Realistically, we don’t understand why we do some of the things we ourselves do. So how can we expect to understand what somebody else’s brain dictates to them? And dictate is exactly the precise and correct term to use. How much of what you do is really what you’ve told your brain to do? Virtually nothing, when you stop and think about it. You don’t control your brain; your brain controls you. Sure, you can tell your brain to pass on a specific instruction to raise your left index finger, but that’s not controlling your brain. That’s controlling your finger. The brain decides whether it will raise that finger. But all that is for people far smarter than you and me, or at least than me. It’s probably the stuff of theoretical textbooks for at least the next hundred years. So let’s deal with the things we can comprehend.

My compliments on Crazy Diamond, written by Mike Watkinson and Pete Anderson, are many, beginning with the painstaking care the authors took in giving all concerned their due, particularly in the confrontational aspects of this study. It’s easy to say that perhaps the other members of Floyd could have done more to ameliorate the situation. Of course they could have! There’s always more to be done. But if they could have done more, they also could have done less, too. And if they had done more, would it have been the right thing in the right place at the right time? Even if they’d been “batting” .667 (which is double a respectable batting average!), would doing the right thing in the right place but at the wrong time been more constructive, or more destructive? When you’re dealing with the human brain, and perception, it’s impossible to say. It’s not simply what you do; how it’s perceived may be more important.

Allow me to illustrate. You’re a happily married man, who one day decides to surprise his working wife by taking her to lunch. But just as you begin crossing the street to her office building, you see her and a colleague laughing as they slip into the hotel next door. What’s the first thing that comes into your mind?

But what if she and the colleague were simply sent over by the boss to check on some visitors staying at the hotel, visitors whom the boss is due to meet with, within the hour? The confrontation, and you know there will be one, may never reach the point where the situation can be reasonably explained, because you’re too busy punching out the guy and your wife. That’s perception, and perception, not facts, has controlled your reaction in this case.

Syd’s family life, to most perceptions, was happy, productive and tolerant. Watkinson and Anderson don’t say he was spoiled, but he was certainly master of his own destiny in many respects. When he told his father he wanted to play a guitar, his father got him one that same day. When he was a teenager, his house was the hangout for all the kids in his group. They knew they had a great deal of freedom there, and so Syd always had plenty of friends. Syd was personable, funny, had tolerant and understanding parents, he lived in a nice area, had his own personal space in the house, and he was a chick-magnet. The group didn’t have to sneak a smoke, didn’t have to sneak a beer, and could play their music at the volume they decided was appropriate. They could even get in a little snogging, so long as they weren’t too obvious about it. What more could a young man ask for? What more could his friends ask for?