An Exploratory Essay in Quasi-scientific Parables

An Exploratory Essay in Quasi-scientific Parables


There was a wise man that once said that if there were any work to be done that it would be done by its sheer existence alone. However, the time frame in which it would get done was dependent on the variable attitudes to the nature of the work itself. He was going to write a book expounding on this theory but he never got around to it. This is very likely due to the fact that he could not find anything in his house because he never managed to do his housework. The city mistook his house for a forgotten landfill and as far as anyone knows he died of oxygen deprivation after a few years.
Fortunately, his life’s work was passed into the world on a sheet of paper and his death did not really matter. He was a great thinker, but all great thinkers are, he was a flash-in-the-pan. After his first theory of the conditional existence and non-existence of work, he went on to other fields of probability and achieved other astounding insights, which he intended to write on the paper with the first theory but set it aside because after all that thinking he needed a good nap, a form of work higher on his priority list.
Any great thinker will tell you that a good nap is a lot of work. One wise man has been quoted on many occasions for his thought-provoking observations on the challenging field of pillow fluffing. “A pillow is only as good as the quality of its fluff, which lasts in direct proportion to the length of patience in the person who is responsible for fluffing it and the heart rate of those observing the person using said fluffed pillow.” This was received with broad yawns from his fellow researchers at the convention when he first revealed it. They were not fully convinced so the rest of the day was spent in pursuit of proof of the statement.
This lead to the next major theory in probable napping; more fulfilling naps will be taken in higher frequency in larger groups of people. A more specific correlative was attached about the increase of fulfilling naps amongst people of similar professions and age category. This correlative was tested with various degrees of success. The wise men found it to be absolutely true and went on to continually practice it, as often as 300 days a year, stopping only to take a vacation when they became too stressed. Another test was conducted by a zealous graduate student in a preschool setting. He hypothesized that if the preschoolers were assigned jobs, then their naps would be more fulfilling. They were trained in janitorial aspects concerning the movement of debris with a stiff-bristled implement attached to a long handle commonly referred to as a broom. Before being able to prove anything, he was smothered by a fire blanket when on of his subjects accidentally knocked the hasp with his broom. This gave birth to the modern-day laboratory science maxim, “Don’t give brooms to little kids.” which has subsequently saved many lives. Further investigations into the correlative stopped after the incident and have as of yet to resume.
The failure of work resumption was explored by a man of indifferent intelligence recently. He made leaps and bounds in the field. He discovered that the tendency of thought was to think that if work was started and no one was working on it any further that it must be done. He hypothesized that this was due to the nature of work itself, in the fact that work has a goal and that anything towards that goal brings the work closer to completion. Later research showed that the consensus of people believe work left unfinished would become finished if other work was done elsewhere. The man would have probably made many more discoveries but he went on coffee break and never returned to the subject.
Another aspect of … well never mind.