Brian May did it right

 I packed 17 or 18 things last night, did some octaves practice, finding it harder than the night before. Fatigue, maybe? I will win this thing. 

I was up in time to have coffee and finish off the 17 or 18 packages and pack more to bring the count up to 25. I took off and did a pretty unremarkable delivery route, got back here and unloaded one box then went right back out to the "bountiful" dumpster and found some random things, and a couple of poblano peppers from the veggie dumpster. 

On the radio they did a thing about Brian May, the guitarist for Queen. It turns out, I think anyway, he is a very good example of doing things right, if you're smart. That is, if you're cursed with an IQ above 120 or so. 

He got good grades in school, and you, the reader, should be saying right now, "So fucking what? Since when did that actually improve anyone's life?" Well, somewhere along the line, probably around that rebellious puberty time, he picked up a guitar and learned it, probably on his own and the one lucky break is, his parents allowed him to. 

So he had a band while in college, first "Smile", and then he went into forming Queen. And bestowed upon the world all those wonderful guitar licks. Now, if you can play the guitar that well you can always make a living and afford to indulge in hobbies, in his case, astrophysics. He's doing that now, but he's able to because he learned something practical first - music. 

He also did himself a good turn by getting himself born in England, where you can get a college degree based on your ability and not based on being born onto the right square on the class/race chessboard, and without going into a lifetime of debt. But even under the horrendous conditions here in the US, if you're a hot shit guitar player, you can pretty much pay your own way and fuck 'em if they can't take a joke and you want to study astrophysics. 

But like all STEM bullshit, these fields are all hobbies, not proper professions like playing the guitar is. That's where so many of us have it completely backwards. I keep seeing real-world instances of this, like that noted Japanese comet-discoverer, whose main job that allows him such frivolous pursuits is teaching classical guitar.