Just A Lazy Man, In A Complex World.

        After a lifetime of observation of both myself and others, I've finally concluded that laziness is as natural as having eyes. Just think what you do when, say, the batteries in your TV remote start dying. Do you do the sensible thing and get some more, so you can suddenly change over in case they throw Hollyoaks at you without warning? Of course you don't. You do what everyone else does: presses the button harder, because that's clearly how they work these days. Or, if it gets really bad and you want to break out the big guns, you take the cover off and, for reasons that are clearly not backed up by any logic whatsoever, you roll them around a bit in the hope that this will remind them of their duties and they'll buck up their ideas. Then, when they totally give up and the TV remote takes on the shape and usefulness of a child's toy phone, you still don't do anything about it for weeks. What about that squeaky door that annoys the hell out of you every time you open it? You could go and get the WD40, but........ well, it's suddenly not that bad, right? In fact, you could leave it to squeak until it makes a tune! Or, like these people, you might discover that it sounds like Chewbacca, and the Internet absolutely must know!

        I'd like to think that these are isolated incidents, but apparently not. Mrs Max's Sister has a kettle with a broken switch, so it doesn't stay down in the "make-hot-water" position. Unfortunately, getting a replacement involves going outside, where it might be cold, and that might involve communicating with other people. So what's the obvious solution? Well, it seems that putting a potato on the switch and making sure you remember to take it off when it finishes to avoid a cup of tea turning into flamey death is clearly the viable solution. Then, there's a writer I knew who had a broken Q on his keyboard. Rather than pop out to Office World and get another one, maybe with some fancy wireless deal on it so he could type from his sofa, he simply ensured he never used a word that involved the letter Q. Luckily, he wised up before he had to write a quick press-release about QinetiQ working in Quebec. I've been guilty of unashamed laziness as well. For example, the aerial on my TV is one of those dinky little deals that sits next to it, as my house didn't come with one for some reason. Naturally, like anything technology-based that costs £4.99, it doesn't work. I could instead pay someone called Dave with a blue polo shirt some currency to go and install a proper one for me, but.......... screw it, I just won't watch TV! No, really, if I get two hours of viewing a week, then that's a lot for me. And how many times have you woken up with the urge to pee fighting against the wish to remain in your comfy warm bed? You end up lying there, hoping the bladder-fairy will somehow come along and amicably resolve the problem eventually.

        All of that is fine, mostly because it applies to everyone. But if we steer away from TVs and kettles and getting up, we do sometimes forget to switch the laziness off. By this, I mean wanting an easy answer to every problem. For example; how do we fix the economy? Couldn't tell you. No idea. Not a clue. Do I know every single boring little facet that contributes how the economy runs? No, because they're amazingly complicated on their own, let alone how they affect each other. If I said "libor rate", you might think I was describing last year's holiday destination. If I started talking about the long term effects of macroeconomic growth trends, I'd have to bring a stick to constantly wake you up with. It's an immeasurably difficult subject to get your head around, so when I hear people say that to fix the economy, we need to: get rid of them immigrants/make more industry (somehow)/encourage banking/discourage banking/introduce socialism/ban socialism (and a menagerie of alternatives), I find myself staring at the intricate weave on my shoelaces to avoid bursting into a rant. What about stopping terrorism? Well, it's "simply" a matter of bombing them/not bombing them/educating them/ignoring them/understanding them/fighting them, then you leave it for twenty minutes and hey presto! Problem solved with enough time left over to sit down in front of the TV. Then get up and turn it on manually because the batteries have been dead for two weeks and you only remember just after you get comfy.

        Really, it's acceptable, when someone asks you how to fix all our problems and get everything tickety-boo again, to say "not a clue mate". That's fine. It's honest, at the very least. I remember a lady on the radio, and ordinary member of the public who declared that she could happily run an international bank, because it was "easy". Really? This simply tells me that she didn't have the first clue how to run one. The previous lot may have got it wrong, but this doesn't mean it's easy as Sunday morning.

        So, it's ok to say that you don't have an answer, but here's the clincher...

        Feel free to then go out and research it! You only have to type in "goog" for your browser to remember you've been here before and to guess the rest for you and, there you have it: facts!

        So if you want to see something change, then remember that unfortunately not every answer comes in handy bite-size, easy to digest one-liners. Go out, learn the facts, and you can actually come to a conclusion that is accurate, rather than gleamed from the headlines of yesterday's newspaper. Then, naturally, everyone will assume you are now a genius. Attractive people will launch themselves at you. Awesome people will want to hang out with you, to bask in your greatness. 

        Then, they'll ask you how to fix their constantly beeping fire alarm, and will slap their foreheads in astonishment when you suggest, like everyone else does, to "just take the battery out".

(photo credits to Chainat and David Castillo Dominici)

Tweet