Sans Fig Leaf
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"Repeat offender"
19 April, 2007
There are some songs I can listen to time after time with equal enjoyment. I don't usually listen to just the one song over and over. I'm more likely to listen to similar collections or playlists, but I don't mind if certain songs come up again and again over a period of time. There are other songs that, while I like them, I need a bit more space in between listenings. To a lesser extent the same is true of movies and books.
On the other hand, sometimes, I just have to have something new. I get bored with my vast collection of music or books. "Heard that, read that, seen that. Geeze, there's nothing to do here!"
So I was amused to hear a report on the radio a while back about a social scientist who studied this phenomenon, and the conclusions he reached about the kind of person who seeks out new experiences and those that don't. As usually happens with such reports, it implied there were only two possible kinds of person: those that listen to the same music day after day (and tend to be older, contented, not into multitasking), and those that have to have something new all the time (and tend to be younger, adventurous, and always on the move).
Which meant that I was, once again, an anomaly. While I've been with the same employer for many years, my job has changed significantly many times. One of the few constants in the job is that I'm frequently having to juggle a bunch of unrelated tasks and meet aggressive deadlines. But what those tasks are, and how they're done is always different. On the other hand, I'm content with my home life and in a stable relationship. On the gripping hand, I love new challenges and sometimes, as mentioned above, I just have to find something new.
While I was thinking about all that I had a small epiphany. I'm most likely to get into a rut, as it were, about music and reading or whatever, when my work is most frantic. Whereas if we're in a lull at work, pursuing background projects or doing research, that's when I'm most likely to go looking for something new and different in my entertainment.
In other words, I do like change--but only in some areas of my life at any given time. Frantic work, means I want entertainment that is comfortable and familiar. While less chaos and work makes me itch for some unpredicability elsewhere.
I have to admit that I like sticking with something for the long haul. So most people would classify me in the more static of the two categories. Which I'm not sure I like. And then I realize that it's the terminology that's wrong. As I alluded above, there aren't simply two categories that everyone can be divided into. Stable is not the same as static, just as dymanic is not necessarily erratic.
Similarly, a person who "always has to have something new" isn't really being dynamic. Every day it's the same thing: novelty. I've certainly met a few people who seem almost deathly afraid of settling down. They've never experienced what it's like to stick with something (or someone) for more than a short time, and they're afraid to try. Fear doesn't sound very adventurous, does it?
Life can't be reduced to simple either-or questions. There are always exceptions or degrees or shadings between the categories. There are always new layers of meaning to explore, even in the more familiar things. Sometimes we have to dig, explore, or experiment. Other times, we have to have the patience to let the newness reveal itself. If we discard a seed just because it's tiny and boring, we'll never know the joy of seeing the flowers in bloom.
--Andre Gide
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