Brain envy
Last night we went to McGill to listen to Margaret Visser give part four of her Massey lecture. I enjoyed it quite a bit, but as usual found myself feeling a bit overloaded by all the ideas piled in my head over the course of the hour. I'm sure that great intellectuals can easily absorb all this information, like carrying a large laundry basket and folding everything in neatly. I, on the other hand, have forgotten to bring my basket, and spend most of the time scrambling to keep the socks from falling on the floor while adding more. I need to go home, drop the stuff on a table (whatever didn't fall out of my head), and sort it out before I actually have any observations on it. Just once I would like to be able to stand up and ask an intelligent question at the end of a lecture. Perhaps if I just caught one sock and held on to it? But then what are you going to do with one sock?