I read that the Japanese government sums up nutrition advice for its citizens with the rule of thumb "Eat thirty or more different foods each day." In other words, variety is healthy. Similarly, I guess a variety of books, movies and tv is healthy for the mind. I am always interested in both the subjective and slightly more objective ways we can select what the mind gets to eat.
Depending on your personality, your experience and your age, you might have strong faith in a quick choice of the next book or movie. You might know as you look through "Movies for Grownups"
https://www.aarp.org/entertainment/movies-for-grownups/ that what seems a good choice usually turns out to be good. In cases, where the hype or the rating or the summary did not lead to a satisfying choice, you may be quite capable of shrugging and dropping a clunker. My daughter said years ago that she like to give a book fifty pages. If after that much, the book isn't doing anything good, she drops it.
Movies, books, songs, foods, you and I only have so many hours left to view, read, listen and taste. Let's not waste those hours, even while we reach for variety and still keep a stack of old favorites at hand. We will mix fiction and nonfiction, old and new, exotic and familiar, challenging and comforting, as we can.
