Evolution

Do animals want/like to go to a circus? I'm really curious to know the answer. I've never had a pet or any inclination to have one, fondle one, talk to one or have anything to do with any animal but I know a lot of people who love pets and I would like them to answer this if possible. In my knowledge & extensive(?) research on this topic, the answer is an emphatic NO!

So basically humans are the only species who like to watch their own species. It's really strange. People (me included) like to watch other people and actually pay to see other people do artificial things (Dont get wrong ideas, I'm talking about movies!). We know what they're doing is not true. We had seen the weird looking guy playing a geologist in this movie trying to save the world from annihilation as a dim-wit magician last week. But we believe it!

We know that in a while all this is going to stop and we'll be going back home with a numb brain and a light pocket but still we do this particular act over and over again. Watching movies or plays is really taxing on our brains with all this imagining, assuming, understanding involved. People who watch movies with such a high level of involvement can probably have a discourse on astro-physics or the string theory if they put their mind to it. It involves the same things imagination, assumptions, understanding! Though I really love watching plays and movies (in that order) but this entire action baffles me at times...

The urge to watch other people (read:movies) is quite clearly a social phenomena. Other social activities include communicating, forming clans/groups, networking, coordinating, cooperating, friendship, enemity etc etc... But we actually see these in most animals and even more primitive life forms!

We're so interested in this particular medium that we forget about our life for that period of time. We actually and purposefully disjoin ourselves from reality. And this is entire action is termed under entertainment.

So basically... a few million years of evolution and all we could manage was the ability to entertain ourselves at the expense of our own species! Now isn't that something to be really proud of?

So the whole foundation of the human race is based on a singular paramount entity... Boredom! Now does that explain why the second highest activity you do during an average day (next only to breathing) is getting bored...

Cheers!