Mabon - Part 1: Standoff

I went to a Mabon festival this weekend.  A pagan holiday that marks the Autumn Equinox, Mabon is a harvest festival. It is the time to acknowledge the transition into longer periods of dark vs light. From this point until the Winter Solstice, the days will grow shorter and the nights will grow longer. Despite the turn to longer darkness, it is a celebration of the fruits of our labors.

The Boys From That Band were the entertainment for the evening. They are a fun group of musicians that play alternative Celtic rock. They have a more steampunk themed song about a magical airship. "We never know where we'll go until we're finally there..." Take a listen to Professor James and feel the joy of freedom from expectation:

At the festival I tried a new Scotch, but I also had a chance to put Caol Ila to the test in my first side-by-side tasting. A friend of mine knew of my recent interest in Caol and offered to bring what remained of his bottle to the festival so I could meet him again - this time next to Talisker Storm.

 
We were camping, so we were using 8oz ball jars at a picnic table for the tasting. The small cooking fire crackled nearby, paying homage to one of one of my favorite flavors in a Scotch.

In color, there was an immediate difference. Caol Ila was much paler that Talisker. I noticed a harsher and more floral nose in the Caol than I did when I first met him. I didn't sense the usual strong smoke from Talisker, but I think it was partly the glass. After adding the water, Caol's nose seemed more fruity, and the taste was good, but there were flashes of flavors that I did not like. For a brief moment something reminded me of the smell of hospital plastic. Thankfully, that faded quickly.



Talisker...was as wonderful as I remembered him. Smoky, sweet, spicy, and alive.

Caol really didn't seem to be much competition after all...but how could I have thought them so close the other day, when it was just him that I was tasting?

There is something that happens when you become familiar with a flavor, or a circumstance, or probably even a person. I call it the pleasure of familiarity. It is said familiarity can breed contempt, but there is also comfort in it (at least for a time). It's the stuff of home court advantage, and the flip side to expectation.

When something is new and we are still learning about it, expectations can be "premeditated disappointments." But after we already know a thing, a different kind of expectation settles in. When we know something, we expect it to continue being as we know it, and that is the pleasure of familiarity. 

It's the satisfaction of an expectation - 

the expectation that a thing we enjoy remains as we know it to be.

The more familiar we are we something,

the stronger this effect can be. I think this is a big reason why, when placed side-by-side, Caol seemed much different than I remembered. While I'm sure he is a fine and fun fellow, I think at our first meeting I was only picking up on the aspects of him that reminded me of the one I am most familiar with - that being Talisker.  But when the original creator of the familiarity of those flavors was available for immediate comparison, the subtle differences became vast and undeniable. 

This begs the question though - do we enjoy something in and for itself, or do we enjoy it because it is familiar and therefore satisfying of expectation? And if the latter, how far can something stray from true enjoyment before we realize it through the rose-colored glasses of familiarity? Or am I putting an unfair twist on the pleasure of familiarity; does it matter why we feel enjoyment from something or only that we do?

I think the answer, as with most things, lies somewhere in the middle. As the length of the days and nights wax and wane through the year, so does the effect of the familiar on our enjoyment of something. I believe the effect is powerful and honest, but it can delay the awareness of a fading pleasure. Something like how even after the Winter Solstice, when the days begin to grow longer again, the weather will still get colder at first. It takes time for the shift to bring the days and nights into balance again and allow for the warmth to return.

The Solstice is still months away, though, so we have only just begun our journey into colder days. For now, we celebrate the seasons, the harvest, and all the joys of life, no matter how fleeting they may be.