Understanding Island

I have opinions like everyone. I don't think I get any more passionate about my opinions than a normal person. But I do tend to judge others based off of my opinions, and probably do that more than a normal person. This is likely due to the fact that I can be rather arrogant about things, that I'm very sure of myself.
In my own defense, I will not lapse into true arrogance about something unless I've gone over it in my head a few times and come to the conclusion that I'm just right, damnit, more right than you at least.
But lots of times these arrogant judgments aren't fair, or they are simply hurtful. Even in some very rare instances they may actually be wrong. Gasp. Sometimes I introduce an objective opinion into a subjective field. Sometimes I judge someone/something when it's not needed or welcome. Sometimes my opinions might just innocently diverge from another's, in which case a judgment(1) is both unnecessary and unwelcome.
The reason I'm thinking about this now is that I was reading something I think yesterday and John Cusack was mentioned in terms of how everyone like him. Well, I can't stand John Cusack. I don't like really any of his movies (particularly the 80s ones that he might be most famous for), and I don't really like any of his roles. People seem to think that he would be a nice guy in real life based on his acting. Setting aside for a second that that's a pretty stupid assumption to make, I feel like he'd be insufferable based on the same thing. It seems my personal opinion just severely differs from that of the general population. I might be tempted to make a judgment about the general population because of this (and have done similar things in the past, to be sure), but really why? It's ok for me to hate John Cusack and for everyone else to love him. Lots of times, there may be a subliminal explanation for this divergence, but not always.
On a vaguely similar note, I had an argument with Sara a week or two ago about the movie I Heart Huckabees. It seems she is a big fan, and she made me watch it when it was randomly on TV. I was less than impressed. Actually, I thought it was pretentious garbage, and offered this opinion to Sara, who naturally took some offense.
I say "naturally" because, while it's perfectly ok--actually very healthy--to engage in dissenting conversation about one of the arts, it's usually(2) not ok to do so as arrogantly as I did in this case. I led off with the judgment and never really backed off to the opinion, and that's an important distinction to make in a lot of cases.

Anyway, in the spirit of all of this, I thought I'd come up with a small list of topics in which my strong opinion/belief/judgment differs strongly with most people. I do this as a way of highlighting that yes it is ok to have differing viewpoints and not have anyone be "wrong," but also as reinforcement to myself to be more forgiving and benevolent.
So here, in no particular order, are some things I (sometimes improbably) have a strong but very minority opinion about, and where there is nothing wrong with that.(C) I only make a note where necessary:
1. John Cusack
2. Coffee -- don't drink it, can't stand it.
3. Music -- I've talked about this before, and I guess I'm still not completely ready to give up the idea that my viewpoint isn't a little more enlightened than others, but I include it here in a spasm of benevolence. To recap: hearing other people talk about music is utterly noxious to me. I appreciate it only for its innateness.
4. Tabasco sauce -- I love spicy things, but think the flavor of this is repulsive.
5. Sketch comedy.
6. Doctors -- not impressed.
7. Champagne.
--I just now realized that all of these so far are things I don't like--
9. Tofu -- no, really, it's not too bad.
10. Facebook/Twitter -- no.
11. Guinness -- if this is in fact an acquired taste, then I am in complete ownership of it.



A. You can't tell because this thing automatically highlights spelling errors and therefore notified me of the problem, but right here I spelled that word wrong for the second time in the same paragraph. That's almost unforgivable.
B. I don't care, if you try to claim that Ron Howard is as good a director as someone like Kubrick, then yes I am fully permitted to humiliate you. There is a line below which vaguaries don't exist. But then, I don't usually waste time in engage people making such dumb claims, so maybe this is moot.
C. Here is a list of things where my minority opinion is correct and the popular one is just flat wrong, and yes there is something wrong with the populous:
1a. Ron Howard -- hack.
1b. Tom Hanks -- overrated, very. Also frequent collaborator with 1a, which is a black mark.
2. American Idol/Reality TV in general
3. Celebrity worship -- I would say "obviously," but the fact that I think I fall in the minority about this rather amazingly means maybe not so obvious.