Bearing and Valuing

Listening to the hold music -- the same loop, 30 seconds to a minute long. The first time it sound a little nice. Soon it becomes irritating. But you have to bear it in order to get the prize -- a representative. You have to listen -- at any moment the representative could pick up the phone and you need to be ready. You have incentive to bear the hold music.

Do you think the hold music is good? It is pleasant but in its repetition you find its flaws. It was never the greatest music to begin with. You judge it to be mediocre. But as it plays, you judge it to be worse than mediocre, offensive in its repetition. You need to relate to the hold music as it is -- repetitive. You are encouraged to change your value of the hold music. You don't have to. But if you judge it to be good, if you fall in love with it (as in this illustration), you can bear it better.

So the fact that we are forced to experience something biases us toward calling it good. To experience is to bear. We can fight, keep the dissonance arising when we bear the unbearable. Or we can accept, and find the unbearable bearable.