Knowledge Is So So

I’ve been listening to a lot of old David Bowie records lately, so getting songs stuck in my head. One day last week, almost 40 years after it was released, I was thinking about the album (and song) Aladdin Sane, and I finally got the pun (“A Lad Insane”). It just occurred to me while I was washing the dishes or vacuuming or something. I’m probably the last living person to get that pun. It’s kind of disappointing, actually.

A lot of the 1970s Bowie songs that sounded so exotic to me for so long are starting to, finally, after 40 years, lose their glittery paint and sound a lot closer to Bill Haley and the Comets than extraterrestrial space aliens. Maybe I have always expected too much and listened too gently, but still, it’s kind of sad.

This idea that knowledge is good, knowledge is good, knowledge is good, is something I’d like to challenge. At least for myself. Knowledge is addictive. Knowledge is fun. Knowledge is intoxicating. Knowledge costs money, and takes time, and is deceiving. It can also be disappointing, sad, depressing, devastating, and on and on. So I don’t know about “good.”