It seems to be the fate of man to seek all his consolations in futurity. The time present is seldom able to fill desire or imagination with immediate enjoyment, and we are forced to supply its deficiencies by recollection or anticipation.

Samuel Johnson, The Rambler, 1752.

Phish is not supposed to be like this. Is it?

Phish is supposed to induce entropic swarms of thought, scattering shards of abstraction that spin off into the vapor. Phish isn't a philosophy you can espouse or touch or take with you when you go. It's an anti-philosophy, the clutching embrace of absurdity, ignorant bliss as dogma, and to hell with Higher Truth. Phish isn't...spiritual. Right?

As it turns out, so blissfully wrong.

First things first: let's just call it The Show. Trust me on this. Because that's what we'll call it years from now, anyway, and we might as well just dispense with formalities like time and place, and whatever else has been rendered moot since the sun sank over the big swamp on December 31.

Anyone who was there and fully conscious knows exactly what I mean, and that's a good thing, since all rational attempts to dissect "what happened" can only go down in flames. A culmination? A rejuvenation? Yes, but those are just slivers of the whole truth. Most of what happened on the stage and across the sprawling field -- or at least what mattered most -- didn't go down on the rational plane, and can't be reassembled there.

Don't bother turning to audio or video recordings for the essence of The Show. You won't find it. Don't expect to find it in my words, either. You're better off crossing the ocean on a raft of worms.

Sadly, the best I can offer is wonder and gratitude from a humble heart, and hope some of it nests with you. It won't be the whole truth, but I'll do my best.

Analysis.

It isn't so much the word that chafes me as the universal embrace of the idea. Consider that the very definition of analysis (Webster's Ninth: "to divide a complex whole into its parts or segments so as to discover its true nature") is contradictory. It's a lie, as much as it is to say that the trunk is the tree, or that a sin makes one evil.

The analytical impulse springs from human vanity and our need to comprehend. We feel entitled to master reality to such an indulgent degree that we will destroy something simply to say we understand it. We deconstruct what our mind can't digest, then pretend it's the same thing when we vomit it back up. It's folly. We can pass an egg through a garden hose, but what comes out at the other end will never be an egg, no matter how convincingly we plant our flag of enlightenment in the goop.

Yes, in a simple, linear system, analysis can be a useful tool; car troubles, toothaches, traffic jams. Unfortunately, the more complex a question or issue, the more eager we appear to apply analysis, when the truth is that the more complex the problem is, the more useless analysis becomes.

Dr. Ian Mitroff, the man who introduced me to thought at age 25, teaches that analysis requires the assumption of "separate-ness" -- the ability to consider components of a system as independent of one another. But in complex systems such as politics and commerce, or any of those in which a human element is present, separate-ness is often no more than comforting illusion. Webs of influence and inter-relatedness bind the component pieces of the system together, making analysis not only useless when considering the system, but detrimental -- a knee-jerk embrace of ignorance. Anyone who's seen any of the Republican or Democratic debates this season might feel a familiar tickle.

So it is with art, for art presents a problem. It comes from a place apart from the conscious mind, a place of unfathomable complexity, and thus defies explanation. Words can no more describe the experience of a painting than they can build a tree.

But watch us try. Pick up a text on abstract expressionism for a chuckle as you watch "experts" fumble to analyze an artist's intent. It's funny and sad at the same time, like watching a fish flop around on dry land while he assures the horrified onlookers that he'll get this breathing bit down any minute now, thanks. The fact is that we often can't know what an artist intended because quite often, the artist is incapable of wrapping it in words or, even, has no idea himself. Whether that fact strikes one as wilting and sad or majestic and graceful speaks volumes about one's state of mind.

Though the vast majority of people are ill equipped for the task, the Big Problems call for an embrace of complexity and, therefore, uncertainty. They demand that instead of cramming a problem into a mind-shaped hole, we open the mind to accommodate the shape of the problem. They require that understanding of the components only as a foundation for understanding the whole -- a synthesis as opposed to an analysis.

Though it's challenging, beauty abounds in systemic, synthetic thinking. It can spur creativity, reinforce notions of interconnectedness and Oneness, and re-awaken us to Creation. Ultimately, however, we'll find that there is no greater synthesis of the tree than the tree itself, and no more perfect synthesis of art than art itself. And that there is no substitute -- verbal, magnetic, or otherwise -- for experience.

As a pre-eminent family berzerker once said, you won't find moments in a box.

Alexander Pope said, "Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed." Lest you mistake Pope for a pessimist, consider the difference between hope and expectation.

Hope is the crown of the optimist. It is readiness to accept blessings and the belief that they will eventually appear. But hope is not foolish, or conditional. It is noble, and enduring. The robustness of hope does not depend on the delivery of goods -- it's an all-weather state of mind.

Expectation is a sense of entitlement, the self-directed belief that something will happen because it should. In the act of expectation, we see the whole of the past and present, and extrapolate, deeding to our selves a piece of the future. In this sense, expectation is the forward-looking equivalent of analysis. It serves our illusion of control by denying the whole of the future. More importantly, it narrows the range of positive futures, and taints chance. If what we expect to happen does not, we cannot fail to be disappointed, even if what happens is positive.

Doubt me? In the wake of The Show, response from those who attended has been overwhelmingly joyous. But among the scant few who criticized the weekend's music, one common trait was evident: none of them referenced what was, though every single one of them referenced what was not. Where was Harpua? Divided Sky at dawn? Colonel Forbin's Ascent? None of the naysayers would even acknowledge the blazing Light Up Or Leave Me Alone right out of the gates, the vista cruising Crosseyed and Painless, the Love You, or the Drowned that scorched a path back into After Midnight.

Were they in the bathroom? Or locked in a prison of expectation?

I also know that once the sounds circulate, a second wave of cynics will take their shots, and that's okay, too. Remember: if you were there, you know. Don't let them set your clocks, or cheapen what's passed. It meant too much.

Instead, whenever you feel the need, walk back through your mind to that masterpiece sunrise that lit the dawn of your own New Age. Watch the clouds boil up in orange and purple and silver, and let the hope well up inside. Take as much as you need. There's plenty to go around.

Then go and live in the moment.