Dawn Is Me

You’re a sensitive aesthete, brush the sauce onto the meat
You can make the menu sparkle with rhyme
You can drum a gentle drum, I can seat guests as they come
Chatting not about Heidegger but wine

Let’s open up a restaurant in Santa Fe
Our labors would reap financial gains
Let’s open up a restaurant in Santa Fe
And save from devastation our brains

It all started, believe it or not, with a line from a song. The song is all about opening a restaurant in the Southwest, which isn’t really relevant except for the backdrop. The implication is that the folks involved would use their separate talents to run the business, and that they’d find it less painful doing that than in trying to find intellectual stimulation among people who would rather watch TV.

And that’s left me wondering.

There have been plenty of times when I’ve been exhausted by the effort it takes to have conversations with people who may not necessarily be stupid but who are not especially intellectually curious either.

But would it make me feel any better to do something fairly brainless — well, not brainless exactly, but something that doesn’t involve intellectual curiosity — in order to escape that frustration? Would I be happier if I didn’t try to have those conversations? If, maybe, I devoted myself to needlepoint or baking pies or something?

Somehow, I have the feeling I’d shrivel up if I tried to do something like that. As often as I get frustrated, occasionally I do find people I can talk to. Those human jewels make all the rest of it worth it.

But who knows? I could be wrong …