I'm Gretchen Rubin and this is a little happier.

I love teaching stories, but there is a story like this that I've always found a bit annoying.

It's the story of an experiment initiated by the Washington Post columnist Jean Winegarten.

In 2007, in Cognito, and during the morning rush hour at a metro station in Washington,

DC, the internationally acclaimed violinist Joshua Bell played six classical pieces on the

$3.5 million violin.

He played for about 45 minutes and only a handful of people stopped to listen and about a thousand

people hurried by without a glance.

This situation is explained in several ways.

For instance, it's attributed to an intentional blindness, the phenomenon when we don't perceive

something because we're paying attention to something else.

We don't hear the music because we're rushing to the subway.

Or maybe it's sometimes pointed out people may have ignored Joshua Bell because he had

an open violin case and they didn't want to help or give money to him.

And this story is often noted rooffully to say, oh, look how distracted we are.

We miss so much.

We're not paying attention.

A great musician is playing and no one can take a moment to listen.

But I think this test is a bit unfair.

How many of us can really recognize an outstanding performance of classical music?

How many people can truly judge for themselves out of context that a performer is truly a master?

And also how many people have a deep appreciation for classical music?

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