Neurogenesis and Joy

Danielle is trying a trial subscription to Seed magazine, and she showed me an article she thought fit into Ecojoy: The Reinvention of the Self. Its about Dr. Elizabeth Gould's work with marmoset monkeys, and about her discovery of neurogenesis. Prior to Dr. Gould's work, scientific and medical knowledge about brains was that they didn't grow new cells (neurons). Dr. Gould discovered that the conditions under which the animals are kept affect growth of new neurons. Animals kept in supportive, non-stressful conditions can grow new neurons.

We didn't have previous evidence of this because researchers didn't think the conditions under which animals were kept were related to neurogenesis. And Dr. Gould has a tangible, medical way to measure stress. I highly recommend the article and Dr. Gould's papers.

From this work, it is becoming clear that there is a medical, scientific foundation to the theory that joy is a more powerful motivator than fear.

Introduction

This from my site The Ecology of Joy:

The Ecology of Joy is a philosophy, a way of understanding the world around us, a way to stop the violence, a way to approach peace.

On this site, we'll explore the parts of this philosophy, and put them together.

• There are three parts to ecojoy

1. What motivates people.
2. The way people connect together to make culture
3. The way media and technology affect people.

• Things are changing, and we need to understand the reasons for the change and the effects on our world.

1. Joy (or pleasure, love or passion) is the most powerful human
   motivator. That is not to discount the effects of fear, but
   people achieve their best when motivated by joy. For example,
   look at the achievements of Susan B. Anthony,
   Lance Armstrong or Michael Jordan . These people made their achievements not because of the promise of a high salary or the fear of failure, but because of the
   joy of achievement or a passion for justice. However, fear has
   been used effectively throughout history as a means to control behavior
   (see books on Fear)
2. People come together for many reasons. The way that
   links form between people influence the nature of the resulting
   culture. One way to look at these links uses the concepts of heterarchy
   and hierarchy. Another way to explore different forms of
   culture is found in the explorations of Partnership by Riane
   Eisler. In her work, Riane talks about dominator thinking, and
   partnership thinking.
3. Marshall McLuhan proposed that media have a great effect on culture, due
   more to the way that information is represented and interpreted than to
   the content itself. For example, whether the programming is news,
   talk or country music, all forms of radio have a unique effect on
   culture, an effect that is different that the effect of newspapers or
   television.

• The motivations of joy and fear foster cultural links based on heterarchy and heirarchy.
• Some media foster heterarchical linking, and and some favor heirarchical linking.
• Some of the attributes of partnership thinking.
• dominator thinking exhibits an external locus of control, partnership thinking exhibits an internal locus of control.

Beginnings

I've begun writing Ecojoy several times since about 1996 (for example, see Ecojoy). It never came out well. So I got the idea to try it as a blog, hoping I could chip around the edges and start to reveal the joy that is within.