Being Expectant vs. Being Curious

There are different pleasures in listening to playlists in Spotify vs. doing Spotify radio.  Playing old songs, known songs, hand-chosen songs, you wait for the killer chorus, the sweet guitar hook, the sweet bridge. When the resulting pleasure comes, it comes like the scratching of an itch, it's a release in the body, or the body engages in the pleasure directly, tapping, head nodding in a appreciation.

But that's different than exploring, listening expectantly to a new song that has hooked your attention.  There, you cock your head, incline an ear to take it fully in, then stay as silent as possible.  

I remember going to Mt. Prospect library, borrowing box sets of classical music: collected divertmentos, flute pieces.  I was the youngest person in the classical music section by 40 years.  I'd sit in the basement listening, and choosing specific tracks to record on cassette.  There was a lot that I didn't like, that I found boring.  (the more I think about it, the more that I recall...  there were little record players in a seating area with headphones.... that's probably where I did my first pass at listening.  I remember the blond wood bins where records were stored.... maybe there were two levels of them?)  

Even then I was not content in listening straight through to albums... being bored by movements not filled with stuff I liked... beautiful slow passages, interesting rhythms, "strange" or shocking and new sounds.  I was figuring out what I liked.  I was figuring out what my kind of person responded to with pleasure.

I was thinking about this yesterday, and thinking that listening "expectantly" was a lower level of pleasure.  That listening "curiously" was a higher, better way.  But maybe it's not that simple.  They're different pleasures.

I was going to say that any listening to playlists is a version of the person continually listening to the great rock hits of 1980s or whatever.  But I can be appreciative of both.  

Still I have issue with listening to the same songs again and again.  I was really annoyed when in Wisconsin bathroom I heard the opening synthesizer chords of a Journey song (Separate Ways).  "Sleepless nights, heart broken in two....two... two..."  "If we can't go on...."

When I listen to playlists, my brain follows along, my brain turns off.  When I hear a new song, I'm perked up, attentive.  

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Here are a couple things to cultivate:  being curious, being grateful.

being grateful:  from Marie Howe's "The Gate": This is what you have been waiting for, he used to say to me. / And I’d say, What? / And he’d say, This — holding up my cheese and mustard sandwich. / And I’d say, What? / And he’d say, This, sort of looking around.

From Tara Brach in her 40 day mindfulness training: From our negativity bias, we are burdened with the sense that something's wrong. Mindfulness deconditions us to scan for what's wrong.  What's around the corner.  Open to the here and now.  Stop thinking about what should be different, and appreciate/satisfaction of what is.