Rather than waiting until I press the "go" button, they're like the Borg - coming alive in their regeneration cubicle things and wandering the corridors, demanding that "resistance is futile" and that I will give them breakfast or attention, or forcing me to intervene before they start trying to implant mechanical elements into each other's faces.
Beam me out of here, Scotty!
So what would be perfect? To extend the metaphor, what would my holodeck look like?
Right now the idea of doing nothing sounds just perfect. I am thinking that I could just lie there, staring at the ceiling and I could do ... nothing.
And one of the great tragedies of the human condition is that it wouldn't last. I just can't do nothing for any length of time. It's something that retirees the world over have discovered. The great longed for fishing trip has been had, after 6 months of pretending, you realise that you don't really like golf all that much (and I can't blame you there), growing tomatoes turned out not to need all your concentration and your wife really can't cope with you being in the house all day, every day. So you go back to work - a failed retiree. You just can't do nothing.
So can I do slightly more than nothing - just enough to stop the engine from stalling? Read a Tom Clancy novel or something by Dan Brown? Engage in enraged debate on the internet about things that are really none of my business? Perhaps one more top ten list of ways to solve another of my overwhelming first world problems - coping with the fact that not everyone likes the cut of my pyjamas or something like that.
Nope. My mind rebels against stupidity and works itself up into a state about it to such a level that putting the Lego ship back together for the fourth time in 20 minutes seems preferable.
Perfection, I think, involves having a good balance of meaningful things to do, exercise and cups of coffee. Finish the day off with a classical music concert of some kind on the radio - reading a good book, satisfied in the knowledge that I've made some contribution to the world, expanded my mind a little and not overdone it.
And very limited and controlled contact with other people.
Especially my children. I love them dearly but, at the moment, my two year old is covering me in "Sign here" stickies that he's found somewhere and I'm being forced to watch "Dumb ways to die - Minecraft Parody" by the next up in the pecking order.
Is this set-up some kind of divine joke? God tests us with endless distractions and annoyances and then, if we deal with all of that without becoming homicidal, we get eternal retirement growing celestial tomatoes and annoying our spouses by taking up the harp to give ourselves something to do.
The bagpipes. Invented by Scottish men to get out of doing jobs around the house. "Take those bloody things outside - take them up on a hill or something - you're making too much noise in here!"
Mary had kids. Maybe she can help us deal with God's landmine-in-a-whoopie-cushion sense of humour:
To thee do we cry
Poor banished children of Eve
To thee do we send forth our sighs,
Mourning and weeping in this vale of tears.
Turn then, most gracious advocate
Thine eyes of mercy towards us
And after this, our exile ...
Salve Regina.
Notes:
The first still is from Bomfunk's "Freestyler" - a clip in which a kid uses a mini-disc remote control to pause people in the world around him. That's right, "mini-disc" kids, technology from the olden days.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymNFyxvIdaM
Dumb Ways to Die started as a railway safety ad for the Melbourne Metro but went viral in a big way. In case you haven't seen it - or just want another laugh
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJNR2EpS0jw
Sound and Fury is published every Monday and Thursday mornings - Australian Eastern Standard Time. Please share with your friends.
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