A C. Elegans Nematode worm has about 200 neurons. A human has anywhere from 10 - 100 billion. C. Elegan worms are a millimeter long and live for about 2 weeks. They eat, they poop, have sex, they reproduce and they die. Sometimes, if they worms are very lucky, they get captured by scientists and the scientist create little environments for them. Those worms get to poop, have sex, reproduce, navigate labyrinths and die. Sounds boring, right? I beg to differ. To my mind, those worms aren't doing a whole hell of a lot less than we humans do in a lifetime. Especially for those lab worms, I dare say they're actually getting a lot more done than many, maybe most people. So here is my question: what the FUCK are all of our extra neurons for? Okay, granted a worm can't do math. A worm can't drive or raise children or cook pad thai. Fuck they can't even see, but how many extra neurons does that take? If a worm can find another worm to have sex with and also make his way around a teeny tiny maze with only 200 neurons, I bet you it only takes about 5000 neurons to get through an 100 level sociology course at your average American college. I bet you can get an MBA with like 30,000. Maybe 100,000. I guarantee a entire human life can probably carried out very easily with 500,000. Or maybe I'm full of shit, and it would take WAY more neurons. But 100 billion? REALLY? I don't think we need that many. I think all of those extra neurons are up to no damn good. I think those extra neurons are the ones that create doubt and fear and resentment and jealousy and spite, and I for one don't want mine anymore. The extra ones, that is. I probably need about 10,000. I don't need to carry out any very high-level brain function. I'd like to be able to understand the plot of House, but it's pretty much the same every week so hopefully some of my neurons will hold onto what happened to Cameron and 13 last week. I wish I could donate some of my neurons to someone who would use them better. I wish I could give them to a cancer researcher, or a cop or one of the writers of Glee. Not to say that any of those people are dumb (well, Glee, Papa Don't Preach?? REALLY?)but I just know that I'm not using mine for any good purpose other than to create imaginary fights and problems and to talk myself out of doing all the things that I am capable of doing, so I'd like to give them to someone who would put them to better use. I recently heard an anecdote about people who were given lobotomies. All of their symptoms of depression and psychosis were gone, but when their brain chemistry was tested nothing had changed. It's not that they had actually been cured. Their dopamine was still super low. They were still very crazy, its just that the procedure had cause them to stop caring. It had disconnected one center of neurons from another center of neurons and the neurons couldn't gossip about how much everything sucks anymore. (I'm not really sure how a lobotomy works, but you get my driftu.) I feel like if I nixed a bunch of my neurons I'd just stop caring and stressing, and be able to live my life. Like a worm. Blissfully unaware of all the great societal pressures and stresses that we humans believe we have to bear because we have all of these extra neurons that need SOMETHING to do. As I write this I realize I'm proposing some serious sci-fi mind control shit. If you make the people dumb they won't ask any questions anymore and the powers that be can do as they please. Well, personally I'm fine with that. As long as I have enough neurons to get a cup of coffee in the morning and at least start a crossword puzzle that's gravy.
My next step is how to get rid of the errant neurons. I've tried the whole heavy drinking thing. They come back in the morning. With a vengeance. I'm told huffing glue kills some brain cells. But I don't even know where to buy industrial strength glue. Crack? I think I'm too dorky to buy it. Back to square one. I guess I'll go to bed, wake up tomorrow morning and start a new labyrinth. Stressing the fuck out as I do.
