BBK: Blocked by "Knowing"

This week's HATnote is about BBK, something that was expounded upon by our new associate pastor in today's message based on John 6. One who suffers from BBK is unable to expand her horizons, incapable of moving beyond her "mental blocks". What she presumes to already know may be stereotyped, inaccurate, and entirely fictitious, but BBK typically renders one's mental faculties into mush. She suffers, in short, from a bad, bad case of self-intervention from encountering the "new".

Two samples from my own case-study:

1) Going to museums. I like to view and review everything in a museum. I never know whether I will like this painting or that painting, and I don't know if I enjoy or don't enjoy a particular artist until I see his/her work, so I try to see everything -- even stuff that are tucked in a some backlit corner of the SF MOMA (if some curator put it there, then I should look at it to see if I like it, right?). This is one reason why many of my friends don't like visiting museums with me. I take 2 hours to view what others would view very selectively within 1 hour. Lesson: Visit more museums more often in order to cultivate greater discerning taste about museum-stuff. Other lesson: Give friends ample warning.

2) Going to jazz shows. Several weeks ago, I saw a notice about this group that would be performing in Berkeley. So I put it on my calendar and made a mental note that although I've never heard of this band, and although I've never heard of the composer they're performing, I would go support them. I was duly warned. ("Avant garde" a certain friend said. "Art song.") But, I thought, in their field, as artists, musicians, experimentalists, they were on the edge, breaking new ground, trying to carve space in the music world for something different.) And, you never know if you'd like them until you try, I thought (oh, so foolishly). Folks, I want to say that I tried my very best to kick my case of the BBK, but I could not stand it. I have never walked out of a jazz performance -- or any performance for that matter -- in my entire life. Eck. I debated waiting until the second set to see if the cellist and the drummer would change things around. But I couldn't wait. I left after two songs. Bummer.