Keep it Ticking Over

I'm so bored, my brain is barely operational.

As most people know, the brain has to maintain a minimum level of activity, or else it will stop working, decompose, and spread any remaining nutrients into the soil (or - if buried in a coffin -the coffin).

I'm working at absolute minimum right now. I could not be any less mentally active without forfeiting my rights as a sentient mass.

How do I maintain this dangerously low level of activity, whilst ensuring I continue being?

Well, if I feel myself drifting off into nothingness, I give my brain a quick prod with a philosophical question. That usually gives me enough juice to continue for another quarter of an hour or so.

I generally have a few stock questions that I can use as mental top-ups. It's the equivalent of trying to keep a computer running by connecting it to different citrus fruits. It's barely effective, but it is effective. Barely.

Some of the most common stimulating questions are:

1) If a man were to eat a sandwich, what colour would the crusts be?

2) How many roads must a man walk down, if his daily commute takes him down a road broken up by an infinite number of shrubs?

3) Do pancakes feel pain?

4) Does French toast feel bread (bread is English for pain)?

5) All life is a result of a series of chemical reactions, preconditioned by their innate properties, governed by a series of fundamental laws. In what sense, if any, can human beings be considered moist?

Questions 1-4 are for general thought maintenance. Question 5 is used when I need a real boost (such as after watching golf).

I can never ultimately answer these questions, or they will lose their power to make me think (and I'd have to come up with new ones). Unfortunately, there are answers. I just have to make sure I forget them.

***

I know you're curious, so I'll give you the answers. Just don't remind me that I've written them down, or I'll be in trouble.

ANSWERS:
1) Brown

2) It's still just one road

3) No

4) This is nonsensical

5) The moistness of humanity is a relative concept, and any answer would be patronising or arrogant, and sometimes people go swimming or sweat, which has some influence, and some people are subject to rain or condensation, or work with liquids, and then there are towels to consider, and we were all amphibians once, except for Mark Curry who used to present Blue Peter because he's composed of gases, and it's all subjective anyway. So, y'know, whatever.

I shouldn't have tried answering number five, because now my brain is at a dangerously high level.

My usual level is 0.5. My current, dangerous, level is 1.1.

The national average is 60.

I need a lie-down.