5·
6 days agoBecause life is it’s own joy, and being alive the greatest gift. The loneliness will pass and return, the work grind you down as a song heard in passing will lift you up, the endless obligations are part of being an inherently social species. But, whether human or crocodilian, garden slug or spider, there is pleasure in the warm sun and a full belly, in waking from a good sleep and stretching whatever muscles your ancestors bequeathed. It’s only those who demand that, somehow, the universe give them some cosmic purpose – we, who are less than a virus floating around a sparkling grain of sand on an endless beach – who cannot find enough in life to be happy.
It used to be thought birds were stupid because their brains were so small relative to mammal brains, and neuronal organisation quite different. Now, it’s understood birds are as intelligent as most mammals, because their brains, though small, are densely packed with neurons and glia, which gives them the power to rapidly analyse and react to sensory input, and reason their way through problems on a par with even young humans. Who’s to say what a million neurons, also pretty densely packed due to the very small space they have to work with, are capable of? The brain evolves what each species needs to master their physical and social environment – perhaps bees have already mastered quantum physics!