This a song exploring the nature of change, growth and progress. Usually we treat change and routine, continuity and rupture, and the familiar and the strange as polar opposites. Yet, in our actual experience they are integrated wholes and mutually dependent.
The only way we can experience change is when it varies or stands out from what is familiar and routine. Without something felt as normal we cannot experience something as strange, without having the routine to compare it to we cannot experience something as revolutionary.
Despite change and the same being interdependent we generally feel that we must choose between them. While it would be ridiculous to say that a person always chooses the familiar or always chooses the spectacular, it is natural for people to usually have a declared tendency to either go with the status quo or to frequently deviate from the norm.
A person who clings to the familiar will lack opportunities for growth and development. A person devoted to the novel, unique or bizarre would have a difficult time being consistent and able to put their experiences in a meaningful context.
The singer of the song wants to walk the knifes edge between maximum growth and chaos, he wants to push the envelope of progress to its beneficial limit. He aspires to be the standard of deviation.
lyrics
Standard of Deviation 12/13/12
How much difference makes a shade
how many shades make a difference
How much is part of the terrain
How much is sheer resistance
Rupture punctures the silence
Continuity makes it all the same
The close and the distant
The familiar and the strange
Lately, I sense change in the air
Crazy, painting life with some flair
Well I just keep jogging and chugging along
Feeling the tingle keeping me strong
Hazy, is the life lived between
So tasty, the mundane and the extreme
How much difference makes a shade
how many shades make a difference
Up to the threshold we make gains
Below that, stagnant and insipid
vanilla and chocolate
the choice is more than two
I’ll be your standard of deviation
bordering chaos and Truth
Pushing to the limit
Breaking through your game
Dreading repetition while seeking union
We want to belong while remaining different
We thirst for invention and deride duplication
We fear mutation yet demand some variation
Our words and feelings in endless permutation
A semblance of change provides verification
Life plays peek-a-boo, you hide I seek
Living life inside two standards of deviation
Let me be your standard of deviation
Pushing to the limit
Breaking through your game
Living life inside two standards of deviation
Let me be your standard of deviation
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