I've actually just started work on an academic book project that will involve Bateson (focusing more on his relationship with John C. Lilly and early psychedeli

I've actually just started work on an academic book project that will involve Bateson (focusing more on his relationship with John C. Lilly and early psychedelic drug researchers). I went to the Library of Congress last month to look at his letters with Mead. One unexpected takeaway from that trip was that he was a bit of a war hero, albeit a secret one (undercover mission to Southeast Asia with OSS). I also liked this from a letter that Bateson wrote to a friend during WW2: “M[argaret] says that you have ‘grown up.' I wonder - I suppose I would be said to have ‘grown up’ too - respectably working at a desk from 9 to 5:30, doing some teaching, married and with young, and so on. But is it in us really to alter after our 20s? I think not in fundamentals. I am sure that I shall go to my grave with my shoes untied, my trousers unpressed, my hair overdue for a cut, and probably imperfectly shaven. I shall still leave undone those things which I ought to have done — and shall still feel unhappy and guilty about it.”