I’ve always been fascinated by absurd questions, the kind that make people at dinner parties pause right in the middle of their fancy cabbage rolls and reconsider their life choices of inviting me.
Questions like: Why is an apple an apple? Who decided that an apple should be called an apple and not, say, a pear or, for some reason, a chimpanzee? Why not call apples “round pears” and pears “pointy apples” and be done with it? Most people laugh when I say things like that. But behind the humor lies something deeper, I’m sure: a quiet curiosity about how the world became what it is, and why we accept the things we accept without a second thought. Read more