The best you can is good enough
So I'm sitting here listening to Radiohead's Kid A album as I work on a dissertation chapter. And I'm reminded of when I first bought it.
I drove to Rasputin after work (this was when I was living in Berkeley and working in SF) and picked it up. I picked up Ryan and we went back to my place to listen to it. 3 years of anticipation finally paying off.
And I listened to it and had no clue what to make of it. It sounded...like a million pieces. Like someone took the beautiful painting that had been OK Computer and thrown it on the ground and watched it shatter.
Yet it was intriguing. I couldn't grasp the music, it seemed impenetrable. But I kept listening, and after a few weeks - was it on the drive to Eureka? - it finally clicked. It made sense. I understood it, and it was amazing.
I listen to it now, over 6 years later, and I hear every note, and a wave of sound and sense and feeling washes over me, as it does every time. And I think back to my first listen, how jarred I was, and to the moment where it all came together.
I love moments like that, when things finally make sense, when you understand, even though at first glance it seemed inscrutable.
An appropriate feeling as I work on the dissertation.
I drove to Rasputin after work (this was when I was living in Berkeley and working in SF) and picked it up. I picked up Ryan and we went back to my place to listen to it. 3 years of anticipation finally paying off.
And I listened to it and had no clue what to make of it. It sounded...like a million pieces. Like someone took the beautiful painting that had been OK Computer and thrown it on the ground and watched it shatter.
Yet it was intriguing. I couldn't grasp the music, it seemed impenetrable. But I kept listening, and after a few weeks - was it on the drive to Eureka? - it finally clicked. It made sense. I understood it, and it was amazing.
I listen to it now, over 6 years later, and I hear every note, and a wave of sound and sense and feeling washes over me, as it does every time. And I think back to my first listen, how jarred I was, and to the moment where it all came together.
I love moments like that, when things finally make sense, when you understand, even though at first glance it seemed inscrutable.
An appropriate feeling as I work on the dissertation.