Does critiquing something mean that you don't like it? If you don't wantonly love everything, does that make you a negative person? I'm not ridiculous enough to think that my opinion really matters, but I feel that cautiously warming up to books, music, movies, art, etc. is just as fulfilling and gratifying as being in love with everything. Personally, I think it saves me a lot of anxiety to not really expect much. I tried going around being disappointed with everything and I didn't really like how I felt. I tried to learn to take things as they are and leave my expectations out of it and I found that it was much more satisfying to enjoy something for what it was, rather than disliking it for what it was not.
Perhaps this has resulted in a detachment in, or a difficulty to be moved by, a lot of art. However, one must also take personality into account when judging such things. I am traditionally find much more joy in an honest conversation than I do in any song or movie or book. You know the way people hear a song and you can see on their face that they are moved; they are changed? I rarely get that way from hearing songs that I love. I get that way from talking intimately with someone I love.
Just because I don't light up and beam when I hear that song on the radio, doesn't mean I don't enjoy it. Just because I don't feel faint when I see a band I like play my favorite song in concert doesn't meant I'm not having a good time. If there is a problem, it probably stems from an expression of enjoyment, rather than the feeling of enjoyment.
What I try to write here on this blog concerns things that I enjoy and appreciate, mostly in terms of pop music. When I try to sound especially enthusiastic about something, I don't feel like I am actually saying what I feel about it, but rather I feel like I'm trying to write something so that somebody else might feel compelled to listen, based on something I said. In conversation, I don't readily feel this burden to convince someone else. Perhaps I don't come off as enthusiastic if I just say something like "I like this," but I'm usually oblivious to the fact that I'm supposed to be enthusiastic or risk sounding sarcastic.
That being said, I like this. I love you.
It looks like Radiohead is going to release another album. I hope that it's good. They really haven't done much for me since Kid A, but they're still a lot better than most stuff out there; even when they're disappointing. The new album is going to be called The King Of Limbs.
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