Getting smarter

I think I figured something out: all I need to do is make good choices all the time.

Rebuttals?

Also, I wonder how often laze and avoidance could provide us with clear directives for what we should be doing. I wonder how often the thing we don't want to do is exactly the thing we need most to do. You don't want to talk with this person -- call them. You're afraid to walk out on your government job and work for yourself -- quit today. You'd rather browse new listings on ebay than write -- shut off the computer and pick up a notebook.

We humans seem to be the inheritors of a peculiarly factioned conscience -- peculiar among among animals, I mean. "For what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, I do." What? Are humans the only species faced with this schismed psyche? Have only our wires been crossed? Original sin, spiritual rebellion, satanic influence, evolutionary error, the procrastination gene, temporary survival of the misfits, etc. -- whatever the name, I think no one can reasonably refute the claim that we, perhaps singularly among lifeforms, are possessed of a nature that at once is motivated by self-preservation, and desperately attracted to self-destruction.

I wonder if this provides needed evidence for the man-is-a-descendant-of-God-not-apes hypothesis. Even if our skeletons and genome are near identical, how do you plumb this discrepancy? Do monkeys make choices to not do the very things their preservation instincts move them to do? Why the heck do humans? Ants with fungus growing in their brains sometimes act like we do.


Animals primary inclination is to conserve energy when you can and stock up when you have the chance. They fat-load for times of no fat, then are content to wait for the famine. Or sleep through it.