Agonizing support
Sometimes I get tired of hearing what records people have coming out, what shows they are playing, what great experiences they want you join them in, etc. It never ends. Endless amazing things happening all around us, by so many of our friends, and people we are huge fans of.
Then, I get tired of the fact that I tell this same stuff to other people, and wonder if they too are tired of hearing it from me. Then I get crazy ideas like: no records, no performance, no parties, no promotion of anything at all.
Is it crazy though? What if it happened? What if we just saw what we saw, or heard what we heard, because of pure coincidence and proximity. Sometimes that seems like a really nice world to me.
But, maybe it’s not realistic. Maybe I would get bored or upset that I didn’t know what so-and-so was up to, when their new record was coming out, or when they would play in my town, or in Germany, again.
If you’re reading this, and you find yourself getting tired of what Jon Mueller has to say, maybe it’ll help to know that sometimes I feel the exact same way.
Thanks for sticking around.
Posted in News
February 1st, 2010 at 6:21 pm
I never get tired of hearing it, especially from people I admire. But sometimes I get upset with myself for thinking that there is more or less _value_ in certain experiences — especially those we have, as you say, while just seeing what we see, or hearing what we hear. Sometimes we see and hear the best stuff when we’re not paying attention, if that makes sense…
February 2nd, 2010 at 12:32 pm
I think it has more to do with ‘not having expectation’ than not paying attention. The sense of discovery that accompanies that attention can be very rewarding. If you know about something in advance, then attend, there’s sort of this built up anticipation for how ‘good’ it’s going to be. And if it doesn’t go exactly the way you envisioned, we judge it as less desirable, which really is unfair, in some ways.
Nonetheless, it is useful to ‘know’ things. There are so many times where I’ve found out about something after it’s happened, and that dreadful feeling of ‘i’ll never have the chance to experience that’ takes hold, which is really frustrating.