Work song 2

1. FACTORIES
The other day I was sitting in an office. Everything I could see had been made in a factory except a) my hands poking out from my sleeves and b) those funny bits of the side of your nose you can see, one side from each eye.

Also c), Vinod Krishnan. He had a theory he wanted to run by me.

"So I saw this YouTube video the other day," he said, "and this retired Canadian politician said there are extraterrestrials living among us. That's right: extraterrestrials. So I was wondering what the percentage was and how would we know?"

I looked at him.

"I mean," he said, "do you think it's 1%? 10%? 50%?"

I looked at him some more.

"And THEN," he said, "I wondered if that's what's driving the increase in fossil fuel use. THAT could be what's behind global warming &c."

We looked at each other for a little bit more. Neither of us had been made in factories - no! We'd been made in the crucible of LIFE. I gave him my best let's-just-weigh-up-your-theory-about-extraterrestrials face.

I said, "Can I be blunt? Conspiracy theories bug me. They're an obsession with trying to see behind the veil of things, while the world is being stolen from under us in broad daylight. This place we live is being carved up and poisoned and instead these guys want to search for documents about 9/11 or chemtrails or lizard people or whatnot. You know what I think conspiracy theories are? Displaced environmental grief. We're killing the thing we live in and it's horrible to know that and we don't want to know that so we look somewhere else. You don't need aliens to explain climate change, just us and some bad decisions."

"It can't be us." he said. "I'm a simple man, but even I know you don't shit where you eat. IT CAN'T BE HUMANS."

"Sure it can," I said. I was four billion years old and so was he and so are you, so I can speak frankly. Us four billion year olds hafta stick together. "Humans are open-ended. You can turn yourself into a Buddha or Hitler and there's nothing inherent in us that stops that. We're capable of huge evil. Look at the Holocaust: that was all just humans. But being human we're also not condemned to evil and stupidity. We can do something else if we want."

That settled, we moved on to talk about whether mushrooms are aliens or not.

2. NOW I'M SITTING
Now I'm sitting in another office, again with Vin, showing him this story. He's laughing- oh wait, he's pulling out his phone.

"I hafta be somewhere!" I say and he's all, "Nononono, you hafta see this!" and I'm all "No, it's BECAUSE of what you're about to do that I hafta be somewhere else."

"Yeah yeah yeah," he says, and then it's all "Aliens this!" and "Aliens that!" and "Maybe we're looking in the wrong place, i.e. outer space, and maybe ALIENS ARE ACTUALLY INSIDE US."

"Dude," I say. "What do you think the word 'alien' even means?"

"Exactly," he says. "Ex-act-ly."

3. AS SOON AS I HAVE TYPED THIS I WILL OPEN A DOOR WHICH WAS ALSO MADE IN A FACTORY AND THAT WILL BE THE END

Dear forces that collided that I might have another day on this weird living earth

Life is short, so I'm quite pleased to have woken up. Dear forces that collided that I might have another day on this weird living earth: thanks guys! You're the best.

It's also a fine thing, and I'm grateful for it, to be able to walk and talk and see and hear and feel and think. I generally take these things for granted until one of them is impaired by illness or such, but they're fine fine things and I'm damn pleased to have them. Colours! Sounds! Fuck yeah.

Opposable thumbs: you guys rule. Thanks for everything. Say hi to the rest of the fingers for me, too.

I am pleased there is music, especially that first Velvet Underground record: it's like a spiderweb glistening with dew, that thing. I am pleased music evolved into language, too. I know language makes things confusing sometimes, but I'm still glad it's there rather than not, and everything it makes possible. Same goes for consciousness.

And the same goes too for humans. It's easy to focus on what we're not doing that we could, because we're capable of so much. But one day I was sitting in the mall looking at seagulls: how funny they are, how much nuance and complexity there is in their funny ways and social behaviours. And then somehow without meaning to I looked up and saw the humans around me in the same way. Dudes: we are fucking hilarious. Have a look at some humans one time if you don't believe me and you'll know it's true. We are weird miraculous things and even if we never get our shit together I am glad we exist. X

Manipulative People With Clipboards

So I helped run a stall at the Sustainable Living Festival today. Part of my duties involved handing out fliers. The hitch was that I felt like One Of Those Manipulative People With Clipboards who say, "Hi! Do you care about animals?" and I am averse to those people and will even go around the block to avoid talking to them. Also maybe I felt that way because people were trying to avoid talking to me: ouch. Reader: I needed a new thing.

I looked for something to say that was true but exercised no moral pressure, so as not to be One Of Those People. I decided to go with, "Would you like some brightly-coloured paper? It is very brightly coloured." Reader: it worked a treat. People are apparently suckers for brightly-coloured paper when you put it plain and simple like that, and if you think about it why would anyone not be? It is very brightly coloured, after all.