizz Media. Thank you and see you in the next episode.
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