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It occurs to me that a vanishingly small percentage of human beings have held a human brain I their hands. I have. I'm not a murderous psychopath - I'm a former neuroscientist.
If we're being slightly more accurate I did my doctoral work (submitted as masters) in neuroscience (but within the school of animal biology of the University of Western Australia).
I held a preserved human brain in my hands at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, shortly before being arrested for marijuana possession (unrelated).
The infinitely folded surface area of the human brain is what elevates & separates us (or maybe does neither of those) from the "lower" animals - or at least allows us to feel ennui.
No great success; our pet rabbits have a much more contented life than my partner and I.
Heightened intelligence tends to track with heightened anxiety; the more of which you can conceive the more you can fear.
The fear response is fundamental - but any creature lacking sapience is free from the fear of pointlessness and the knowledge they will surely die. And if you lack sentience? Well, a full belly is everything and why not feel wonderful?
The brain is a collection of fatty tissue and blood vessels and electrical impulses fired through neurons and chemical reactions and somehow through the combination of these elements, results in consciousness and creativity and thought, and original ideas and an accumulation of experiences that allow us to synthesise NEW ideas and create NEW things from the integration of old experience.
And it may not be a bicep, or skeletal muscle tissue at all, but it very much functions as muscles do; it grows ability and strength from working hard, and it atrophies from extended rest.
As with all human endeavour, we develop strength from friction and difficulty, and our strain to overcome these.
It's one of the great tragedies of the modern age (driven primarily by technocratic technofascist app overloads) that we've developed a collective obsession with "ease" and with reducing "friction" and creating "smoothness"; a smooth brain has less capacity to function than one with folds. Its ability is determined by surface area and training to develop that capacity.
Friction develops ability. Resistance develops strength.
Yes, humans are the "smartest" animals on the planet. No, that does not mean we make correct decisions. We are products of an evolutionary urge to propagate and procreate and multiply; this is why there are 8 billion of us. Which is too many. That's not a matter of opinion. We have long exceeded the 'carrying capacity' of this planet - defined as a population that strips more resources in a year than can be replaced into our environment in that year. We hit this sometime in the mid 1980s (5 billion people).
Our success in propagation does not define our 'goodness' or 'rightness' to be. There are infinitely more viruses and bacteria and ants and bugs than humans; driven by the same evolutionary urges we are at the mercy of. Where humans (sometimes) differ is we have sapience enough to (occasionally) act against those base, animal, evolutionary impulses.
These evolutionary urges are why we love McDonalds and Doritos and Vanishing Caloric Density and fatty foods and sugary drinks and heroin and cocaine and alcohol and painkillers.
We are working with wetware, evolved over millennia, for us to live in tribal society, knowing 70 or so people, and in competition with outgroups of 70 or so other people (this is the origin of racism and jingoism and nationalism) - in nomadic lifestyle, where calories are sparse and at a premium and must be consumed at all costs any time they are found. This is the origin of obesity. The human beings who acted this way survived that world. We descended from them, and we therefore have their impulses. Evolution takes place over geologic time but technology advances rapidly.
The world for which we were evolved is not the world we live in. We have developed a civilisation and science and technology and unlike almost every other animal we have terraformed our environment (shoutout to beavers who are also good at this).
We have created a world that is not natural to the one for which we have evolved. This is not "bad" by definition, but its something of which we should regularly remind ourselves.
Being connected to the current events of 8 billion people is not natural. This doesn't mean we need to disconnect from all and everyone at all times, but it does mean we need to consciously create limits and boundaries for our own human health.
Turn off your phone notifications. Limit your time on social media. Read a book. Read longform journalism. Have in-person conversations. Avoid AI. Avoid clickbait and rage-bait posts. Reach out to other human beings in your community and connect with them. Practice empathy. Know that your enemies are just as prey to their own evolutionary impulses and experiences as your family.
Love one another.