Many take pleasure in excellence, in whatever form. "The best" is in reality pretty ambiguous and subject to short term trends that will get you long lines and that trend chasing can be hollow, but I'm sorry I really strongly disagree about the difference between "good" and "excellent" in many things I've found.

I hear you. Part of my comment was about appreciating excellencce or a craft. But there's a difference between the ego and burning need for external validation for having partaken in something, gone somewhere, gotten into something or whatever vs appreciating someone's dedication and product.

Consider the people who go to Santorini to take the exact same photo, the vanity climbs of Mount Everest or going to some three Michelin star restaurant where your primary concern is posting about it on IG.

It all just seems so... desperate. Like hollow people trying to fill thsemvels with something, anything, so they can feel something and that something is simply the envy of other equally hollow people.

I might even call these "experience vampires". There's a difference between that and appreciation.

Take this soy sauce maker, the people I'm talking about will buy a bottle of soy sauce and then post all about it on social media. Others might talk to the master crafter about their history, how they got started, what they think goes into a good soy sauce, etc. Do you see what I mean?

I'm not normally one for stoicism. I tend to find people who crow about Marcus Aurelius tend to be at the entry for the alt-right pipeline more often than not. But in this case, I seem to find myself siding with the stoics.