Life is an illusion, so why am I here?

Our minds are just loose collection of animal urges, given the appearance of continuity by memories made of words.

Or so the argument goes in the book I was reading on the train to work the other day.

I have to say it has quite an effect, that sort of thing, when you read it on the train to work.

Especially if you're as credulous as me.

I mean, they can publish anything in a book with an arty cover and some high-brow back-burbs, and I'll believe every last semi colon and diphthong. (Will Self's book of the year, you say? Sold, suckered, in, yes. Buy With One Click.)

And it was a bit of a problem, this new fact I now believed, about the self. It posed a number of questions.

Not the least being: if the self is an illusion, an accidental by-product of our capability to form words, then what in God's holy name was I doing on my way to have a poke around on small squares of qwertyuiop plastic at a workstation 22 floors in the sky?

And not, for instance, going to the pub all day? Or staring quietly at the river? Or moving to the west coast of Ireland just to, you know, think about stuff?

I resisted the urges to do those things. I figured, what with the self being an illusion and all, that it didn't much matter either way, and I might as well continue doing what I was planning to do before I found all this stuff out about the self. Just in case.

They stick with you, though, notions like that. Especially when you have forms to fill in and emails to forward and other emails to put in those little folders.

So I decided on a little experiment. I would work a day as though that whole self-being-an-illusion thing was incontrovertible fact.

So when that lad who's always a bit snarky from that other department came over and was his usual snarky self, I sat there thinking: "You're only being snarky because a series of urges within you to which you are blind are making you be snarky.

"I'm the same. I hope you have a nice day."

What I actually said was my normal noncommittal nonsenses, but on the inside it seemed to me like for once I wasn't joining in with something that was pointless and harmful.

It got really busy later on, but I kept my philosophical detachment. I thought: I am experiencing high stress and my body thinks I'm in a fight. All this too is an illusion.

It didn't get my work done quicker, but it made the whole thing more enjoyable.

By the time I got home all this had kind of worn off, and I sat down for a nice episode of New Tricks.

On the whole, my experiment didn't have what you would call tangible results. So I'm afraid to say I can't give you any conclusive proof on the illusory nature (or otherwise) of the self.

But for a day here I felt different in my head, which I think you'll agree is no bad thing. Whoever you are. (And whoever I am).

Dan Bourke also spouts forth at blogs.mirror.co.uk/opposite-of-work/