I get frequently asked.
"Oh simple!", I reply, "In the morning, I first try to find my phone. When I eventually find it, I realise that I miss my glasses too." After I little probing break I continue, "When I do find them, half an hour later, I can only wonder where I have put my glasses this time."
At this juncture I may receive an understanding smile from my conversation partner, assuming to know the problem all to well. But also expecting, that my obvious exaggeration is my attempt on a joke. Sadly, it is not, but I do not correct, instead I continue, "There goes the first hour of the day, after that I would go shopping, if I could find my car keys that is, but alas, they are real good at hiding, and may well rob the next hour."
By now my opposite is convinced that I am joking and rewards me with the smile that comes with the relive provided by this discovery. To late for correcting now, and so I continue, "Not a problem, as I am much better off having breakfast first."
Should I stop here? or point out the small problem, that in order to make breakfast, I quite likely have to go shopping first. Nah, don't push it, rather bring the story to and end. Too often I miss the cue to stop in time, not today. "By the time I have all these little critters together it is time for lunch anyway. The afternoon I then try to spend just as productive." I conclude, this time indeed joking, even if only slightly, and join in the smile.
Since there was so little chance for understanding, we may as well have a some fun. Bittersweet.
I have mentioned 40y ago in the preamble of my doctoral thesis, that speeding up evolution is the best thing evolution can come up with. It is obvious that the rate of mutation matters. Too many mutations lead to chaos and death, while too few slow progress. Consequently we can see that the mutation rate is highly controlled and optimised in the diverse organisms. Often it is changed, depending on the environment (e.g, SOS repair, etc) , and/or genetic locus ( hyper-mutation of immunoglobin, etc.). But the main advance is given through recombination (which had been the subject of my thesis). The evolution of sex, brought homologous recombination so that evolution could spread its achievements throughout a population not only the direct offspring. But horizontal inheritance supercharges that. It brought to evolution what parallel procession brought to computation. Only evolution uses infinite many more processors (organism). During my career my various collaborators and I were able to shown that beneficial somatic mutations can re-enter the germline and spread. And that genomes as diverse as RNA and DNA viruses, or those of plants and animals can combine and form hybrid genes and enzymes that combine the evolutionary achievements independently formed in different kingdoms of live. And we have barely scratched the surface of the many tricks evolution has come up with to become more efficient. Consciousness may be just one of the many (partner choice, breeding, etc.) (I haven't bordered digging out the proper references for this impromptu post, but I am happy to provide them if there is interest)