one is the loneliest number

i finished this book last night. very thought-provoking - i can't say i agreed with everything (especially the second to last chapter) but it contained some very interesting points.

like this one (another addition to the "i've never thought of it quite that way before" portion of this blog...)

talking about the way our relationships with others form a collective memory, he wrote "knowing someone well enough to know what they know, and knowing them well enough so you can trust them to know things in their specialty." so, knowing someone and what they know - like who to call for a basketball discussion or who to ask about a recipe - is part of your memory. you don't have stored in your brain the information you need. what you do have stored is where to go to get that information.

it was interesting - he talked about divorce being so devastating partially because that collective memory you develop as a married couple is gone, and you lose the information that was part of that collective memory. i found it interesting as i was reading it, anyway. put a different spin on relationships - the book almost made it sound like that was the only reason relationships are valuable, which is probably over-simplification to the extreme. but i can get behind that aspect being a good part of what makes relationships nice to have.

(and, in other news, how about them jazz? i have a stronger-than-usual love for the nba right now, mostly because the lakers lost last night.)