Thursday, June 30, 2011
Miranda Lambert - The House That Built Me
I heard this song for the first time last night during The Voice and I cried. Not just teary eyed, but full on sobbing. Everything about the song touched and struck a nerve that I knew the meaning of every line because it was me. Maybe it's because I feel like I'm on the verge of a nervous breakdown, one I can't afford to have nor one I have the time to have. It got to the point last night that everything had left me so frazzled that I was actually standing in the kitchen shaking. Actually shaking and I couldn't get it to stop. I've never had that happen before. And it's not like there's anyone I can turn to and say "Hey, guess what? I'm going to fall apart and I need help." I have to trek through every day with a plastered smile on my face and say everything is fine because who wants to hear otherwise. Even my family would tell me to stop over-reacting and shake it off. So, yeah. This song. Made me cry like I just had my heart broken.
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
NIN - Everyday Is Exactly The Same [Video Version
This is how I feel today. Like every day has fallen into some black hole of repeated nothingness. I need a change in my routine. I need a lightning bolt of excitement to hit me fromt he heavens to get a fire under my ass to make me want to do things again. I want some motivation to want to do something, anything at this point. I need inspiration to last more than a few minutes. I want to smile again all day long like I use to. Ugh. I think I need to dance.
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Music is my Religion
I always use to say that there were certain songs that I felt were like a religious experience for me. The feeling that would pour through my body upon hearing the first notes of those melodies would make the butterflies soar in my stomach, chills run up my spine and euphoria flood every nerve ending. The Sarah McLachlan's song "Fear" remixed by Rabbit in the Moon and Tori Amos's song "Precious Things" remixed by Rabbit in the Moon are two such songs for me. The chilling voice of both women bring goosebumps to my skin and the rise and fall of the beats are orgasmic to me. This article by Michael Graziano makes so much sense to me that I felt the need to share it.
As a neuroscientist, I have often wondered -- what is the source of my relationship to music? A great deal is known about how sounds are processed in the brain, and at least a little is known about how the syntax of music is perceived. But what about reverence for music? Many people, myself included, experience a religious-type awe when listening to certain pieces of music. What exactly is the relationship between music and religion and where in the brain does that commonality emerge?
As I've written before in books and blogs, I am an atheist and yet I have an empathy for religion. Intellectually, I do not think there is a literal God. Emotionally, I am not anti-religious. One of the reasons why I feel an emotional empathy for religion is that it reminds me of my attitude toward music.
Many of the moral generalizations that have been applied to religion apply just as well to music. Music is a cultural phenomenon. It intensifies emotions. It helps cement communities. It can range from the terroristic to the sublime. The Nazis after all had nationalistic Nazi music to fire up their citizens, and in more recent decades we've seen cop killer music. On the other end of the spectrum, the rousing music of the civil rights movement advocated for equality, and Beethoven's Ninth was a politically and socially radical statement about the joy of human solidarity.
Yet something else harder to put into words, something that goes beyond cultural impact, unites music and religion. When I am listening to certain pieces of music I feel a reverence creeping over me, an awe that has a spiritual quality. For myself, classical music does it. For others, of course, different styles of music trigger the same reverential reaction.
I do not see any contradiction between my scientific atheism and my emotional reverence. I am a biological being subject to the same emotions and affinities as others. I am, however, scientifically curious about the phenomenon. At least one aspect of the phenomenon may have a surprising basis in the social machinery of the human brain.
In complexity, the human brain tends to see intentionality. We are after all social animals. We evolved to be social beings -- to look at the complex pattern of behavior of others and infer a mind state, a personality, a persona. When we encounter complexity, the social machinery in the brain is engaged. It generates hypothetical mind states and intentions and attributes them to the complex entity. It is an automatic reaction. We can't help the impulse.
This type of social perception has been studied extensively. Social neuroscience, as it is called, is now one of the hottest topics in the science of the brain. I've written about it myself in academic articles and also in my book, "God, Soul, Mind, Brain." The general region of the brain that appears to be particularly involved in inferring mental states in others is more or less above the ear and about an inch in. It is adjacent to and probably densely connected with the auditory cortex.
When I listen to Mozart, I believe what is happening could be described as follows.
Certainly, I admire the man. Any person who could create great music has my admiration. I also admire the music. But that intellectual admiration, an admiration of the craftsmanship, is not the same as spiritual awe. Something else happens.
In the deep logic of the music, I sense a presence. My brain generates a mind state, a persona, and attributes it to the music. Not the mind of Mozart the man, but a kind of soul that invests that particular piece. The piece has a persona. It has a palpable spirit, and I feel as though I can have a personal relationship to that spirit. The social, interpersonal, emotional machinery of my brain has been recruited.
My brain is treating the music like a universe of complexity and investing that universe with its own deity, for whom I feel some measure of awe and reverence. My relationship to the music is, in the most fundamental sense, the same as a religious relationship to the real world.
