Airport Restaurant Karma

     We want the past to matter.

We want our ongoing life
     To solidify itself

     In the wake of its doing.
That's why what we do matters;
     That's the riddle's solution.

     It's not that our ancestors,
Thousands of generations,
     Millions of years, lived in bands

     Where each one knew each other,
And every interaction
     Had to be iterative,

     So that even now our brains
Don't trust single encounters,
     As if all strangers were kin--

     Love them or loathe them, but don't
Ever think you won't ever
     Have to talk to them again,

     Even if they're bones in graves.
(The theory itself's a faint
     Form of ancestor worship.)

     Neither will game theory do
To model these behaviors.
     No reputation effect,

     No handicap principle,
No second-order police,
     No gossip model alone

     Can explain why the server
Will be nice to us today,
     Why we will tip the server

     Before we all fly away,
As fly away we all must.
     Models, like the hanging plane

     In the airport lounge, inform
The same reification
     Of our past activities

     As the kind smile, the good tip,
The epic stories composed
     About the heroic death

     Of some one life so long gone
The life itself's forgotten,
     Meanness and altruism

     Alike, along with their heirs.
While we live and serve only
     The past, each action matters.