The Fate of the Sea Squirt

I recently completed reading Play: How it Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination and Invigorates the Soul by Stuart Brown, M.D.

Within the book, Brown, a physician, psychiatrist, clinical researcher and the founder of the National Institute for Play, makes an argument for the powerful force of play - one he says is no less important than oxygen for the very survival of the human race.

Early on, Brown lays out the critical role of play in brain development using the example of an early human ancestor, the sea squirt. Scientists believe the sea squirt tadpole approximates what the very first chordate may have looked like some 550 millions years ago.

As Brown explains that is it’s larval form, the sea squirt has a primitive spinal cord and bundle of ganglia that act as a functional brain. He continues:

“This tiny brain helps it move selectively toward nutrients and away from harm. Like most oceanic creatures, juvenile sea squirts spend their time growing and exploring the sea.

Once the sea squirt grows to adulthood, it attaches itself permanently to a rock or a boat’s hull or pilings. It no longer needs to monitor the world as it did as a juvenile because the passing current provides enough nutrients for it to survive. Its life becomes purely passive.

The adult sea squirt becomes the couch potato of the sea. In a surprisingly macabre twist, the sea squirt digests its own brain. Without a need to explore or find its sustenance, the creature devours its own cerebral ganglia.

The sea quirt is an example of a basic principle of nature: Use it or lose it….

… When we stop playing, we stop developing, and when that happens, the laws of entropy take over - things fall apart. Ultimately, we share the fate of the sea squirt and become vegetative, staying in one spot, not fully interacting with the world, more plant than animal.”

Brown calls it play, but he could have easily made the same argument for curiosity, the drive to learn, or eagerness. Either way, as a Gen Y professional, it’s important to seek out and identify mentors who emulate a thriving and active determination to not sit still. They’re easy to spot when you see them. Books on subjects outside the communication discipline pile up in their office, they’re enthusiastically mentoring the next generation of professionals, they're constantly sharing new insights and show passion for learning something new.

Sure, it sucks being a beginner sometimes, even more so being one again. But unless we can let ourselves feel okay about going through the awkward stage, we can’t grow professionally. We’ve all worked with someone stuck in the past, complacently accepting of whatever the current brings - and isn't that why we swore we’d never succumb to the fate of the sea squirt?