The Secret Life of Brains, 28 April 2019

We fret more than we think. We don’t often worry
About what it all means. We worry a lot more
About how we can do some more of what we like
Without being stopped by the others. But what
Will the others think? We think about that
The most. Then we go back to fretting about what
Might happen to us within the next day or so. We fret
And we fret that we fret too much. We look down
Our olfactory bulbs at fretting too much.
The whole fantasy of becoming a saint or a sage
Is that supposedly they never feel the need to fret, they
Hardly even ruminate. But we are mere brains,
Embodied and agonizing over bodily things.
We fret about that fact. In fact, our fretting
Can lead us on to great things, sometimes great
Things. If the brain of Martin Luther had not been
Prone to such prodigious and compulsive fretting,
Such that he could take up to six hours to make
His weekly confession of each of his most minor sins,
Including that of fretting, we might not have had
The Reformation, for what it’s worth. Still,
We mostly try to hide how much we fret. In one sense,
This should be easy. We’re brains. We’re stuck in skulls.
We’re black boxes. No one knows what we’re up to.
We’re the most complex objects in the universe!
Sadly, however, we’re human brains, and human
Brains are infected, infested by those ghosts, the rules
And thoughts and ideas and words, words, words,
Language, language, language, the better to communicate
What other, wiser species secret kept. We try to bar the gate,
Post sentries, dissemble, lie whenever we feel we must,
Ideally without losing all the other liars’ precious trust.
We fret about what will happen to us if we lose that trust
By letting our secret fretting out. It’s how brains got so big
In the first place, so complex. Once our ancestors were possessed
By communicating for us, by rules, by games and language,
By meanings—of all things—we had to learn to fret to keep
Our secrets secret, our selves ourselves, and the others separate.
It’s bookkeeping, budgeting, and forecasting, not lofty thoughts,
Get our synapses snarled, plus keeping the books in multiple sets,
Some that we can offer for inspection, that count and suggest
It’s all about reason, faith, and meanings busying us in our nests,
With tidily balanced entries for food and waste, life and death,
Love and rage, sex and debts.  But what if word gets out?
What if we confuse the sets? We fret. We fret. Oh, what the hell
Can any brain expect? We keep for ourselves the extra sets.