anecdotal darwin

So this will be the first entry of my personal journal. I will post all of my comprehensive notes and edited commentary on the readings as “pages”. I would like to keep the posts simplified to my personal experiences with the class and readings. Random trains of thoughts included.

So today I finished up with Darwin in a very popular and performative coffee shop on Main Street known as JJBean. I live for the coffee, well I live because of the coffee, and it has proven to be a favourite reading spot to alleviate myself from the distractions of procrastination at home.

Two lovely points of interest in relation to the book “On Evolution”.

The first was encountered during my short walk to my destination. Having watched a television program this weekend on dog breeding and the history and the relation to Darwin’s “Natural Selection”… I was marveling at all the small and “fancy” breeds prancing alongside their owners.

A husky black pug trotting through the snow, a fluffy strange rat like dog in a child carrier, and yet another bizarre furried friend wearing boots and a raincoat. I recognize immediately the imposition of human designs on these creatures as well as the evident reliance of these little animals on human survival mechanisms. Boots for a snowday?

Does this represent our own domestication as our social mechanisms are rendered
arbitrary in terms of survival?
Is Mr Barky von Schnauzer fufilling our desires to rear offspring? Are we lonely? or is it just amusing?

The second reflection was stirred by the inevitable distraction of some loud talking extroverts. Today I was glad for the performance as these two granted me the gift of example as I perused the final pages of “The Descent of Man”.

Two athletic and well dressed “alpha male” types were loudly exchanging mutual admiration over their recent sexual accomplishments. From the sounds of these two, I was in the midst of no less than Darwin’s most brilliantly plummaged specimens of the human species.

Bravo fellows!

Anyhow, after the self congratulatory episode, one was left behind to concentrate on his magnus opus; a screenplay of a thrilling action adventure that he would write, perform and direct! Hard at work employing his masculine height of mental faculty, this glorious creature attracted himself a mate. I watched in delight/horror as a jjBean regular (a lovely but very large, and evidently challenged woman) took the empty seat at his table and proceeded to inquire as to his employment. Now I am speaking in a rather snide manner about the situation but in relation to my book it provoked great interest. I watched his face as he struggled with empathy and morality and with great discomfort accepted her request to be seated at his table.

If as Darwin suggests, our faculties are an extension of our own developmental process of natural selection – how comical is the modern day application? Or how sad?

~ by katethinks on January 29, 2008.