Neoteny
The process of domestication involves
the retention of juvenile traits as an adult: Charles Darwin
I want you to understand one thing, that when they listen to my barks
and they say, Oh, he’s just a dog, something kindles in me. It’s like logs
in the fireplace catching fire, getting warmer by the second, sending up flames
that you can’t even get near.
So let me tell you: Like so many In my species, I too am something special,
that long before you lived in houses, we knew that to survive in this world,
to compete against all those monsters who prowl in the dark, who would come up
behind you and scratch out your eyes and eat you before you’ve even had time to cry,
to last as we did these seventy or so thousand years, you’ve got to change.
And that’s what we did, are still doing: We tamed ourselves, became modern,
like some architectural masterpiece, like that museum in Spain with those crooked walls.
We tamed ourselves, like people did so they could get along with one another,
gave ourselves cute faces and curly tails and floppy ears,
a puppy that never quite grows up, that they can’t help but love;
almost anything to hide our sharp teeth and our inner snarl.