Overflow

You see that little hole in the sink? The overflow hole?

Our brains have evolved them. No human can survive without one.

They're not there for draining water. They're there for draining wonder.

A overflow of wonder doesn't just ruin the floor, it bursts the sink.

A big part of what makes humans so successful as a species is the large brain. We can use it to solve problems and communicate. Our thoughts are much better and more complicated than anything a worm can do.

We have the capacity for abstract thought. We can understand ourselves and our environment. We can think conceptually about things. We realise we're alive, and we realise we're going to die.

The latter could have been crippling to our species. By all rights, it should be. The notion that we are temporary and our point of view is subjective, and that the world will carry on without us, should crack our brain porcelain in two.

The disadvantage of an imagination is that you can imagine some pretty messed up stuff.

But we have an overflow hole. When the enormity, the profundity, the bleak, vast, endless, hopeless truth of existence reaches a dangerous level, it all drains away. And we turn on the television. Or worry about the football results. Or think about alphabetising our DVD collection.

The brain has a fail safe that prevents us from being overwhelmed by eternity and infinity. It's how we survive. If we didn't have the overflow hole, we'd just freak out and kill ourselves, or die of a hundred different aneurysms.

Evolution has built us a freak-out airbag. We don't let the universe overwhelm us - not fatally at least. We forget about it long enough to breed and pass on our valuable genes.

Nature is a real lifesaver.

Of course, lots of people are overwhelmed by the universe. Lots of people do kill themselves. Their overflow holes must be blocked up or covered by a flannel.

But for the most part, humans tend to keep on being alive for as long as possible. Even though time and space are incomprehensible, and we're insignificant and significant and everything and nothing and I'd better stop thinking about this.

But the overflow hole doesn't just stop bad things from overwhelming us. The wonder isn't all bad.

The hole also stops us from being overwhelmed by art and beauty and history and science. It stops us being overwhelmed by both the bleak truth and the bright shining glory of truth itself.

Sometimes, I'll be watching an inspirational documentary about a great artist and their amazing works. Or about physics: the amazing depth of our understanding, and the incredible amount we still have left to learn. Or I'll see something mind blowing about the age of the Earth. Or I'll listen to a breathtaking piece of music.

By all rights, I should be permanently screwed up by it. I should flip out and close my eyes and go to bed forever. But I don't.

I just get up the next day and go to work.

The overflow hole keeps everything ticking.

Evolution is a capricious master. It gives with one hand, and takes with the other. And gives us hands in the first place, except for snakes and birds.

We're given the capacity for wonder, but we don't let that wonder interfere with the whole breeding thing.

It's like watching an eclipse through a pin-hole - we get the joy of appreciating celestial poetry, but we're protected from retinal burns.

We've really lucked out as a species.

Unless the overflow hole is just "Nanny Nature" at work, telling us what we can and can't think, infringing our rights to take in as much wonder as we like thank you very much. Those clowns in (the metaphysical equivalent of) Brussels are telling you how to live your life. So what if I want to fill my wonder basin to the top? So what if I want it to overflow? So what if I want to have an aneurysm?

I'm British and I'll die on my own terms!

Oops.

I seem to have fallen into a pit of incongruous satire. My philosophy got hijacked by a blurry metaphor.

Sorry about that. It was all going so well.

Hmm.

I suppose I'd better just go.

***

(But seriously: FUCK libertarians)