It's not nearly as pedestrian as it sounds. The American Bar is one of the most beautiful restaurants in Europe. A truly lovely Art Nouveau room, filled with sumptuous paintings and Medieval-themed frescos and stained-glass windows, and a veritable pleasure to dine in. But this afternoon I am ensconced at a table outside the restaurant itself, watching the world walk or cycle by, and being grateful for having found a really comfortable upscale place to sit and write.
The fact that it's taken me this long in my road trip *to* find one speaks either to how much Amsterdam has changed since I was here last, or to how much I have changed since I was here last. Or both. A lot of my old hangouts have either changed their vibe or their clientele. Or both. Or, they haven't changed at all, but *I* have changed enough in five years that I no longer feel com- fortable or inspired hanging in that vibe or with that clientele. So a lot of this road trip has consisted of walking around Amsterdam looking for new places to sit and write, or to just sit and watch the world walk or cycle by. What can I say...my life is a bitch. :-) However, having now found a cool upscale place in which to sit and write, it is incumbent upon me to actually... uh...write. A quick scan of my brain for a subject to sit and write *about* reveals only one: the word "Best" I have come to realize recently that I really don't "get" the concept of Best and the people who throw the word Best around as if it had meaning -- either to them personally or in some cosmic sense. It's not just the hubris of a human being feeling that they have the right to say, "I know, within a certain category of experience, which is the Best such exper- ience." That would be egobabble in my opinion even if the person saying it had personally experienced every single one of the experiences in that category. When someone who has experienced only one of the experiences in that category and makes a statement like this, I think not "hubris" but "religious fanatic" or "idealogue." But that's still just the surface of the phenomenon. The deeper level that I just don't "get" is why anyone would *want* to claim that they had experienced the Best of any given category of experience. I mean...once you do, isn't it all downhill from there? What's *to look forward to* in that category of exper- ience once you've convinced yourself that you have already experienced the Best it has to offer? It seems to me that the word "Best," the way humans tend to use it (especially in spiritual circles) is more related to complacency and "settling" than it is excellence. To me, hearing someone say, "I know the Best in this category of experience" sounds a lot like they are saying, "I no longer have anything to learn in this category. I know enough already. I know the Best." Boring. Why would anyone want to do that to their life? I cannot think of a single category of experience in which I could say "I know the Best" with regard to that category. I hope I never do. Within any given category of experience, I seek only the Next experience, not the Best one.
