Is ignorance of the senses bliss?
Is it worthwhile becoming an aficionado? It's not a matter I've given deep thought, but the basic question occurs to me often. I've developed moderately refined tastes in a number of areas at different times in my life, and haven't had much chance to indulge any of them over the past year or so. It's not like I'm choking down my Maxwell House, PBR, and tuna fish sandwiches with a sense of embittered longing or anything, but even when I was regularly enjoying fine food and drink, I would look at my more provincial friends and relations (mostly back where I grew up) and wonder, are they really missing anything?
Could more refined tastes actually be a source of greater dissatisfaction, given the infrequency with which one's standards will be met? Or is the aficionado's depth of appreciation for the occasional rare gem worth it?
The question comes up online, too, with regard to audio and video quality of different media, and the sound or display on different devices. I'm no connoisseur in those areas--I have some minimum standards and I'm vaguely aware of how much I don't know, but I'm still often astounded by how completely oblivious people are to tinny sound output or lousy video encoding.
So, they're deriving more enjoyment from that piece of media that I found substandard, right? It seems obvious that there are more things that will satisfy the non-connoisseur. The question, then, is can the connoisseur derive a satisfaction beyond the non-connoisseur's capacity for enjoyment from experiences that meet or exceed their standards?