Getting Knocked Up...and Down

(Photo Credit: www.VinceCarters.com)

This past Friday night, I had the joy of reinforcing my belief in vital practice while visiting what is quickly becoming my favorite restaurant.

Vince Carter's, owned and operated by the NBA player, sits just after the I-95 exit onto LPGA Boulevard in Daytona Beach, Florida.  It's an absolute culinary gem.  Every component of the dining experience here, from the illustrious atmosphere to the ambrosial cuisine, is a celebration of all things upscale; everything, that is, but the price.  While some of the dishes are a bit costly (I think the Saffron-infused Lobster Risotto is $34, and the New Zeland Lamp Chops are $29 ), most are within the range of something you'd find at Chili's or Applebee's.  Additionally, the staff is as professional, considerate, and delightful as one could hope for.  Overall, Vince Carter's offers diners a captivating experience.

What I can't get over is the fact that we can always get a table...as soon as we come in.  So far, each time we've been, we were some of the only, if not the only patrons enjoying the place.  That's right: we were once the only people there who weren't employed there.  Within the entire stone-sheathed edifice.  The elite sports bar, the beautifully embellished dining room, and the piano bar were empty except for myself and those in my tiny party.

(Photo Credit: www.VinceCarters.com)

So what's the deal?  A quick bit of questioning the locals provided an interesting conclusion.  It can be summed up in one woman's response: "I heard it they food ain't good."  Yep. She'd heard some negative commentary about what would have been an otherwise appealing addition to her own community.  Rather than forming her own opinion, she had short-changed herself by limiting her knowledge of the business to the shallow palate of an associate.  What if I'd done this?  My life would be missing Pasta Vinsanity, a dish which the menu describes as "Portabella mushroom, kalamata olives, plum tomato, red peppers, green peppers, green onions and garlic sauteed in olive oil tossed with Capellini pasta and Feta cheese."  I describe it as my newest personal love interest.

(Photo Credit: www.UrbanSpoon.com)

I wonder how many other ways this woman has gotten knocked up and down?  Not an act of promiscuity, getting "knocked" is also a term used to describe having one's opinion influenced negatively or positively. Even better than an official Oxford Dictionary definition, it's a Retinna Bell definition: the process of one's opinion regarding a specific entity being tainted due to another's knocking of that entity.  In most cases, one minor person's opinion isn't usually enough to sway another viewpoint entirely.  But it does happen quite frequently in day-to-day life, especially when the outside opinion comes from a valued source.   It's easy to allow one's mind to be put off by the negative comments of others.  This can happen to anyone, and it's not even limited to food.

How many times has your first impression of a place been colored by the negative things you've heard about it?  Think about it.  You enter the foyer of negatively noted establishment, and the minor imperfections in the floor times become hideous blemishes as opposed to visual stimulation that breeds aesthetic character.  Even worse, how many times have your first thoughts about another person been totally preformed by the negative comments and views of another.  While this woman's opinion of a restaurant is just one instance of such a phenomenon, it is wide-spread socially-catalyzed pattern in many different facets of existence.

Further examination poses the question as to whether or not it is even possible for an individual human being to refrain from being knocked in some way either up (positively) or down (negatively).  The answer is simple: nope.  It is practically impossible for any human being with the capacity for receiving and processing input from the outside world to be entirely unaffected by it. We are affected by the world around us, and we're affected all the time.  In everything from fonts and colors to the vibrations of sounds from far away, our minds are always manipulating everything we perceive and attempting to make us functional within the chaos. It is a phenomenon that is clearly seen in nature.  In the same manner that every water molecule is at least partially affected by every within a river, and the fact that every star is gravitationally affected by every other, so too are human beings all affected by one another in at least one way.  But an entity is affected most by those which are closest to it.

I want to fill my life with positive, yet realistic people.  I want to do all that I can to ensure that all of the input I receive can be used to create out put that will benefit their life of each individual to whom I am connected.