This
is my one hundredth post! That’s bloody exciting isn’t it?
No? Oh, well I thought it was, but fine, you know best I
suppose. If not exciting it would at least be something to talk
about around the water cooler. Not especially scintillating,
sure, and I suppose a relatively short conversation, but it would
make a nice change from the repetitive dross that usually frequents
the workplace. Not that it’s exclusively drivel you
understand, sometimes someone will engage me in a to and fro that
requires a couple of brain cells work together. Occasionally,
I’ll even manage to get everyone involved in some crusty chit chat
about current affairs, politics or the human condition. Y’know,
really dull, trivial stuff like that. I’m not claiming to be
a genius, that very much speaks for itself, but I am concerned that
the increasing banality of shallow conversation, combined with a
workload that is less than mentally stimulating, might be destroying
my brain.
I
am willing to admit that part of the problem is me. Part of.
The usual male conversations about football, keeping fit or
bedding ‘the birds’ aren’t really what I want to talk about,
neither are the traditionally female subjects of soap operas,
‘structured’ reality programmes, fake tan, the weather or how all
men are dicks. Because I am one, and we aren’t. So I
don’t make it easy for others seeking to strike up discourse, or
for myself for that matter, and I’m aware that may be a part of it.
Part. The rest is everybody else. You see, the only
way I can get through a day of work is to keep my brain distracted,
otherwise it becomes acutely aware of the futility of our position.
In order to do this I need to ponder things, hear other peoples
opinions, try to work out why they have them and just generally turn
interesting things over in my mind. Unfortunately, everyone has
a different view on what is interesting. Some people – and
this will sound absolutely mental – some people even talk about
work. Work!! While they’re actually at work! So
it’s difficult.
Now
then, onto my brain, from which all this bollocks is born.
I
have noticed recently that my thinking muscle has developed it’s
own defence mechanism in order to not have to listen to rubbish.
When the chat veers towards the mind rotting, I don’t even
hear the words anymore. Instead, my mind creates a series of
visual prompts in the style of Dance Dance Revolution: nod, nod,
smile, smile, look thoughtful, nod, look surprised, nod, smile, nod,
say ‘really?’ – PERFECT ROUND. Except not perfect round,
because I have no idea what was said or what I’m meant to do next.
Everyone does this to an extent, but my brain switches off
alarmingly quickly and not always because I’ve told it to, in fact,
it does it when I’m actively trying to pay attention. It’s
as if it’s just had enough at this point and even if I want to
listen, if Brain deems the subject matter to be unworthy of his time,
it’s no dice. Alongside this irritation is the fact that the
less you think, talk, debate or argue, the less able to do
these things you become, and so the less you do them, and so on.
Much like how my vocabulary shrinks if I stop reading for a
while, my brain seems to function less with each working day of
nonsense, fluff and repeated inconsequentialities. This has the
knock on effect of making it very difficult to get on with any out of
work activities – like this, or script writing, or anything that
isn’t sitting and drooling a little – because once Brain has shut
up shop, he doesn’t like to open for the evening trade.
This
is why I spend my spare minutes in the office scouring news websites
and checking social media sites, so that my mind has some fuel, so
that I can stay awake, so that I can maintain some sort of smug sense
of superiority. So that I can stay alive. And you can
help save my life and others like it but probably better. Just
engage us in a little intellectual conversation, if you have to fake
it, then do. Just don’t let our grey matter commit suicide.
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