Once again the little stresses of my life were alleviated by Dr. Seth.
Infinity, They Keep Making More of It
“The problem with getting bigger is that getting bigger costs you. Not just in time and money, but in focus and standards and principles. Moving your way to the biggest part of the curve means appealing to an ever broader audience, becoming (by definition) more average.”
whoa right. That little paragraph hurts my head just thinking about it. You know what else hurts my head, Jars of Clay. What were people thinking… post grunge Radio circa 1995 was not a pretty time in rock and roll.
When I was a younger lad, we used to call those guys Jars of Gay… get it? cuz gay rhymes with clay. Not very PC but it was 1995, and as you can tell from popular modern rock, no one was really using their brain.
Time to pour a bath and tuck into “East of Eden.” That book makes me want to invent a time machine and travel back to the olden days… before post grunge. Live in a shack in the hills and drill water wells and have like 800 kids and wear overalls and say ma’am.
I am only a handful of chapters deep into the lives of the Trasks and Hamiltons but it is an amazing read. Author John Steinbeck says of his own work: “”It has everything in it I have been able to learn about my craft or profession in all these years (…) I think everything else I have written has been, in a sense, practice for this.”
That is the sort of book I want to read.
That’s all I got.
The Morning After 
Jer – No issue with the Guru’s quote, but really you can see examples of this “succeeding towards mediocrity” axiom all around.
– Think of a little start up airline (hello WestJet) that rocks its world from birth
– Think of a little microbrewery that grows
– Think of a little independent radio station
All three start with passion, attract more risk-accepting employees and place the end user at the centre.
And then, usually after much success, typically the business will get horny for going public, or in the case of radio selling to a public company.
Now they have stability which entices a new, more risk adverse staff;
give up on their core beliefs in order to answer to a less focused end user – investors/Board of Directors.
Suddenly the brewery is selling lite beers alongside ales, the airline is digging in the competitor’s garbage, and the radio station is signing up Ryan Seacrest.
I guess that on some level this is a form of entropy, where the homogenization of the organization is actually closer to disorder at its widest point than it was at its finest.
Put another way, was the Universe more filled with potential and purpose at its lst moment of singularity, or as it appears today?
Wow, my head hurts now. Wondering where my life fits in to that model.
I love Steinbeck, my favourite course in university was a fourth year english course “Modern American Fiction.” Such amazing writing.
I think that sounds a bit like Seth’s quote.
The way I see it… maybe the 5 or 6 share that I get as a modern rock radio DJ is as big as it will get. to get bigger… I’d have to abandon modern rock… but if I don’t want to abandon modern rock, then I have to do a better modern rock radio show.
Steinbeck blows my mind every time.
Ditto on Steinbeck
Agreed on doing a better show. But can you be motivated to do a better show, and maintain your 5 – 6 share, yet have a more satisfied audience.
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Yeah I dropped the Yeats Bomb – deal wid’ it
I think I could be.
I guess it all comes down to how you’ll define, and for that matter, measure growth.