Dear Mudge,
(I’m gonna step up on this rickety soap-box for a moment. I’ve been thinking about this one concept and how it applies to much of what we’ve been discussing and it comes out as preachy. Sorry ’bout this up front.)
Our brains are too big.
If one analyzes the animal kingdom one will find that the amount of processing power (cranial capacity) correlates with the DNA driven needs of the creature under study. A dog has just enough smarts to find water, hunt & eat food, seek shelter and sniff out a mate to make new dogs. Likewise a cricket, a crocodile, an elephant and an emu—all developed just enough brain matter to execute those four governing behaviors. Billions of species have followed this pattern.
And then came us…
with brains way too powerful to just bum around sipping, nibbling, fucking and complaining about the weather. We’ve got so much extra capacity that we feel compelled to use it, and it would seem, in the most ludicrous and useless fashion possible—dream shit up just to give our spinny-wheely, bulbous minds something to do. This factor may be the answer to a number of our investigations.
Do beetles, baboons, lizards or loons believe in god? Delude themselves into believing the Hulk’s pants remained stretchy enough to stick around? Spend six million on a bionic eye, arm and leg (ahem, legs)? (As a child it didn’t take me 10 minutes to realized that the rest of Steve Austin’s body would collapse under the load of a one-hand-hefted pickup truck.)
I think we need fantasy in whatever form we can find. Consider every culture that arose during the Holocene: they all fabricated religious illusions to pack their too-big brains. We want to believe in the magical, the impossible. But maybe believe is too strong a word (though not for many). We want to be awash in imaginary possibilities—simply to keep us from going insane from this burden of idle mental horsepower.
Your thoughts?
(Somebody take this crate away, it barely holds my weight and smells of hubris.)
I loved Mystery Science Theater 3000; and for the same reason: snide, clever comments on the most lame movie plots and props imaginable.
The future of humanity, hmm. I’ve had a fair amount to say about this in the past, mostly due to my proclivity for apocalyptic conclusions. Evolution? I believe that we won’t see human Darwinian natural selection ever again. Homo Prometheus however, may, no, is being CRISPr’d somewhere in a Chinese lab—as we speak. So, we’ll evolve, but I believe it will be directed evolution.
Of course, that assumes we survive any of a dozen civilization ending scenarios. The Doomsday Clock creeps ever nearer midnight.
When I used to travel I’d seek out the Ruben. I don’t think I’ve ever found one to my liking. Max’s in San Francisco (a copy of NY’s) was close. But they were manufactured en masse. Thick though. It’s the kraut and dressing that’s important, I prefer Thousand Island to Russian.
The image at the top is Gobekli Tepe (belly-button hill) in Turkey. It was created at the beginning of the Holocene. I’ve been enamored by the idea of carving in stone. It’s simple and cheap: hammer, chisel, safety-glasses and a rock out in the wide-open. What are you going to carve into the side of a granite cliff that you’d feel happy about leaving for our ancestors to discover, circa 5000 CE? (Those that survive the plague, CME, asteroid and the 6th Extinction.)
Best,
‘Mole
Anonymole - apocryphal agitators 
…simply to keep us from going insane from this burden of idle mental horsepower. Many are happy to enjoy and critique the art of others while abstaining from any craft enterprise themselves. I used to chastise them, those born to be Counrty Club Hostesses, keep a copy of Town and Country on the coffee table and all the derivative social functionaries. But, as has been posited in this series, narcissism takes many forms from creativity to self flagellation and myriad philosophic/social masturbations. So whether we are Michelangelo wannabes or set a very proper table for repurposed pagan holidays, we all do that thing we do to keep from burning the valves up idling in traffic. None, I should think, any more valid in the long term than any other. And maybe those cliff carvings were the work of rebellious youth, a form of ancient tagging, or gangs warning others off their turf. Or the Sunday funnies.
LikeLiked by 1 person
If we’re gonna hang around, might as well find something to do. What that is, to quote Bill Murray in Meatballs: “it just doesn’t matter.”
LikeLiked by 1 person
No, and snobbery as regards what is pointless. However I maintain that if it’s worth doing it’s worth overdoing, but there again, it’s not a religion, only an opinion. Sometimes I wonder, boiled down to simple components, if they aren’t exactly the same thing.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Except that this precisely the point of recent discussions: pointlessness is built in. Whether excellent or dreadful, ultimately it doesn’t matter.
However, as we can’t actually exist in that outer “meaninglessness” shell, we must pull back from it and adopt more heartfelt pursuits. Therein your “over doing it,” belief.
And to me it’s obvious how those who’ve spent too much time drifting about in the Absurd Universe (myself) find it exceedingly difficult to adopt another philosophical point of view. So, Home&Garden fake it, but fake it well. Can’t paint but have an opinion? Perfect one’s critical eye. Whatever it is that one chooses, thrash the hell out of it.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I unerringly zero in on the meaninglessness of existence anytime some aspect of effort is called into question. “Why bother, we’re all gonna die/the universe will fade away to nothing–guaranteed.”
NOT thinking that way is a challenging task I may never accomplish, but attempt it I must.
LikeLiked by 1 person
You most definitely are not helping. My brain gets bigger each time one of you responds. 🤔
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hilarious post. But consider this…rather than… “they all fabricated religious illusions”…religious illusions were born as a way to explain what happened to our inglorious ancestor’s brains after they ingest hallucinogenic mushrooms…not knowing what they were, thinking they were simply another tasty shrub. So far, that’s the best explanation for religion I’ve heard.
LikeLiked by 4 people
Sounds like you’ve drunk the Pollen pollen scented koolaid. The idea has merit. And I suspect the shamans of ancient man held sway over what humanity eventually metastacized as religion.
LikeLiked by 3 people
First heard the idea from Terrance McKenna: “Food of the Gods” if I remember correctly. Pollen simply follows in his footsteps.
LikeLiked by 2 people