Here is the whole long story - Brahma's joke.

Notes: Brahma: Indian God of Creation. Bhagwan: Lord.

One day, Brahma was sitting, ROTFL, and could hardly hold his sides up. An angel happened to pass by and asked “bhagwan! What seems to be the matter?”

Brahma, laughing through his tears and still unable to hold his laughter, said “Wait till u hear this.”

“One day, a species of monkeys devised a way by which they could gather food faster. This would save them time and effort and give them more food for every hour that they worked.”

“Oh splendid. They must have been intelligent monkeys.”

Brahma (still clutching his sides) “No, no wait till u hear the whole thing.”

“Then, they did the same thing with their hunting – they made tools that will help them slay better, bigger, faster, and they got organized as hunters.”

“Oh good. All this must have given them a lot of time to spend on things they like to do, and to spend time with their children.”

“No, next came the need to do something about the cold. They made the fire, and they made clothes. Clothes would keep them warm in winters.”

“But Bhagwan! All other animals are provided with skins that perform this function effectively. Why did you deprive only this species of a skin that saves them from winters?”

“Oh they had a skin all right, they just wanted to be more comfortable than that.”

“Aaah. More comfortable with a foreign element on our bodies all the time?”

Nodding in the affirmative, Brahma continued to laugh and speak in between “After a while, they forgot the comfort of living in their skin alone. Even in hot summers, they would wear this fake skin. “

The angel was silent this time.

They used to make sounds in a particular way that sounded better than normal talking. They also used to make rhythmic sounds on things like rocks and leaves.”

“Why would they do that?”

“For enjoyment. But that’s not the point. As soon as they had some time on their hands, they decided that the rhythmic sound from the mouth and from the leaves needed to be learnt, studied, and it became a job to learn what they now called Music. They would move their bodies rhythmically to this “music” – they called this natural movement “Dance” and some people’s job became to learn this music and dance.”

“You mean they made a job of something that was enjoyment to start with!?” The angel was smiling now. “Why?”

“Oh, they thought it would be better that way. What resulted was that only a few of the monkeys could understand the new, difficult compositions, and what should have been for enjoyment became studies and learning.”

The angel had started to laugh a little. “And then what happened Bhagwan?”

They used to have stories to tell to each other and to their children. They realized that they must preserve the stories, so learning the stories became another job”

“Why couldn’t they just think up new stories with time?”

“Don’t ask. I have no clue, they just wanted to carry their past with them.”

“So, instead of enjoying the stories, they made work of them?”

“Yes. But wait, it gets even better. After this, they came up with more time saving devices – made of metal and much easier to handle and faster to work with.”

“Finally, they were actually saving time to enjoy themselves!”

“There my man, you forget that the making of these implements became another job, their maintenance, their oiling, and shining…some people specialized only in this”

“Groan!”

“Then there was jewelry. Men and women wanted to adorn themselves with shining pieces of metal, shell etc to look better”

“To look better? What can look better than glowing skin and a healthy body?”

“Apparently, shells and metal. To take our story further…”

“Wait Bhagwan, let me guess.. the making and maintenance of these pieces is another job created by the monkeys, right?”

“You are getting intelligent, my dear. Things went on like this till they became too many monkeys to hold in individual groups, and they make social institutions.”

“What is a social institution?”
“Oh, for example, you take a female of the species and you promise to take care of her for her whole life while she bears your children and cooks and keeps home. That is called marriage. The starting of this union is celebrated..”

“Groan… more work created! Why did these monkeys not just go out and enjoy?”

“Angel, do you want to hear more?”

“Tell me….”

“Earlier, fathers used to come home in the evening, before sun down, and spend time with the children… then, they created offices”

“Lord, what are offices?”

“Offices are places where fathers have to stay until after sun down so they hardly get any time with their wives and children. To compensate, the monkeys decided that the offices should remain closed for one day in the week.”

“Bhagwan, now you are telling me that in the pursuit of creating time saving devices, they actually created more work, and so much work that even their basics like spending time with each other were compromised?”

“Oh, it gets better. They wanted to get more organized. They wanted to do things faster, so they created computers.”

“And?”

“Now, they have less time than they ever had, they have no time to eat, no time to drink, they breathe poisonous air, and die earlier than ever, of diseases created by them.. and they are still trying to do better…”

“Lord, what you are telling me is, that this is a species of monkeys that thinks it wants to create leisure, but has actually been working hard to create more work for centuries on end? What is so funny about that?”

“I’m just wondering.. how long before They figure this out?”