Amaze

Amaze

To astonish.

Even the most spectacular music isn’t necessarily designed to surprise us. Composition can be converted to basic math—the number of times a string vibrates back and forth, for example, defines its harmonious family. Our brains can calculate an expected frequency based on the chord previous, and satisfying this foresight makes music comfortable, consumable. Whether or not you’re frustrated by the three chords colonizing the radio, popular music doesn’t benefit from the unexpected, it primes our minds and delivers satisfying resolution.

A maze

A clever enclosure.

The Big 3 league makes me sad. Watching ex-stars box out in half-court pick-up games reminds me about how boxed in many professional athletes are. If you look beyond the mirage of nostalgia, you’ll see tired bodies playing, not for the love of the game or a check, but because it’s what they know. Like any career that requires intense specialization, professional sports whittle the scope of one’s qualifications down to a singular path. Biology truncates this path right when the bills need paying and long before ambition has faded from view. The trade off for entertainment should be lasting security—more professional development and financial advising from leagues as early and as often as possible.