Counting Sheep

I couldn't get to sleep last night. For some reason, my brain was whirring like a whirring brain, and I kept thinking and arguing and ranting to myself.

This will occasionally happen. It's usually about politics or some other moral issue. I start to rehearse arguments with idiots in my own head. I am outraged at their views, and try to persuade them with eloquent fury and cold hard facts. I rarely do convince them, because they don't live inside my brain. It's difficult to win an argument with a figment of your imagination. Straw men can be quite aloof.

Some of the things that I was furious about last night were gun ownership, health care, The Daily Mail (at lot of my anger was directed at that), Page 3, and pretty much anything else.

I was stirring up these arguments for no apparent reason. I suppose I enjoyed the righteous fury. There was an adrenaline rush, putting those people in their place. But it meant that I couldn't get to sleep.

It would be OK if I could make a tidy conclusion. If I'd worked out exactly what I wanted to say, I could let the matter lie. I could even transcribe it as a blog post, and be thought of as quite the polemicist.

But I never reach an end. The same thoughts keep churning and churning, the same objections are raised, the same stupidity is identified. It's like being on a rollercoaster powered by your own ego, and the rollercoaster is determined to teach me a lesson. It won't stop, and the safety restraints hurt my neck. I'm wasting my time and accomplishing nothing. There's no use in setting the world to rights if the world is contained within my skull. That world can never be saved.

I was most angry with things that seemed to me (and still do seem to me) to be OBVIOUSLY STUPID. There's a campaign to remove the topless girls from Page 3 at the moment. There are some interesting arguments about the objectification of women vs freedom of choice. But the real argument seems to be: COME ON. Having a topless woman in a newspaper for no reason is CLEARLY STUPID. It's just obviously a ridiculous idea. STOP MAKING THE HUMAN RACE LOOK BAD.

I don't think my debate skills have improved with age. I hope I don't resort to such irrational discourse in my waking life. I might become one of those people (those idiots), who think they can identify a clear-cut morality.

Of course, unlike all those other people, I'm right. They may think they're right (in exactly the same way as I think I'm right), but it just so happens that they're actually wrong and I'm actually right. I'm me and I'm right. A strange coincidence, but there it is.

I wonder why my brain wanted to rob me of sleep. Maybe it just wanted a few more hours of activity, so was stirring things up, like someone throwing a beehive into a synagogue. My brain played me for a fool.

Well, the joke's on him (I assume my brain is male, despite the lipstick). Now I'm so tired I can barely string two thoughts together! He's useless!

Now I'm the one laughing! Or I would be, if the brain wasn't the driving force behind that particular physical activity.

I'm breathing, though. Don't need the brain for that. No, sir.

Paul 1 - Brain 0

(Legs - 2)