The male bower bird of Australia collects objects to arrange as a stage, on which to display its pleasing stature and song. It weaves grasses into walls to frame the stage, places bright and dark pebbles around it, and makes sure it is oriented east-west, so that noonday sun will illuminate the place of honor. This takes roughly 70% of its day, and a goodly portion of that time consists of defending the bower against destructive attack from competitors, or launching attacks on others' bowers.

Is the bird wasting its time? The bird that opts out of the competition also opts out of the gene pool. We would root for trying harder, reaching higher, just as we applaud small colleges seeking to make the Final Four, or American Idol, or any of thousands of forms of human competition. We spend money on storytelling, whether books or movies. We buy pictures to mount on our walls, even though we can't eat them, or survive attack by sheltering behind them.

The question of necessity is raised by the economic overshoot we have experienced. We were buying for the fun of it, we think, instead of the necessity of it. But economists and writers point to Japan as having been too concerned with saving, back in the 90s, and the government tried hard to inspire spending. Is there a level of frivolous economic activity that is necessary?

Homo lingua, we talk all the time now. Twitter and texting (sexting!) rule the hubbub. The ultimate tool, language has been used to check genetic data indicating that behaviorally modern humans migrated out of Africa, across the Red Sea, roughly 50,000 years ago. Our first language was click, like Khoisian, or the !Kung and San. The San, in particular, show the widest genetic diversity, and this is considered the best indicator of founding population. Similarly, the widest genetics for apples is found in Kazakhstan, so it is the home of the apple tree.

Eden was probably crowded and contentious, with groups fighting over waterholes, or women. (Amazon Yanomamo laughed at researchers that asked if they fought over food.) But the exodus led across the Arabian Peninsula, into India, and was likely also contentious, given the previous expansion of Homo Erectus and Habilis. This could be where we get legends of trolls and ogres, which could also be Neanderthal, which met the second group of migrants that turned west across Turkey, into Europe. ("Before the Dawn" by Nicholas Wade, is a good source on this.)

It's fascinating to think about the reasons language started. Theories have included grooming becoming gossip and hunters making plans. I doubt the latter, since the plan would be usually the same, and while hunting, no one is talking. I think we can take some clues from what we do now.