I know, my dear Watson, that you share my love of all that is bizarre and outside the conventions and humdrum routine of everyday life.

— Sherlock Holmes

It is impossible to understand how the brain works without also understanding how it evolved. As the great biologist Theodosius Dobzhansky said, “Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.” This stands in marked contrast to most other reverse-engineering problems. For example when the great English mathematician Alan Turing cracked the code of the Nazis’ Enigma machine—a device used to encrypt secret messages—he didn’t need to know anything about the research and development history of the device. He didn’t need to know anything about the prototypes and earlier product models. All he needed was one working sample of the machine, a notepad, and his own brilliant brain. But in biological systems there is a deep unity between structure [anatomy], function [physiology], and origin [embryology & evolution]. You cannot make very much progress understanding any one of these unless you are also paying close attention to the other two.

Today it is impossible to seriously refute this point: We are anatomically, neurologically, genetically, physiologically apes. Anyone who has ever been struck by the uncanny near-humanness of the great apes at the zoo has felt the truth of this.

Our neurology professor in medical school used to diagnose Parkinson’s by just listening to the patient’s footsteps next door; if we couldn’t do the same, he would fail us. Those were the days before high-tech medicine and MRI.

— The Tell-Tale Brain

((قَالَتْ يَا لَيْتَنِي مِتُّ قَبْلَ هَٰذَا وَكُنتُ نَسْيًا مَّنسِيًّا))

[سورة مريم]

تُنسى، كأنَّكَ لم تَكُنْ
تُنْسَى كمصرع طائرٍ
ككنيسةٍ مهجورةٍ تُنْسَى،
كحبّ عابرٍ
وكوردةٍ في الليل ... تُنْسَى
أَنا للطريق ... هناك مَنْ تمشي خُطَاهُ
على خُطَايَ، وَمَنْ سيتبعني إلى رؤيايَ.
مَنْ سيقول شعرًا في مديح حدائقِ المنفى،
أمامَ البيت، حرًا من عبادَةِ أمسِ،
حرًا من كناياتي ومن لغتي،
فأشهد أَنني حيُّ، وحرُّ
حين أُنْسَى!

— محمود درويش

Thus let me live, unseen, unknown,
Thus unlamented let me die,
Steal from the world, and not a stone
Tell where I lie.

— Alexander Pope, Ode to Solitude.

Human affairs entangle you in their complexity up to the point of paralysis. They ensnare and shackle you to the point of nausea; what Nietzsche called Kettenkrankheit (chain-sickness). The hermetic sensibility stems from the need to cure oneself of this nausea, to free oneself of the shackles of responsibility, desire, dependability, and indulgence in the human affair.

Thereby, to be forgotten is to be hidden from the human world. To be hidden from the human world is to be free, yet alone. True freedom comes at the very high cost of loneliness. It is no wonder why so few of us are truly free.

الحريّة—أنْ يَنساك العالَم وتُعتَق مِن ذاكرةِ الناس

But then, to be this much free also entails becoming utterly inconsequential

Rhea فديت ربها

One is tempted to suggest—tongue in cheek—that our predilection for oral sex may also be an evolutionary throwback to our ancestors’ days as frugivores (fruit eaters). It is an ironic thought that our enjoyment of a Monet or a Van Gogh or of Romeo’s savoring Juliet’s kiss may ultimately trace back to an ancient attraction to ripe fruits and rumps. (This is what makes evolutionary psychology so much fun: You can come up with an outlandishly satirical theory and get away with it.)

He was basically saying that our love for plump, red lips may be because they resemble ripe fruits.

— The Tell-Tale Brain