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Yo, went to a Mets game the other day, a first for me. Games are appealing: rules are clear, success is easily defined, and so it’s easy to throw all your rational and irrational force behind personally or vicariously pursuing that success. Then there are the regular rational aesthetics. And, elements of the game are accidental, but not too much of it. All these things are pleasurable for most people--like for the rowdy moron drunk gumbas, paying $6.50 per beer, 5 beers each, in the row behind us. Me too—Jose Reyes missed a line drive that eventually cost the game, knocked my elbow into my armrest accidentally out of disappointment and it still hurts. There are (at least some) reasons for all this.

It's like most pop music, which is almost defined by regular rhythms, changed up here and there for kicks. Also, there is still nothing I find hotter then guys in uniform. Or even better: It was a wonderful day for me when the more attractive hipsters started to wear army jackets. Regularity but with elements of irony. The utmost in simple pleasures.

Why is that? Wikipedia says thinking is: “a mental process which allows beings to model the world, and so to deal with it effectively according to their goals, plans, ends and desires”. Whooa. Is this why all this simplicity—ready-made models with variations here and there—is so appealing?—provides a (maybe rare) feeling of mastery over the world. Feelings of mastery are pleasurable for evolutionary reasons (mastery = survival) ? Maybe.

How much of life really is like that? Easily defined, and easily mastered with practice? Much of the 9-5 work world, world for sure. But that is an explainable subset of something far less explainable. What accounts for the job you have, the spouse you get, and all sorts of other things. So much randomness, not so model-able.

Real jazz, more than any other form of music, is close to life. Musicians have repertoires of riffs already learned, and then it’s how all this knowledge and skill interact with each other in time and improvisationally that constitute musical reality, an unexpected synthesis. A true metaphor for life. Most folks don’t like it at all. Hard to blame them for it.