{"id":17651,"date":"2015-11-13T15:53:47","date_gmt":"2015-11-13T02:53:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/?p=17651"},"modified":"2017-09-01T18:59:26","modified_gmt":"2017-09-01T06:59:26","slug":"the-fun-of-missing-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2015\/11\/13\/the-fun-of-missing-out\/","title":{"rendered":"The Fun Of Missing Out"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The<\/a>
The Wheatsheaf \u2014 one of the nicest pubs to which I’ve never been<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A version of this post originally appeared in the Spring\u00a02015 edition of SOBA\u2019<\/a>s quarterly magazine <\/em>Pursuit of Hoppiness<\/a>. The idea came to me during a guest spot on the Ale Of A Time podcast<\/a> \u2014 though I didn’t realise at the time that I could just reuse and rework\u00a0the standard acronym \u2014 and I was recently reminded of the point while Em was on holiday last week and managed to visit the Wheatsheaf<\/a> (in Adelaide) before me and without me.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

The Fear Of Missing Out is an ancient impulse made ever-sharper and more problematic by modern communications technology bringing news of happenings that are too far-flung or ill-timed, or both, to personally enjoy. It crops up often in the beer world, often rendered as \u201cFOMO\u201d<\/span>1<\/sup><\/a><\/span>\u00a0\u2014 both for brevity\u2019s sake and to encompass the wider emotions of anxiety, sadness, and jealousy that also so-naturally accompany missing out. But let\u2019s recalibrate our f<\/em>-word, so to speak.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Start with the realisation that what you do experience will always be dwarfed, by orders of magnitude, by what you don\u2019t. Accept, first, this inevitable Fact<\/em> Of Missing Out. Then realise that this is true of and among all of us; I\u2019ll only ever experience a tiny fraction of what you get to, and vice versa. Somewhere down this path, with practice, lies the Fun<\/em> Of Missing Out. As well as \u201cresponsibly\u201d and \u201cin moderation\u201d, you can enjoy beer vicariously<\/em>. Which is handy, because everyone is missing out on something. And that\u2019s fine.<\/p>\n

This may sound a bit rich coming from someone in Wellington, a town that sometimes seems to get more than its share of the fun. What we have here is worth celebrating and\/or visiting, and its (ongoing) creation took the sustained effort of a diverse group of people over a few decades of hard and risky work. But there\u2019s nothing particularly freakish about this place, no secret ingredient blowing in on the wind. Great things are possible everywhere; indeed, they\u2019re happening<\/em> all over.<\/p>\n

But keep in mind that local greatness is always unique. The things that make your place wonderful aren\u2019t mandatory markers of success for somewhere else. Wellington is an amazing spot to drink beer, but we (mostly) lack the deep history you can find in towns further afield, we (mostly) lack the neighbourhood-anchoring brewpubs of Auckland and Christchurch, and more generally it\u2019d be fair to say that our richness in bars<\/em> masks a relative dearth of pubs<\/em> \u2015 if you know\u00a0what I mean by the difference. So it\u2019s always a thrill to hear about what\u2019s going on elsewhere. It gives new perspective on what you do have, and it\u2019s comforting to know that plenty of awesomeness awaits stumbling-upon when you next get a chance to travel the country, or indeed the world.<\/p>\n

A rich ecosystem is characterised by diversity, and diversity all the way down<\/em> is best.<\/span>2<\/sup><\/a><\/span> We don\u2019t need to aspire to the same experience in each region, or festival, or neighbourhood, or even venue. Better to have a freaky fractal than a homogenous blob. Subtle little flows of inspiration, product, and personnel (in all directions) will keep things evolving and everywhere will benefit. But it entails a lot of Missing Out for us individual drinkers.<\/p>\n

