Last night we went to the Indigo Girls concert -- great show! They played many songs from their newest album which has only been out for a few months. As any of you concert-goers know, crowds are typically not as excited to hear new songs, they want to hear the stuff they know. But this crowd was totally into the new music and even knew a lot of the words. Nonetheless, when the Indigo Girls played a few of their older hits, the crowd went crazy on a new level, Amy and Emily seemed a little more relaxed - the energy of the room was really different. This got me thinking about how perhaps when we are doing something we know deeply our energy is different than when we are working on something new (or relatively new). I know that the first time on a more complicated research project, for example, can feel like pushing a huge boulder up a mountain. We might head into it thinking, I know how to research and write, I can do this.... and then it gets more difficult than expected. Perhaps "new" is just hard. I don't know what we do with this, except to honor the fact that we are taking on something really challenging and then persevere. The fact is, we've taken on "new" before and succeeded... eventually those new songs become old and familiar.
Cheering you on!
Harriet
One: I'm very jealous that you got to go to the concert. That's the second time I've missed them.
ReplyDeleteTwo: I understand about energy. Currently, my cohort is terribly under-energized. We're looking forward to out break. It's a little hard getting the discussion going, but after a while we get it together. But I know that all of us are just TIRED.