Laughing at Tea and the Involuntary

I know I said I was taking today off, but I realized something small and wanted to share it with you.

Just a moment ago I was drinking tea. Some Sencha that I brought back from my trip to Japan. As I took the first sip, when I tasted the grassy flavor of the tea, I chuckled.

I then became confused. What was funny? Why was I laughing? The answer seemed quite obvious, but it also seemed like a bad answer: I laughed because the tea tasted good.

I am still not sure why the tea was funny. But I think it represents an interesting contrast from the other ways we might remark that things are good. Normally when we taste a good flavor we think to ourselves, “yum” or “wow, that’s good.”

But in this case, there was no thinking to myself or introspection. I simply laughed. It reminds me of a theme in Proust: that because we cannot read the minds of others or trust their words (because they may lie), it is only by observing involuntary movements and reactions that we can know how they truly feel.

See you.