An Unscientific Comparison of Animal Brains

Above my neck, in the top half of my bulbous head resides a mighty, squishy, multi-lobed organ bursting with intense neural activity that is commanding my fat fingers to type these very words that you are reading right now. Billions of cells that make up this almighty organ work perpetually to keep my fat, evil body up and running. This single, one and a half kilogram, walnut of an organ is what in my opinion makes humanity as a species the pinnacle of God’s creation, the overlord of the Earth, the apex predator.

When you come to think of it, the human brain is pretty much the only differentiating factor between homosapiens and other mammals that inhabit the planet. Every creature from the fearsome lion to the humongous elephant to the timid cow has four limbs, a stomach, two ears, two eyes, a nose, and a mouth and most of these are superior to their human counterparts but the human brain is just light years ahead of the curve.

Don’t believe me? Well, “let’s build a house from bricks and cement so that we remain safe from the elements and predators”, said no cow ever. “This deer I killed tastes a bit raw, let's grill it in the flame and dress it with BBQ sauce,” said no lion ever. “Let me take advantage of my immense height and become a stellar basketball player,” said no giraffe ever. Ever heard of a leopard who grew up and told his momma, “You know what? Screw hunting, I’m going vegan this summer”? I’m yet to find a monkey who after dropping a banana from a tree thought, “You know what? The earth must have accelerated the banana towards the ground with an acceleration proportional to m1m2/r2 .”

No hen till date has thought, “Well, thousand years has been a pretty long stretch of time since we first started giving our eggs for free to these humans, let’s start a rebellion against these unborn-foetus-eating imbeciles”. No dog has grown tired of fetching the ball for his master for the umpteenth time day after day. No nightingale has thought, “Jesus, do I sing well? Let me release an album and earn millions of dollars from it”. Speaking of dollars, money itself is a concept exclusive to us homosapiens. The bull in front of wall street has never felt the urge to walk into Morgan Stanley and invest a couple hundred bucks in the well-performing stocks.

As much as this advanced organ has contributed to the advancement of humanity as a species, it has inadvertently made life awfully difficult too. An immense reserve of processing power and thinking capabilities brings with it numerous unnecessary vices. Unlike humans, no group of white cows has ever enslaved the black and brown cows and given them less grass to eat . No dog has ever howled the night in depression because his girlfriend was a bitch (pun intended). No hippo has ever had to hit the gym because the stud hippos in the marsh ridiculed his round belly. No deer ever jumped in the flame when her husband fell prey to a tiger’s wrath. No sheep has ever hung himself from the fan because his parents forced him to give up his wool for a sweater that he didn’t want to wear.

With that tongue-in-cheek yet dark reference, I Lord Ping, the last name in pessimism and proliferation of evil, humbly end my rant on the human brain’s maleficence. I could’ve gone on for much longer, but damn, my wicked human brain isn’t allowing my innocent fingers to type and chastise it any more. Until next time!

-Pessimistic Impulses in the Neural Grid a.k.a. PING