Work Your Mind or Some Such Nonsense

Are silly riddles nonsense or another way to work your mind?

Work Your Mind or Some Such Nonsense

 

“Why is a raven like a writing desk?”  A question posed in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland.  I looked it up on the internet and found several answers that were posted including Poe’s response of “because they both come with inky quills”.  But there were other posts by not so famous people that are worth mentioning.  One boy asking his mother the question got the straight faced immediate response of “because you cannot ride either of them like a bicycle.” 

 

A different book I read by Sidney Sheldon �" If Tomorrow Comes �" had the heroine in solitary confinement attempting to work her mind, asking herself to name 3 impossible things to teach.  In those she named one as being impossible “to explain to a cat the difference between communism and democracy.”

 

So this begs an interesting question in my opinion.  Is it all nonsense?  OR is it as the heroine stated, a way to work your mind?  I mean think about it.  Stop what you are doing right now and think of 3 things that it is impossible to teach.  What do you come up with?  Nonsense or true fact?  The mother who answered her son with the answer to the question of the raven and the writing desk stated a true answer.  I am sure that with a moment to think, you also could come up with a true answer.  It took a moment of your time, but it also took a moment of thought.  It worked your mind.  The beauty is that there is no right or wrong answer, as the answer is whatever you desire it to be.

 

There are many things put on the shelf or turned into computer games and such that are there to work your mind.  Boggle, Scrabble or how about Sudoku?  Or, of course, the many number of games that you can find on the internet, things that others came up with while stretching their minds.  But we are all not cut out to be game designers.  However, we can work our minds. 

 

Next question, lets go back to the riddle of Lewis Carroll, and make one up of our own.  Hmmm ….  Why is a cat like a table?  Well?  What do you come up with?  What did your mind work up? 

 

Now that you have begun, what other things can you think of that can work your mind just as simply? 

Author's Note

Be gentle, this is my first time. Smiles.