The philosophers have stopped driving--
they have returned their licenses
to the Department of Motor Vehicles
believing that it is inherently unsafe
for them to operate same. To figure out
the universe and manage stop signs
at the same time is more than their minds
can manage. I understand the problem
having failed to yield when searching
my brain for the name of the President
who followed Grover Cleveland Alexander,
having backed unceremoniously
into U.S. mailboxes while trying
to solve the most rudimentary algebraic
equation, having dipped into low shoulders
while imagining shoulders of another sort.
I sympathize. When I imagine the magnitude
of their tasks, I wonder how they manage
even to dress themselves. Einstein, they say,
had fifteen suits exactly the same color
so he would not have to stop and ponder
what to wear. And policemen in Princeton,
New Jersey, are known to have led him home
from relatively long walks.
I admire the philosophers, but I am glad
that they no longer drive. Immanuel Kant
walked every day of his entire adult life,
and the women of Königsberg, his native town,
could set their clocks by his passing.
Anthony
S. Abbott,
The Search for Wonder in the Cradle of the World