Soundbyte Psychology

You’ve been at the fair for some time now. You’ve ridden the rides, laughed with your friends and had more than a bit too much funnel cake. In fact, you likely shouldn’t have shared that cotton candy with your friends. You can feel it. The heat of the day and the rides has worn on you. You’re ready to leave. . except there is that one friend who wants to stay (isn’t there always). Your desire to leave is less than their desire to stay, so you stay. Day drags towards night. You feel you could almost pass out, or throw up, or whichever comes first. Then it happens. The sun begins to set. The sky colors and it seems the sound of those throughout the fair quiets ever so slightly as if you are not the only one to notice the sunset. Finally, as the light has fled almost entirely, lights begin to turn on in explosions as the rides, booths and games of the fair are all lit in explosions. They color the air itself in this moment between day and night, so that it is almost surreal. It is still the same fair that you couldn’t stand for the past few hours, but it isn’t. It’s transformed. You feel energized, charged – dare I say ‘enchanted’? You can’t believe that just minutes ago you felt like dying. You feel like you could stay up all night in this new wonderland all around you. Your own laughter grows louder, more energetic, joining the raised volume of those around you as nightfall is assured. This is the moment that changes everything. The moment in between one world and next. The moment in mixing when one song becomes another.

You didn’t think I was really talking about the fair, did you?

I have a personal ethic that, as long as something matters to me, I will push myself to be the best. One immediate effect is how much resistance surround this externally. The more you move forward, the more resistance. It trains the psychology over time to expect resistance (whether that be competition, management or otherwise). When you take first, however, everything changes. The psychology has been prepared to expect greater and greater resistance, yet suddenly there is no interaction at all. Silence. It was only while working for Apple that I realized that this was because there is a concern about any interaction causing a decrease in performance. Before I realized that, I would create stories and illusions about the silence being caused by competition working behind the scenes to overtake me. Again, still trained to expect that. Instead, as I have seen time and again, you begin noticing that your own work and methods are being adopted by others (even passed out between others as some super secret message that must be destroyed after reading). It has become the very solitude and absolute freedom that I now seek in all I do.