What makes sense to do?

I have a powerful and peculiar brain compared to a bug’s brain. But it is just like yours – except that it is unique. And so is yours. Even a bug is not precisely like every other bug in its thinking and actions - such as they are.

Where is the sense in this? you are asking. But it was only my brain talking earlier, and there seemed to have been something sensical at the time.

But here is one puzzle. What is worth doing? How is it not an entirely frivolous use of my time to write this apparent nonsense – and yet somehow it means something to me.

I could grow beans and rice with my time, carrots, bok choy, black-seeded Simpson lettuce. Or like my brother-in-law, I could buy and sell, sort and schlep, trundle stuff from storage lockers to Ebay to flea markets and still barely make enough to provide for his family the way he would like to do.

All the while I don’t get paid at all for writing poetry and other nonsense.

Consider all that unbelievable amount of wasted time before we were born, and then there will be all that unbearably long time after we are gone, and then in between there’s all of this. And yet we burn this brief candle as if everything matters – doing what? And why?

Why not just sit on a bench with a cardboard sign that reads, ‘will eat food for spare change – will sleep in the scrub woods on the edge of town for nothing.’

Some of those brains are damaged and skewed – in ways that are different from yours and mine.

And yet the time will pass no matter what we do.

What is the measure of worthiness when all will be consumed?

I never had the chance to meet the man who made the most exquisite baskets out of pine needles and bits of grasses and stuff that I saw at a friend’s house one evening. Put a match to them and all that time and effort put into those baskets would be ash in an instant. And who needs pine needle baskets, anyway? And anyway, the man, too, is gone.

We are filled from birth with drive and abilities, with desires and energy. And so each of us does what each of us finds to do, the apparent difference between necessity and frivolous so glaring, yet so insignificant.

I admire the tall, brown leather boots my wife bought – the animal cared for and killed for its hide, the skin worked, tanned, shaped and stitched. Then on the outside of each boot someone placed three brass-colored metal buckles, somewhat for function, mostly for style. There’s also an intricately fashioned zipper running down the inside, a long-toothed slide from the top to the arch so that the boot can slide over the heel, the foot coming to rest on a crafted bed. Hands were involved and hands made the machines that were also used.

These boots are no accident, but who really needs boots such as these? The bugs and the beasts of the fields? Consider the lily; they toil not, neither do they spin.

Why not just lay ourselves down and die?

And why do some write on corrugated scraps of cardboard and I – I write my printed and pretty-sounding words. And men and women, and sometimes little children, toil for their survival and for my survival while a contrived and accidental system provides easy opportunities for some and harsh gain – even loss – for others.

Oh Jesus! You left so many questions with only the hints of answers.

You said that God said, ‘You fool, this night your soul shall be required of you, then whose shall these things be, which you have prepared?’

But who or what made us this way in the first place?

And what else are we supposed to do with our time? Without food we will not eat. Without art, we’d rather starve.

What nonsense would you compare to my nonsense? Or flip it. What makes sense for you to do?

The next question to ask is ‘why not?’

The human species is a contrary species. When we enter a situation in which a decision must be made, we usually ask ‘why? And frankly, we will generally come up with the wrong answer at least half the time just out of general cussedness.

This is amply verified by a study I think I once read. Now although I am going to try to recount the details to you with general accuracy, you should be warned that when I considered whether or not to largely make up some of the statistics I asked myself, why not?

In this significant study which tried to understand why in some countries 80 % of the driving public were willing to declare themselves to be organ donors and in other countries only 20 % did so, the researchers came to a somewhat surprising conclusion. The conclusion was surprising mostly because they had failed to pay close attention to millennia of human behavior. It turned out that in countries in which more people went to church or more people drove pickup trucks or more people ate a proper sit down breakfast, those facts did not correlate at all with whether they were willing to donate their bodily organs when they no longer needed them. It came down to ‘opt in’ or ‘opt out.’

In other words, it mattered most if the question at the DMV, or whatever it’s called were these studies were conducted, was worded like this: If you wish to be an organ donor, check this box, OR instead like this: If you do not wish to be an organ donor, check this box. The same choice - but not the same question. Why or why not.  The results: 20 % versus 80 % - give or take.

Now I don’t wish to compare human beings to computers, but our brains have been programmed by millennia of prior generations passing along patterns to the next generation so that we remain largely unconscious of our decision making strategies. Unless somebody does a study.

Like the computers we created in our own image, much of our behavior is shaped by binary operations. At countless levels we can only choose yes or no. To be or not to be. But the universe is analogue. And yet our choices, even apparently multiple choices, often break down into do I or don’t I. And this after we’ve asked ‘why?’ or ‘why not?’

Consider my experience. And though it’s true that human beings aren’t all alike, human beings are all alike. Studies have shown this. And if anyone was paying attention, they would realize that opposing statements are often true or false.  Either/Or. GIGO (Garbage in, garbage out.)

So. I wake up in the morning and consciousness intrudes on blissful sleep. A mental picture of possible futures begins to form. I remember that I have nothing important to do before eleven.

I don’t have to go to the bathroom. I am as warm and comfortable as I can be. As long as I keep asking the question, why on earth should I get out of bed, I don’t move. As with our computers, my central processing unit repeatedly sends that query to my consciousness, why don’t you get out of bed? My answer is always the same. Why should I?

But then other information intrudes. The thought occurs to me that if I got up I could have oatmeal or bacon, and I think: why not? I’m up.

Now I’m not suggesting that we are automatons; that we have no choices. Free will apparently abounds. But if we ask ourselves the wrong question, we are likely to make the wrong decision.

To give ourselves at least a fifty-fifty chance we should ask ‘why not?’ as often as we ask ‘why?’

Now there are more forks in your daily path than you can shake a stick at - 457,382.6 decision points to be precise – on average. Now 92 % of those decision points are largely within the unconscious realm so never mind about them. Of the remaining 8 %, only about .67 % are at all significant. That still comes to more than 300 important choices every day, statistically speaking. Your own number might vary.

If you almost always ask ‘why?’ it will take you forever to get out of bed in the morning. If, when you’re faced with the choice of going for a walk around the block instead of scrolling down through more of that facebook a little longer and the question you pose for yourself is, ‘why?’ as in why go for a walk, two thirds of the time you’ll stay parked at the computer. If on the other hand you are asking yourself whether you should pick up a book and read awhile and you frame the choice with ‘why not?’ the odds jump into your favor that you will in fact read a book. This has been studied.

And if you’re considering trying anything new, like a restaurant, or music, or checking out that really interesting bit of sculpture on the corner across from the city building, ask yourself, ‘why not?’ for a change. Same decision to make, different question.

Of course, ‘why?’ should remain the default question when you’re asking yourself whether you should quit your job after you’ve been told to do something ridiculous for the 56^th time, or you’re considering whether to walk out your spouse because he or she just told you your butt looks fat in those jeans. ‘Why not?’ can sometimes be a risky question to ask.

So after all the studies have been considered, I’m not suggesting that anyone should give up their organs prematurely or do anything without thinking carefully about all sorts of things. I’m only asking you to think as much about the questions you pose as you do about the answers.

Why not?