The Velocity of Honey

Amazing Honey Coiling High Speed Video! - Smarter Every Day 53
I just finished The Velocity of Honey by Jay Ingram. I wanted a picture to headline this post and then I thought 'let's go see what YouTube has', and bingo!

Each chapter in the book is about some everyday thing that confounds people. Some are physical, like the honey (above). Several have to do with the way people perceive time and those had a couple of unique perspectives. One he didn't touch on, and one that bedevils me is why sometimes when I am driving on the freeway I am in a big stinking hurry and other times I am content to just motor along.

The book will give you something to think about besides your everyday concerns, so it's kind of like taking your mind to the park. Does anyone go to parks anymore? I suppose they must. I don't. I used to every once in a while, usually because of some kind of event. I think it's because I never felt like I could really relax, which is probably because of this train I'm driving.

A while back we were watching Season 3 of Ozark and our hero gets kidnapped by his employer who wants to know "what do you want?". Marty replied: "I don't understand the question". Several weeks later I think I finally know what Marty is talking about.

When I was younger, I was at loose ends for several years. I worked various construction jobs, usually as a mechanic, that usually made me enough to keep me in beer and gasoline, which was good enough for me. But as I got older, I started focusing and I picked out a goal. I don't know what it was exactly, just that it consumed more of my attention than anything else. The older I got, the more focused I became. I think it finally reached a peak when my kids were about ten years old. After that is was kind of steady state until a few years ago and then it started broadening again.

So Marty is in that totally focused phase. What he wants is irrelevant, he has a goal in mind, that is where he is headed. What he wants doesn't even enter the picture. He has chosen his path and that's where he's going. The question of what he wants doesn't even exist in his universe. Oh maybe, if you put him under hypnosis, you might get him to drag up a memory from when he was a kid of wanting something, but that's as close as you are going to get.