Sunday, August 29, 2010

The Ultimate in Recycling

Lest anyone think that my blog entries are the result of spontaneous genius (you were thinking that weren't you?) I must admit that I usually write drafts of them in long hand first. So what appears to be spontaneous genius is actually well drafted mediocrity. It's only sensible that my creations should undergo a certain amount of turd polishing before they reach that bastion of style and sensitivity that is the internet.

I write drafts of my blogs in my commonplace book which is a particular piece of pretentiousness which I got from a biography of HP Lovecraft. Apparently commonplace books were used to record recipes, favourite bible passages and uplifting thoughts. My commonplace book has no recipes or bible passages and it would take a more egotistic person than me to describe the thoughts in it as uplifting, or even thoughts. In truth its just a notebook but I use the term commonplace book because the term notebook seems somehow commonplace. Page after page of crabbed writing in friendly red ink helps to fool idle viewers into thinking I might be doing something with my life; idiots. Certain people are still expecting the great Australian novel to rise from these pages like a monster from its slab. Instead they get this blog flopping about like a landed fish.

Is writing a blog entry about my blog (and not the first one either) an exercise in introspection or merely an act of monstrous narcissism? Personally I think I'm too beautiful, intelligent and talented to indulge in narcissism so it must be introspection. To be introspective is to look within oneself to see what is there. I do this from time to time and I always see the same things; lungs, heart and various squishy red things that I can't quite identify but would probably miss if they suddenly decided to leave. In my wallet is an organ donor card but I strongly suspect that any surgeon presented with my organs for transplant would decide that the patient would be better off taking their chances with the original.

Transplants are pretty awesome though and getting more so by the day. They're doing whole faces now which might be a bit awkward if the recipient turned up at a party where the donor was expected. Eventually transplanting will be reduced to a game of mix and match. Victor Frankenstein's dream realised in reverse. I wonder how long we could keep the transplant game going for? Take a liver from one person, implant it in another and if that person had an organ donor card and some really terrible luck it could move on to person number three. Perhaps this is the key to immortality, not as individuals but as reusable parts to be spread around. How much of a long dead person would you have to reassemble before you could legally claim they were the same individual? Probate law might suddenly become very interesting indeed.

This is the sort of thing I think about when I allow my mind to wander; proof, if proof were needed, that it shouldn't be allowed out unsupervised.

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