I don't care if my kettle looks "professional"; one is pink, another is orange.

But I prefer walls around me to be white or very lightly colored, not, say, intensively red. That would constantly distract me.

Code in my editor is colorful like a Christmas tree, bur most of the interface is muted beige and green. This is about certain things requiring my attention, and others sparing it.

When everything is loud, nothing is, nothing stands out. Bold colors often work better as accents.

(Sometimes it's about non-aesthetic considerations. I prefer my car to be approximately white to soak in less of the hot summer summer sun.)

Paint colors subtractively from light: you never get more light into a room when you're knocking out wavelengths rather then reflecting them. Whereas with whiter walls you always have the option of manipulating color by using colored lighting.

If you include electronic media as a source of this cognitive exhaustion, then I'm with you. If greyscale dominates the physical environment, then it's a reaction to something equally pervasive.

My impression from the data is not that greyscale now dominates the physical environment, but that browns once dominated. Presumably because things like wood, copper, etc. once dominated the materials we engrossed ourselves in. As we've expanded the paints and other materials we live with, we've found much more balance.

i find it cognitively exhausting to watch movies that are so dark that most times i cannot even see the eye color of the cast