After years, nay, decades
of experience, you think
you’ve figured it out.
You think you’re pretty
good at the thing. You’ve
got a job to do, and you
listen, and you think you
will sit down and immediately
jam out exactly the right thing.
You listen back and it sucks.
I can do that better, you think,
and you try to do it better
and fail. You try still another time
to do it better and fail again.
Something isn’t right.
This does not groove.
This does not seem tight.
This thing I’m doing fights
against that other thing.
You think maybe you can
try one different thing.
You try one or even maybe two
different things and it still sucks.
By this time you grow frustrated.
But a revelation appears.
You decide to start from scratch
and do something totally different.
You simplify.
You take out the usual,
most obvious thing.
You try the brand new idea
twice and the second time
it seems right, almost, almost,
but not quite good, but
good enough
for now.
michael jarmer 