All we need to do is adjust our mindset. Just as we should all resist letting our beer-geeky enthusiasm mutate into snobbery (which is both needlessly cruel to non-geeks, and anyway counter productive in \u2018spreading the gospel\u2019, as it were), we should guard against letting our regional \u2018patriotism\u2019 slip into xenophobia. Let us all be more cosmopolitan in our cheerleading. There\u2019s treasure everywhere. Find the stories of what\u2019s happening near you, and tell them. Make me jealous that I\u2019m missing out. I genuinely love it.<\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A version of this post originally appeared in the Spring\u00a02015 edition of SOBA\u2019s quarterly magazine Pursuit of Hoppiness. The idea came to me during a guest spot on the Ale Of A Time podcast \u2014 though I didn’t realise at the time that I could just reuse and rework\u00a0the standard acronym \u2014 and I was … Continue reading The Fun Of Missing Out<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[72],"class_list":["post-17651","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blahblah","tag-pursuit-articles"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":18730,"url":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2017\/01\/28\/boycotts\/","url_meta":{"origin":17651,"position":0},"title":"Boycotts in Boomtime","author":"Phil","date":"January 28, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"This piece originally appeared in the summer edition of SOBA's magazine,\u00a0The Pursuit of Hoppiness. A few recent discussions of whether (and how) we should more-openly mix our politics and our pitching or\u00a0purchasing have reminded me to belatedly post it here. Introducing himself and his mission, Michael Jackson (the drinks writer,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Rambles and rants"","block_context":{"text":"Rambles and rants","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/category\/blahblah\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"The header from my Pursuit of Hoppiness piece (Summer 2016, p60)","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Boycotts-header.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Boycotts-header.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Boycotts-header.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Boycotts-header.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":610,"url":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2008\/12\/05\/emersons-bookbinder-again\/","url_meta":{"origin":17651,"position":1},"title":"Emerson’s ‘Bookbinder’, again","author":"Phil","date":"December 5, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Verbatim: Emerson's 'Bookbinder'. 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The Booky-book -- or Wookie-book, if you're\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Actual Diary entries"","block_context":{"text":"Actual Diary entries","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/category\/diary\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Emerson's 'Bookbinder'","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Emersons-Bookbinder-again-225x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":17892,"url":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2016\/04\/22\/reinheitsgebot\/","url_meta":{"origin":17651,"position":2},"title":"Reinheitsgebot’s last birthday","author":"Phil","date":"April 22, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Here's my contribution to the teetering pile of Reinheitsgebot-related reckons that are surfacing around the thing's putative 500th birthday \u2015 which is being celebrated despite the old law no longer being in force, the new law not being so old (obviously) nor so simple, and the whole thing being colossally\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Rambles and rants"","block_context":{"text":"Rambles and rants","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/category\/blahblah\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Screenshot from www.deutschesbier.com, a marketing effort from the Radeberger Gruppe","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Radeberger-ad.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Radeberger-ad.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Radeberger-ad.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Radeberger-ad.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Radeberger-ad.jpg?resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":19238,"url":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2017\/09\/02\/hazy\/","url_meta":{"origin":17651,"position":3},"title":"Just a phase \u2015 on haze’s murky history, and crazes in general","author":"Phil","date":"September 2, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"This piece first\u00a0appeared in the August 2017 edition of SOBA's magazine, The Pursuit of Hoppiness\u00a0\u2015 a thing which has evolved a lot recently and spawned a nicely-maintained online incarnation, among other improvements. I've seen\u00a0that version of this post handed around a bit already, but I wanted to also share it\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Rambles and rants"","block_context":{"text":"Rambles and rants","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/category\/blahblah\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"'Solace in the Wind' on the Wellington Waterfront (20 February, 2014)","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/The-Void-Stares-Also-crop.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/The-Void-Stares-Also-crop.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/The-Void-Stares-Also-crop.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/The-Void-Stares-Also-crop.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":18514,"url":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2016\/09\/21\/subcultural-cringe\/","url_meta":{"origin":17651,"position":4},"title":"Subcultural cringe","author":"Phil","date":"September 21, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"So, that was me. 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