Just suppose....

It’s a good job we can’t read each other’s minds. The consequences of such total openness would be pretty mortifying.
 
Just imagine if other people knew who I despised or what crime I was about to commit or who I had a massive crush on or how often I was drunk-driving. All those things I was carefully hiding were suddenly on full display, out there for the world to see.
 
And vice versa of course, I could read other people’s minds and know all the dodgy things they were up to. I would know my next-door neighbour was defrauding the company he worked for or had just done a hit-and-run.
 
It would make life better in some ways. If someone was planning a crime, we’d know about it and they could be stopped. Our loved ones would know how much love and affection we had for them. People would know all the things I had in common with them and we could make new friends.
 
People couldn’t lie so easily as we would know straightaway they weren’t telling the truth, and there would be a sudden outbreak of honesty. That’s something that would take a lot of getting used to.

In an ideal world

I wrote once about the faculties I would like to have in an ideal world. Faculties that would overcome all the annoying limitations of our human bodies and make life so much easier. These are the things I came up with:

1) A perfect memory that remembers absolutely everything. Like the plots of books and TV dramas. Like people's names. Like whichever shop it was that had that brilliant potato peeler.

2) Super-fast legs so I can forget the bus and walk the 3½ miles to the city centre in five minutes.

3) A maximum body-weight setting so that however much chocolate cake, trifle and ice cream I eat, I don't gain an ounce.

4) Fluency in several languages so I can read lots of great books that have never been translated into English.

5) A female body for a month so I can wear all those fabulous clothes I can only lust after as a bloke.

6) A totally adjustable body temperature, so I'm always comfortable however hot or cold the climate, and I don't need central heating or air conditioning.

7) Telepathy, so I know when someone is telling the truth or lying non-stop. Or whether they're just pretending to like me.

8) Infinite empathy, so however extreme a person's emotions, I can understand them instantly. I can feel exactly what they're feeling.

9) The gift of the gab, so whoever the person, whatever their situation, I always have something to say, and it's always what they want to hear.

10) A magic wand that will melt all the pain and misery in other people's hearts.

Goodness, wouldn't life be very different if we had the benefit of all those super-faculties? If the technology of human bodies advanced at the same pace as all our machines and gadgets and appliances? The mind boggles.