Maybe I’m more of a philosopher than I realize. I was just reading “This Book Does Not Exist”, a book on paradoxes, and I noticed parallels to my thoughts on cello and bow experimentation. It describes philosophies which question reality – like whether 2 seemingly contrary things can exist simultaneously, and likewise whether 2 identical things can coexist – just the sorts of problems I grapple with when I am comparing or trying bows. How can I feel so differently from one minute to the next when the equipment remains the same? Perhaps I should be questioning reality itself. I tend to anyway, but this book makes me feel that I am not crazy in doing so.

The conundrum seems to be that at one moment I feel so sure about how a bow or cello is responding, then in the next I have an utterly alternate sensation. How do you reconcile them? Which one has more validity? Has something changed which I cannot perceive? Or, as I am now thinking, is my actual definition of reality askew? Maybe that gets into religious considerations as well. Sometimes it seems to me that religions are in the business of stretching the limits of what one considers reality. This can be frustrating and lightening at the same time. There seems to be a fine line between philosophy and religion. Maybe one is the practical application of the other. Of course some religions are more practically oriented than others.

originally published on 6/23/10