I was in a doctor’s office the other day and as usual my brain was going so far over the speed limit of life that it was almost hazardous. As usual. I looked around. No book. Magazines. No magazines. Pamphlets? No pamphlets! Posters on the wall? I got up and read those. Medical posters, fairly complex, but I had them done in a minute or two. A couple I did in 20-30 seconds. I sat down. Bored again! It’s like driving 😯 mph when everyone around you is going 20-30. You are always getting roadblocked and it is very frustrating.
So I looked around the room. There were shower curtains for privacy over the patient table. These things hang on chains. I tried to figure out the exact midpoint in the series of curtain chains. Got frustrated fast so I counted them. 15 chains. Ok so the middle is between the 7th and 8th chain. I go to the 7th and 8th chain both ways to try to find the middle. I get it after a bit. Now I am bored again. A new game. Look away from the curtain and look back again and try to find that exact middle spot from sheer memory of what it looked like due to its place in the curtains, distance from surrounding chains, etc. Took a little bit but then I could do that very well. I could look away and look back and hit that exact middle point every time.
Bored again.
Now I am looking around at the ceiling. The ceiling contains these blocks that look like either squares or rectangles. Going east to west, there are 4-5 blocks put together that make up the ceiling and there are three rows of these going north to south. That’s your ceiling. Maybe 15 squarish things. So I try to find the exact middle again. Pretty soon I get that there are five block things and each one is exactly as large as the other. There are five going east to west. Two one way, two another and one in the middle. So the middle of the room east-west is the middle of the center squarish thing. Wa-la!
Now you might think doing this that I might be good at math or some visuospatial thing. Maybe I could work in construction or engineering. Actually I am horrible at all of those things and I hated those courses in school. But even things that I am horrible at I might be as good as or better than at than the average person.
Now I have got them north to south. Pretty soon it’s the same deal. I think five squarish things north-south too. All the same size and the same size as the east-west ones. Wa-la! The room is some sort of a perfect square! How interesting. Are rooms generally designed this way? And why? Damn room designers are smart.
Bored again. I am now looking at the keypad on the phone. I think there are nine or ten dials on it with numbers and letters. Find the middle one again. I find it. Look away and try to find it right away by memory without counting. Got it.
Bored again. There is some thing on the door with a bunch of buttons on it. Quickly count the buttons and try to find the middle one again. Look away and try to find the middle one without counting. Got it.
I am looking around the room. You guessed it. Bored again.
This is what my life is like or can be like. I walk around all day long doing crazy and senseless calculations like this making little tests and games simply because ordinary life is just too boring for me.
