the last story in nine stories is called "teddy." this was indeed my favorite story. it's about a young boy who believes he is a reincarnated meditative spirit reborn. he questions the idea of knowledge as a positive. in essence, he says, what if we cleared our minds of everything we were ever taught and started thinking about things from a blank slate perspective? what if we didn't attach the color green to grass, but grass was just something it was -- something that is just shown to us and experienced? what if we didn't tell people elephants had trunks, but just showed people an elephant instead, without any references? is this the purest experience?

when this theory is applied to music, it becomes an interesting discussion. do we experience music purely when we are full of knowledge or when we know absolutely nothing? there are so many people out there that find glory in the fact that they know every little detail about a certain type of music -- they know the history, they know all the albums, the lyrics, the story behind the lyrics, the kind of amps and guitars a band uses, etc, etc. but perhaps the purest way to experience music is just to simply listen to it, without all of that noise in our head.

just a thought.