I do not know if other people react to music in the same way. I would be curious to hear from my readers.
Why is Music a Religious Experience?
Posted: 06/15/11 10:55 AM ET
As I've written before in books and blogs, I am an atheist and yet I have an empathy for religion. Intellectually, I do not think there is a literal God. Emotionally, I am not anti-religious. One of the reasons why I feel an emotional empathy for religion is that it reminds me of my attitude toward music.
Many of the moral generalizations that have been applied to religion apply just as well to music. Music is a cultural phenomenon. It intensifies emotions. It helps cement communities. It can range from the terroristic to the sublime. The Nazis after all had nationalistic Nazi music to fire up their citizens, and in more recent decades we've seen cop killer music. On the other end of the spectrum, the rousing music of the civil rights movement advocated for equality, and Beethoven's Ninth was a politically and socially radical statement about the joy of human solidarity.
Yet something else harder to put into words, something that goes beyond cultural impact, unites music and religion. When I am listening to certain pieces of music I feel a reverence creeping over me, an awe that has a spiritual quality. For myself, classical music does it. For others, of course, different styles of music trigger the same reverential reaction.
I do not see any contradiction between my scientific atheism and my emotional reverence. I am a biological being subject to the same emotions and affinities as others. I am, however, scientifically curious about the phenomenon. At least one aspect of the phenomenon may have a surprising basis in the social machinery of the human brain.
In complexity, the human brain tends to see intentionality. We are after all social animals. We evolved to be social beings -- to look at the complex pattern of behavior of others and infer a mind state, a personality, a persona. When we encounter complexity, the social machinery in the brain is engaged. It generates hypothetical mind states and intentions and attributes them to the complex entity. It is an automatic reaction. We can't help the impulse.
This type of social perception has been studied extensively. Social neuroscience, as it is called, is now one of the hottest topics in the science of the brain. I've written about it myself in academic articles and also in my book, "God, Soul, Mind, Brain." The general region of the brain that appears to be particularly involved in inferring mental states in others is more or less above the ear and about an inch in. It is adjacent to and probably densely connected with the auditory cortex.
When I listen to Mozart, I believe what is happening could be described as follows.
Certainly, I admire the man. Any person who could create great music has my admiration. I also admire the music. But that intellectual admiration, an admiration of the craftsmanship, is not the same as spiritual awe. Something else happens.
In the deep logic of the music, I sense a presence. My brain generates a mind state, a persona, and attributes it to the music. Not the mind of Mozart the man, but a kind of soul that invests that particular piece. The piece has a persona. It has a palpable spirit, and I feel as though I can have a personal relationship to that spirit. The social, interpersonal, emotional machinery of my brain has been recruited.
My brain is treating the music like a universe of complexity and investing that universe with its own deity, for whom I feel some measure of awe and reverence. My relationship to the music is, in the most fundamental sense, the same as a religious relationship to the real world.
I do not know if other people react to music in the same way. I would be curious to hear from my readers.
Monday, June 13, 2011
Second chances (numerous times over)
The last thing I want to be is the go-to/fallback chick because I'm too easy going. And, let me not lie, it's also nice to be taken out every once in a while and not have to worry about paying for anything! But at what point do I finally throw my hands up and say "enough"? It just seems to be an endless cycle of me usually being single and him dating crazy chicks, then realizing that it's nothing but headache and drama and it coming back full circle to me again where there is no drama. So, do I just let it keep going this time and see if it's going to go somewhere this time? Or, do I flip him off and tell him to f8ck off already? Decisions, decisions....
Friday, June 3, 2011
"Why-o, why-o, why-o, did I ever leave Ohio?" - Back to the Beach
My 17 year old car officially died this morning a few blocks from my home. So, the ever resourceful me drove it back to my house in reverse because apparently, when the transmission on a car goes, it will still move in reverse. I then proceeded to load my girls out of the car and hoofed it up the block to catch the bus to make it to my sister's so she could get the girls to daycare and school while I then waited for another bus to start my bus/metrorail/bus commute to work. And that's just one way. I almost burst out in tears on the bus to work while listen to Adele's Someone Like You because the Marine Ex just doesn't seem to leave. He lingers, even with him engaged to his daughter's mother and planning on marrying her when he gets back. And I think it's not him entirely I miss but the way I was treated and taken care of. I want that back. Best Buy guy I back and I know I could easily find that with him but how many times do I need to go through getting my hopes up and him deciding to get serious with Crazy Chick #67 because she has more time than I do with 2 kids? I'm really beginning to feel like it's hopeless here and I would give anything to get out ans start over somewhere else. I don't have anything left here for me. Yes, some family's here but my girls are my family and they are the ones I need to look out for and make things better for. And how in the hell am I doing that by barely getting by here? I don't know anymore. I just wish I'd get an answer from someone, even if it's stating the obvious.
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