About Scarcity and Surprise

Post 1776:

I had on one of those random playlists today when a really great song I hadn’t thought about in a long time started playing. I was locked in immediately. My brain was finding new ways to appreciate art I first heard when I was still a kid.

It actually took me back to riding in the car with my dad. He liked a good song and could sing a little too. He had one of those crooning voices and it was always fun to see him sing. I thought of him as a leader and, well, my dad. It’s always nice when an authority figure steps out of that role once in a while to goof off.

Anyhow, I remembered that feeling when a great song came on the radio. The conversation would stop. Just the road and the song. It was the radio. No rewinding or connecting to your phone. No phones. Ah, what a glorious time.

Back to the song. The point of the story is scarcity and surprise. The fact that you didn’t know what was coming and that it only lasted so long made the song all the more precious. Having everything at your fingertips is a blessing and really convenient. The curse is that we miss out on surprise and scarcity. What I experienced today was surprise. Scarcity is harder to come by. I’ll have to lose my job and my phone and my money and my Spotify and my Apple Music and my Amazon Music and my CD collection and my records before any song becomes scarce.

It’s possible.

Another thing to watch out for—having stuff at our fingertips has a spoiling effect. It’s human, but I think it can lead to some crappy behaviors. For instance, when something new and good comes along, we don’t appreciate it as the rare commodity it is.

For example, there are a million shows or movies I can watch right now. Some of them are okay. Most are crap. Recently, a really good season of a show came out. I almost didn’t appreciate the artistry and dogged attention to storytelling, because it’s easy to put the great in the same box as the not so great. Hello with the brain saturation!

Be thankful for the access but don’t let the great slip by.

If you’re thinking I’m saying things were better back in the day, I am, but only at times. Here’s a downside to the olden days: If you heard a banger you had to tell everyone to shut up until the DJ said the name of the song. Sometimes they wouldn’t say the name and you had to just sit around radios like an asshole until you heard it finally come back around.

But when it did!

I’m going to make myself scarce. Yeah, I tried a thing. Cheers and see you after.