Neoteny

[arisbe]

If our work does not feel like play, then we should ask ourselves whether we are in the right job. Our zest for life may have been suppressed, but genetically it is still there inside us, smoldering away beneath heavy layers of negative learning. It is not easy to strip off those layers –we are all so sensitive, especially when younger, to criticism, mockery, and punishment – but it can be done. If we can find just one area of activity where we feel the throb of uncrushed enthusiasm, we may be able to intensify it and expand it, until it blossoms into an exciting form of personal expression. It is there, lying dormant, waiting to be developed, because it is an essential part of what it means to be a human being. --Desmond Morris

A discussion of God in another journal led to my scrambling around the net for the Neoteny theory I vaguely recalled from Sir Alister Hardy's Gifford Lectures. This article looked worth posting a link to, and I read it more carefully to find a good quote to link from, zeroing in on the closing paragraph. Not a bad one for a fellow looking for a job!

Comments

[kiaroskuro.livejournal.com]

wow... i don't think i've actually seen the word neoteny anywhere since 8th grade, when i did my science fair project on neoteny and teddy bears... basically, teddy bears have "evolved" to look less and less like real bears and more like bear cubs or human babies. I was certainly looking at it from a human behavioral sense, as I presented my subjects with photos of ten different teddy bears and asked them to rank them in order of "cuteness." of course, the youngest looking one, with the larger forehead, the larger eyes, the roundest limbs, came out first...

There have been other pop-culture related studies of neoteny, pertaining in particular to, who else, Mickey Mouse.

[kiaroskuro.livejournal.com]

that's right... the late great Stephen Jay Gould wrote about Mickey Mouse... Here's a pdf of his article, which also appears in his book The Panda's Thumb.

[arisbe.livejournal.com]

Yes, I recall it from there.

But there are behavioral ramifications to being neotenous. Not only are we so damned cute compared to other apes, we seek a master the same way dogs do.

(There is also a theory that we chordates are neotenous sea squirts, who never get a chance to develop into -- what the hell are they, anyway? Years since I taught biology. The Garstang-Bateson hypothesis? Father of the Gregory Bateson I knew, who was married to Margaret Mead. I always wondered if that Garstang was related to the one involved in Middle Eastern archaeology. Coelenterates?)

[lunasparrow.livejournal.com]

This reminds me of John Eldridge's books. The first one was called 'Wild at Heart'. In case you haven't already heard of them, they deal with the role desire has to do with finding out 'what to do with your life' or your 'story'. They're quite good and worth a read, and because they're from a Christian perspective they're not just dealing with psychology but also your relationship with God in all of it.

Good luck with the job hunt.

[amade.livejournal.com]

Speaking of that "jobs should be fun" thing, I have observed that Americans are basically Puritans at heart when it comes to work ethic. Well, that also applies to American Christianity in general, too.

Basically, the thought process is, "if it's fun, something must be wrong with it." If life is good and enjoyable, then we must be sinning, somehow.

Even though I'm aware of this, I still find it hard to accept the "work should be fun" principle. Since music/singing is so pleasurable to me, I constantly question whether or not this is a frivolous persuit, and shouldn't I be doing something "less fun" as a career. (And that's not to say singing isn't damned hard work - it certainly is. It just happens to be hard work that I *LIKE* to do because it's pleasant.)