“We have already contrasted two ways of thinking about sociality in social neuroscience: On the one hand, we find the impoverished conception of sociality that can be found in most research that utilizes brain imaging in laboratory settings- where ‘social’ seems to refer to sequential transactions between isolated individuals or simulations of such transactions in scanners. On the other, we encounter the more subtle arguments of those who seek to understand sociality in terms of the multiple networks of collective association that characterize human existence, in families, groups, villages, towns, nations, and beyond, and the neurobiological consequences of isolation for humans evolved to live in such ecological settings.” (Neuro, 231)

When it all boils down, how will they study me?

Will they cite past knowledge and patterns

Or consider all of me engulfed in everything?

Everything I had done and who I was

Alongside who I was raised by where I come from

Sometimes it seems a conundrum

To study based on isolation

When really there’s always an influence

That seems to find its way into equations

And can a brain scan equate

To what my brain can’t communicate

But my spirit and my mouth can

Consciousness is an outland

Somewhere far off we can’t find

Where we are alive, reside, and decide

Not constricted to the real time

In the deepest recesses of our mind

So study me as you like

With scanners and alike

Or the patterns of those I am like

You will find everything except

My mind within the light.

 

“Many from the social and human sciences regard this neurobiologization of the self as the most challenging feature of contemporary neuroscience. It seems to threaten the very conception of the human being that lies at the heart of their work: the idea that personhood is a matter of internal mental states, consciousness, intention, beliefs, and the like, existing in a uniquely human psychological realm of mind, embodied in a self-conscious subjectivity, and created in a world of meaning, culture, and history.” (Neuro, 201)

Where is my I?

Who is my self, WHAT is my self. Is there any self to begin with?

Am I just a biological machine?

And are my thoughts just left over steam from the working machine?

I don’t know.

My I is a combination of many things.

Sometimes I feel as though my I is more metaphorical than literal

I can play with my I through music.

I can become whatever I want I to be.

I can become animate or inanimate

Feminine or masculine

Black or white

Machine or human

So what is my self?

To me, myself, my physical self,

It doesn’t matter

Because through music I can expand and extend my self to be anything I want.

“Antisocial and violent conduct is a major social problem, which also generates significant economic costs, and is hence an important target for government intervention. Such conduct runs in families, and a small proportion of families in any community account for a large proportion of its violent crime. Hence risk for antisocial aggression is transmitted intergenerationally. While twin studies have shown significant heritability, they have been unable to identify the specific genetic bases of risk.” (Neuro, 188)

 

Passive aggressive actions

We’re just alike

Acting out aggression afterward

Violence might be silent

But it is never silenced

We two are the same, why?

Genetic likeness

Like the fuel was lit inside us

Sometimes it seems futile to fight it

Once ignition goes decisions go

From good to bad and they’re out the window

And we’re put into limbo

But why us two here now?

Why we so alike

Where it’s hard to hear now

It’s cause our type is the same

Which is why we both end caught up

In passive aggression that bothers

Because it’s me and him

And he, is my father.

“We live in groups, families, communities, societies. We work collaboratively in organizations, fight in bands and armies, take pleasure in events where we gather together to dance, party, watch or play sports. We interact in pairs, and small and large groups, whether in love or in hate, in teams and gangs, and in everyday activities. We care for one another and experience sympathy, empathy, or a sense of obligation to some, though not to others.” (Neuro, 142)

This passage really spoke to me because during this time of my field study i’ve been dealing alot with defining who I empathize with and where I see those empathetic interactions around me.

I ask myself every time I write, who is this for? Who am I trying to speak to?

Am I empathizing or showing lack of empathy?

What have I seen of empathy?

I’ve watched groups of people in different environments come together

I’ve seen gangs form on the streets, and watched gangs take another form on a college campus

I’ve known well what happens when groups come together out of love and when they come together out of hate.

I’ve experienced what happens when people from different backgrounds come together to party

I’ve been a part of different communities and i’ve been apart from different communities.

Where do my obligations lie?

If I had to give an answer, i’d say my obligations lie with the oppressed.

Yet, my biggest obligation is to myself, to maintain who I am

But to learn from the other groups of society’s oppressed people

I will be the loud speaker that they can scream through

Because I empathize with them, as they do with me.

And that is the reason I want to make music.