I NEED A REBOOT

If I were a PC, I could press ctr, alt and del and close any processes that are causing me problems, or run a system restore, and go back to a point when I worked properly. I could even reset myself and start again with a new operating system.

Sadly, I'm a mere human and can't. This is very unfortunate because, my programs will not load properly, my drivers may have been corrupted, and my system will not respond correctly to commands. I could have picked up a worm, or been infected with malware.

I must confess that I feel a little aggrieved by this glaring flaw in the design of us human beings. I'm not one of those who think that Bill Gates is some kind of god, far from it, but if he had been in charge of creating Adam and Eve, some kind of facility for us to return back to defaults, would have been included. However there may have been conditions applied to the use of these, and god may have had to agree that no other tools be used even if they are better, or cheaper.

I can't but feel that if God had given himself more than six days to create everything in the universe, and only one day to create us. Then I think he might have come up with a better design. Let's face it we have many inherent faults. Microsoft of course wouldn't have been able to come up with anything in a day. Though some of their creations, feel like they were. Windows Media Player, Internet Explorer, Windows 8 and 8.1 for example.

Take how we are powered for instance. Out of the many different power sources, this omnipotent deity's choice was to provide power via the ingestion of dead animals and plants. This is not only inefficient, but also, for me morally questionable, for it means that to live I must kill.

To me the biggest error in our design is how vulnerable our hardware and software is to damage. It's no wonder that we do not come with a manufacturer's guarantee, otherwise the claims department in paradise would be overwhelmed.

Someone suggested that I should read the manual. So I picked up the Bible to find that this handbook had two sections entitled “The Old Testament” and “The New Testament”. Followed by an appendix with the heading “Revelations” I thought “Now I get it ”, The Old Testament manual for the beta version of us, New Testament for the full version, and a “How To” appendix.

After reading these I was very disappointed. It started fine with a brief description of how half us were made of clay and the other half made from a rib taken from the first half. Similar to how every new version of Windows is built on the bones of the previous one, and a warning to keep away from anything Apple related. The rest of this document read more like an idea for a video game than a technical manual. Full of battles, death and destruction, a giant killing, a worldwide flood, a wizard performing magic tricks, culminating in the destruction of everything.

I thought I should speak to an expert in religious technology. Surely he'd know how our component parts worked, and how to contact the manufacturer. He told me he specialized in a hidden program called The Soul. Apparently it's separate from our operating system, but without it we would be unable to boot up. I assumed it was similar to the bios.

He told me he couldn't help me, but referred me to a wi fi communication application called Prayer. Where we can state our concerns and problems. It's different to Cortana and Ask Google. Instead of giving you answers directly, God constantly monitors this app, and if certain secret criteria is met, he authorises an automatic repair. This process is know as A Miracle. So gave this a try, but unfortunately either I didn't establish a connection, or I didn't match the criteria because nothing happened.

Having failed to contact the creator, it was time for a different approach. So I took my problem to the local medical geek, who referred me to an engineer who specialised in discovering the source of problems in human machines. So I went to his workshop where he used various pieces of equipment to study me closely inside and out, and test all my constituent parts. Then finally I had an answer for my failure to function correctly as a human device.

The problem lies with the manufacture of my motherboard. Someone in the quality control department in heaven dropped a clanger, allowing faulty main boards be used when building us. This has failed to function properly, seriously affecting the flow of information to and from my processor. God may not play dice with the universe, as Einstein believed, but he does when it comes to our construction. Many of us will prematurely fail while others will continue to work perfectly until their components wear out.

If I were really a PC I would replace any components that are faulty. Unfortunately I can't because even the brightest of boffins have yet to discover how to repair or replace a broken human baseboard .

So this piece of technology that I call "Me" will continue to have problems, and under perform. There will be times when I want to throw it through the nearest window out of frustration. However my cpu and ram while a little slower, remain sound. There are a few missing files on my hard disk, but most of the data I've gathered remains uncorrupted in storage and accessible.

I will have a struggle to run my software, and I may have to put myself in sleep mode more often, but I'm not quite ready to power down this old desktop and sign out permanently.