The Superflux crew drove to Nashville last weekend to play a benefit for Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital. This benefit was better planned and organized than previous ones we’ve played, but the fatal miscalculation this time was the assumption that, once the activities are over, people would stay for the band. There was a small car show, karate demonstrations, door prizes, and a kid going for a world record of kicks-per-hour (over 2,000). We were slated to go on after all the trophies had been handed out, as we were ostensibly the headliner. But the already small crowd only grew smaller, so we had very few people in the audience. We played a few songs and called it a night. An air of Spinal Tap hung about us.
Immediately afterward I drove to Huntsville, Alabama to attend Amy’s geek-a-thon birthday bash. It mostly consisted of heavy drinking, Eddie Izzard DVDs, and cartoons. It was great. Sunday morning we watched cartoons and ate pancakes. It was how life should be.
On the drive over I realized something. Given that migrating birds fly in a V formation because it cuts down on wind resistance, we can see Nature taking the path of least resistance, yet the outcome is organization. Most of the time the path of least resistance is synonymous with entropy, the tendency to disorganize. Can you think of any other examples of the path of least resistance creating structure rather than destroying it?