Ever get an earworm? That is a term for experiencing "a song or melody that keeps repeating in one's mind." It happens to me periodically, and I sometimes wonder what drives it.
I have had Steely Dan running through my head recently, and I cannot figure out why. The band recorded Reeling in the Years long ago (Village Recorder, 1973). It reminds us of the passage of years and offers poignant advice. It faults our misperceptions and suggests differences.
The fragility of our existence opens the song:
Your everlasting summerAnd you can see it fading fast
We have a limited time in this life. There are evolving perceptions because we age. That was a difficult concept for me to comprehend in my youth. Eventually, though, you find the perspective to realize that time is not unlimited.
The epiphany for me came more recently as my contemporaries began to pass. See What is Important? (November 2020); Judge Robert Dietz (January 2022). Though not my contemporary, the recent passing of a legend was another reminder. See Steve Slepin (November 2024).
The band plays on, helping us with the difference in perspective:
Well, you wouldn't even know a diamondIf you held it in your handThe things you think are preciousI can't understand
I was quick, so many decades ago, to fault my elders. I perceived so much awry in the world. The failings of past generations were so apparent and screamed for attention. The perspective point of youth is simpler. It really only allows focus on the present challenges, and there is a lack of appreciation of the past.
Too often, it is easy to fault today when you have no perspective on yesterday and the people who persevered and succeeded there. The recent immediacy includes wars, terrorisms, failed policies, and more. To our youth - everything you have, technology, safety, and security came at a price - you did not pay it. In fairness, most of it was not paid by the Boomer generation either.
It is easy in the era of our youth to assume omniscience and to fail to see what is good in society and the world. A smart lawyer once explained to me that humans are "hardwired" to solve problems. He lamented that the people inclined to the practice of law are often particularly so. They see the world through that prism of what they can fix or at least improve. That said, much of the "improvement" is a subjective, and perchance flawed, assessment.
The "problem solver" is a valid observation about some. I have known that attribute to vary among people, from the Don Quixotes to the Laissez Faire. As they say, "It takes all kinds to make the world go around." Author Bill Bryson expanded that one, and it makes me think about our differences:
"As the saying goes, it takes all kinds to make the world go around, though perhaps some shouldn't go quite so far around it as others.”
It is easy to fault others. There are those who are too emotional and those who are not emotional enough. There are those who similarly are too or too little mercurial, analytical, simple, complex, hard, soft, and the list goes on. They are not those adjectives in a vacuum but in our perspectives of them. We each measure others from the reference point of our own experience, bias, and our personal adjectives. Perspective is both personal and critical.
We see things differently, and that is both healthy and understandable. But, in fairness, some of us are incapable of anything intellectual and so we cling to emotion. Others are the direct inverse. As we contemplate the onset of Artificial Intelligence, ponder intellect without true emotion and the harm it might cause.
If you doubt the opposite, emotion overriding intellect, think of the poor Cleveland Browns fans who emotionally invest year after year in their passionate but utterly illogical conclusion that team could win the Super Bowl. The heart might tell you "hope," but history screams it will never happen.
Intellect cannot support it, but the emotion drives devotion. Sure, the Browns might someday. But, as likely, You might become the Queen of England one day (sorry Browns fans). Steely Dan brings us rapidly to those perspective differences with:
You been tellin' me you're a geniusSince you were seventeenIn all the time I've known youI still don't know what you mean
That is it in a nutshell. We can achieve levels of interpretation that lead us to the admission of incomprehension. Some of us simply cannot understand others. Or perhaps we cannot understand some others. Or cannot understand some of the perspectives or actions of some others. The permutations are extensive.
We may strive, over the years, and eventually, just admit we just "don't know what (they) mean." That is a powerful admission for any intellect. Admitting you cannot grasp something or someone is a big hurdle. But in the modern world, perhaps inevitable.
The Dan takes us beyond that admission of the who, "what you mean," and provides a touchstone to some listener or muse:
The weekend at the collegeDidn't turn out like you plannedThe things that pass for knowledgeI can't understand
I have many times reflected on that listener, distracted in the moment from the main message, "I can't understand." Did you ever wonder what happened "at the college?" It is not likely relevant, except that the plan was not fulfilled. We have all been there in some moment. Plans fail, intentions are unfulfilled, and yet life goes on.
However, the "what" is ready and patent "The things that pass for knowledge." And around us in this world, there is much that is cited as knowledge, accurately or not. In that, comes acceptance that despite our perspectives, genuine differences are there also. Knowledge may be of facts: "The sky is blue, water is wet." The Last Boy Scout (Geffen, 1991),
The Song turns out to be a love song. A failed love, but a love song nonetheless. So many are; musicians are drawn to that muse. It ends with a corollary to the knowledge analysis, flipping it to
The things you think are uselessI can't understand
In the end, the song is about perspectives. You decide what is knowledge and what is useless. This is based on your experiences, background, and education. It is a personal perspective. It will not be wrong or right in the sense of any objectivity, but only in the perspective that you or some observer brings to the analysis.
You will never find peace in striving to understand why others value or do not value, appreciate or do not. You may find value in examining and analyzing others, knowledge, perspective, and personal growth, but not peace. There are beliefs that are simply too alien for any of us to grasp, simply because they are not our own.
And we will be reminded of periodically of our differences. We will be exposed to those beliefs and perspectives in society, social media, and elsewhere. We will, as we are "reeling in the years," come to find personal peace knowing that we cannot change those beliefs or perspectives. Those people genuinely hold them and covet them.
That they disagree with us does not necessarily make them evil or require pariah status. But there are lines that cannot be crossed in civil society and those lines must be maintained.
As I ponder this day, I am thankful for much. Much that I understand and much that provides me fodder for further study. I am thankful for a world largely at peace and perhaps capable of greater harmony still. I am grateful for much and cognizant of my subjectivity.
In the news, there are those who think their personal challenges warrant "canceling Thanksgiving." I would suggest that despite those challenges, we should embrace it. Get over your relative's different perspectives, incomprehensible new baubles, or incredibly churlish demeanor.
Be thankful for your likes and the freedom to have dislikes. Embrace those who you cannot understand and be thankful for the perspective they bring you. You will miss them when they are no longer there to be disagreeable and amaze you.
Now if I could just figure out how to get that tune out of my head. How it got there I shall never know.
