Something as superfluous as "play" is also an essential feature of our consciousness. If you ask children why they like to play, they will say, "Because it's fun." But that invites the next question: What is fun? Actually, when children play, they are often trying to reenact complex human interactions in simplified form. Human society is extremely sophisticated, much too involved for the developing brains of young children, so children run simplified simulations of adult society, playing games such as doctor, cops and robber, and school. Each game is a model that allows children to experiment with a small segment of adult behavior and then run simulations into the future. (Similarly, when adults engage in play, such as a game of poker, the brain constantly creates a model of what cards the various players possess, and then projects that model into the future, using previous data about people's personality, ability to bluff, etc. The key to games like chess, cards, and gambling is the ability to simulate the future. Animals, which live largely in the present, are not as good at games as humans are, especially if they involve planning. Infant mammals do engage in a form of play, but this is more for exercise, testing one another, practicing future battles, and establishing the coming social pecking order rather than simulating the future.)

The human brain has a natural ability, inherent in its mechanism, to work on many levels, in a process of constant promptings, in a type of self-preservation.If only humans understood...Most ignore it.

Is that how you__e supposed to find your soulmate and fall in love these days? By flirting in 140 character tweets and stalking each other__ social media pages?

I always thought falling in love was hard, but now I realize that was the easy bit. It__ staying in love that__ the hard part.

The contortions of the gargoyles were the only therapy we had.

Mine was the twilight and the morning. Mine was a world of rooftops and love songs.