Play along with me for this little exercise. Pick your favorite eight songs of all time. Don't rank them one through eight, just pick eight songs that are your all time favorites. That will probably take a couple moments so if you're really going to play along then go ahead and take the time to do that. I'll share mine with you in just a bit.
Have you picked your songs yet? Did you really? I'll still share mine with you even though I don't believe you. Here they are: 46&2, Sweet Child O' Mine, More Than Words, Under Pressure, Black, Pretender, Levon, and the entire Dark Side of the Moon album which is just one amazing song that plays perfectly to The Wizard of Oz.
Now I want to know what my actual number one favorite song of all time happens to be. How am I going to do this exactly? I could put them in little brackets and let them square off March Madness style and see which one prevails. I could split them into two groups and narrow it down to one winner from each side and then have those two songs square off. I could just start ranking them one through eight right from the start. I know what I'll do; I'll start eliminating them and the one that is left will be my favorite song.
The first song to get the axe is More Than Words. Thanks Gary Cherone for this beautiful melody and thanks for trying to make Van Halen relevant again but More Than Words is the first of the top eight to be eliminated.
Next to go is Levon. Wear your war wound like a crown Elton.
Third to go, meaning it comes in at number six, is Pretender. Keep fighting the foo, Dave Grohl.
Now I'm to the top five and eliminations are getting tough. I think the next song to go is going to have to be Sweet Child O' Mine. Where do we go now?
Number four is awarded to Black. Don't fret it, Eddie. I'm sure you're a star in someone else's sky but not in mine.
The bronze medal goes to Under Pressure. It doesn't matter if it's Mercury and Bowie, Harper and Vedder, or some dude with two Kermit the Frogs on his hands, it awesome.
I always loved Dark Side of the Moon but once I saw it played alongside The Wizard of Oz it skyrocketed to the top of my favorites. I know it could totally be a coincidence that "balance" is mentioned when Dorthy is walking on the fence right before she falls, or the music becomes frantic and hectic the moment she hits her head, or when she runs away the song playing on the album is titled "On the Run", or when Dorthy is experiencing the tornado in her house that is being blown across the sky the tune is "Great Gig in the Sky", or the moment she lands side one of the original album is complete and when it's flipped over it begins with a "Ching ching" when the door is opened and the movie changes to color, or a song is called "Any Color You Like" on side two, or the album ends to a "Thump thump" of a heartbeat and Dorthy is knocking on the Tin Man's chest at the same time, but I'm going with Occam's Razor on this one despite the fact all of the band members deny it. Why wouldn't they? It makes it more legendary.
That leaves the sole survivor as 46&2 by Tool. The only song that speaks to me more than this is Lateralus by Tool. Wait a second. I forgot about Lateralus. This song is definitely in my top eight. Hell, it's probably number one. I like it more than 46&2 so doesn't it have to be my favorite song of all time? If the song Lateralus was never written then 46&2 would certainly be my favorite song but since I know it has been written and I absolutely love it then it is my number one.
The truth be told, I knew all along I was going to forget Lateralus during this exercise. And I didn't really take a lot of time to form my top eight even though the top five is probably pretty accurate, but who knows for sure? It's possible another song could pop into my head and I really could like it more than I like song number six or eight or ten. I did take some time, actually several weeks, to identify my favorite song of all time. I didn't want to have another song pop into my head and replace it so I pondered the thought for some time and announce it to you with confidence. The more I think about it occurs to me I never considered the live version of Yellow Ledbetter. Hmmmm....
No matter what format I would have chosen to implement to determine my favorite song the result would always be the same, assuming I had all the songs in my thought process and wasn't forgetting any. Lateralus would have prevailed in a tournament bracket structure. It would have survived the elimination format if it would have been included. There was only one possible outcome and it was Lateralus. I couldn't have chosen another song. Which leads me to ask myself why I chose this one at all.
Do you choose your favorite song? Do you choose your favorite color? Taste? Smell? Anything? Could I just decide I like brown more than red today? I have no idea why red appeals to me more than any other color or why purple is strange to me. Why do I think pizza tastes good? I have no idea why these things are the way they are. I'm only aware that I'm aware of it. I can try to rationalize why a song appeals to me more than another song but I'm really only kidding myself if I honestly believe I had a hand in the process. We like what we like because we are what we are and the thing we call "self" has nothing to do with it.
Even though we can't exactly put into words what the "self" is to one another, we certainly understand what each of us experiences as self. It feels like we kind of exist behind our eyes, in our head somewhere, but we are more than just a byproduct of brain activity, we kind of exist is an unknown dimension. I said we can't exactly put it into words but you know precisely what I'm describing. That thing I'm describing is what we all believe to be our unique "self" that is in control of all of the machinery. That thing I'm describing also can't be found anywhere except in our own head.
Our brain is nothing but a super powered computer that attempts to make the best decision available to it to survive the day. However, it fails quite often. I drop my keys. Do I decide to do that? I get lost when going places. Is it ok for a man to say that? I push the wrong buttons on my Xbox controller from time to time. I sing the wrong words to songs I know. I write the wrong date occasionally. I try to rewind things on the radio because I do it all the time on my television. I dial the wrong phone numbers. I type the wrong letters. Sometimes I totally say the wrong word that doesn't even make sense. I read the wrong word. I reread the wrong word. I remember things wrong. I try to unlock my front door with my vehicle keys. I touch the hot water in the shower with my hand and think it will be hot enough or cold enough and will be comfortable when I get in. I order the wrong amount of food. I bounce checks. I chew. I'm overweight. I interrupt people. I procrastinate. I talk too much. Why would I choose to make any of these poor decisions? Am I stupid?
I'm not suggesting that thing that feels like the "self" doesn't really feel like the "self", I know it does. I am suggesting that thing isn't exactly what we think it is. It doesn't do exactly what it feels like it does. It feels like that thing can make decisions and alter the course of reality. I contend it only observes the decisions and the outcomes and the rest is an illusion.
This doesn't mean decisions aren't made. That's a double negative there. Of course decisions are being made. Our brain is making decisions at a rate incomprehensible to the "self". It doesn't need the "self" to make decisions for it. Human beings existed without self awareness, at the sophisticated levels of modern man, for quite some time. We believe most all living things on the planet exist without very sophisticated levels of self awareness, if any at all. Yet, we believe we are different and are something more than all of our surroundings. We believe it because it feels like it.
We know the subconscious (the things we are unaware of) makes 99% of the decisions in our body and our lives. Yet, we still kid ourselves and convince ourselves we make the "really important" decisions. Have you ever been in your car and driven for miles and miles and were lost in thought and then realized you were at your destination? Were important driving decisions being made without the "self" making decisions? Have you ever "been in the zone" and allowed the brain to make decisions without the "self"? The brain does everything and makes all of the decisions and we aren't more than our brains. We are some part of it and we aren't even the part we think we are. I know people will argue disingenuously and say, "I know I am just my brain", but I don't know many people that truly think they are "just their brain". Almost everyone thinks they are something more than that, that thing I described earlier in a round-a-bout way.
I had this piece in my head before I learned of the ambitious plan of our president to map the human brain. Needless to say, I was extremely excited to hear this. In fact, it was the highlight of the address for me. We know so little about ourselves. We will dream away eight years of our lives (not sleep, dream) and we have no idea why. How can we not know why and how we dream but we're controlling a car on Mars right now?
We don't know why it feels like we are something that we're not. Many a great thinker has been suggesting it to us for hundreds and even thousands of years but we are closer to truly understanding it than ever before. Mapping our brain and knowing what a thought is and where it comes from is an exciting idea and a service to all things in the universe.
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