It's Just the Room That's Dark, Papa, Not the World

Robin Dunbar swears our brains
Grew large as our ancestors
Increasingly depended
On appraising each other
And judging successfully
Whether to give or withhold
Our calibrated support.

There are plenty of other
Hypotheses for brain growth
By natural selection
Culling our lineages.
It has to have been something
Our species needed to do
More than another species

Might have. No hypothesis
Yet compels universal
Support, but the part I like
Of Dunbar's explanation,
The part that rings true to me,
Is this business of judging.
Humans can't do anything

Without evaluating
How other humans would judge
The judger, can't even look
At stars or imagine gods
Without some social judgment,
Some brain-deep conversation
With ourselves, without taking

Shame, glory, and indifference
To be our reasoned measures,
Our compass, our heuristics.
Have we slighted the fairies?
Have we insulted the gods?
Even quantification
Comes from social calculus.

I'm not a sociopath
So, lonesome, I'm not immune
To studying meteors
And mountains in human terms:
How do I look in their eyes?
What are they saying to me?
Have I done right by the world?

I know you also judge me,
Even when you're only God,
And find me wanting. Come on.
You can do better than that.
Now that our brains are so big,
Fattened on generations
Of judgments, trials, and gossip,

Why not use them to conclude
Nothing but us gives a damn.
You need to judge this? Come on.

Come tell this lonesome liar
Come tell this midnight writer,
Gambling, rambling backslider,
Tell me God Almighty go'ne

To cut me down.