How to Become Famous

CHAPTER 8

Bob Dylan and Habituation

Human beings habituate.1 If you buy a new car, you will probably enjoy it a great deal in the first week, but after a while, it will just be a car. The first weeks in a new city can be entrancing, but after a certain period, things might get routine. If you move to a place with cold weather, you will notice the cold less on the fourth day than on the first, and by the end of a month, you might not notice it much at all. Bright colors tend to turn gray. Actually, that is literally true: if you stare at certain colored designs long enough and do not move your head, the colors will begin to fade.2

Music in particular, and art in general, are often dishabituating; they make you move your head. If they turn out ...