The quote above is from the song “What I Am”. I always call it “Philosophy,” but recently a new friend and colleague, Lindsey Uy-Johnson, set me straight. She’s opening for Steve Martin here in Tampa in May. Edie Brickell, not Lindsey. And yes, Steve Martin the comedian. And novelist. He has also been known to pick the ever-loving shit out of a banjo with the Steep Canyon Rangers, as many noted musicologists have written. More than likely, Danielle and I will have already fled Florida for the relative safety of our old Kentucky home by then. Still, it gives me the warm fuzzies just knowing that its happening.
Recently, I’ve discovered a great love for the pre-dawn bike ride. There is something incredibly wonderful about pedaling 10-20 miles before the rest of Tampa, or even the sun, has arisen. The flow of endorphins combined with the wind and the near silence seems to create the perfect conditions for epiphany. So much so in fact, that it was less than a week ago that I publicly announced an intention to take my voice recorder along for such rides in order to attempt to capture those fleeting moments. Of course, I did not make good on that promise today, and so this is a frantic attempt at recollecting and reconstructing some of the more interesting tidbits.
It must have been Earl Guthrie’s status update on his issues with the over-categorizing of music that put me on a categorical kick of sorts. Somehow combined with the Nicki Minaj emanating from my newly-formed Flo Rida Pandora station, this revelation sent me to a Stanford University Intro to Human Behavioral Biology lecture by the way of the YouTubes where I listened to Robert Sapolsky (a brilliant neuroscientist and professor of biology, neuroscience, and neurosurgery at Stanford University with an equally impressive beard) discuss the utility of categorical thinking alongside some of its more problematic aspects. The example that sticks with me the most is one where he describes the huge difference in a 65 and a 66 on an exam, despite the fact that the one point is really not all that different (depending upon how you look at it).
How the hell is it that one can spend so much time pursuing education and still not even understand what it was they studied all those years?
I’ll probably never know.
“Too much to think about. Too much to figure out. Stuck between hope and doubt there’s just too much to think about.”
“I’m evangelical agnostic now.”
-Todd Snider