At the beginning of the school year in nonfiction writing, we were prompted to write about something we loved, and something we hated (or something like that). I typically have a hard time identifying the things that I hate because they're usually specific scenarios rather than everyday objects or common events. For example, I don't get flustered when I get honked at, yell at bikers who ride in the middle of the street, or lose my temper when I'm stuck in traffic. I did get upset, however, when the lady who directs the crosswalk on Springfield near Edison intentionally hit my car with her stop sign when I sped through the intersection last year.
After failing to find something to write about for the love/hate prompt, I decided that I needed to find what gets under my skin and I've been working to identify which events irritate me regularly. After a lot of searching, I recently found what I think I can call my pet peeve.
Two weeks (or maybe it was a week) ago, me and my dad were driving home after a long school day where my energy and patience had been depleted and where on particularly low levels. It was unbearably hot outside, and for some reason, my dad had the heat on in the car. I was burning up, but of course he was doing just fine. So at one point on our trek back home, I decided to lower the temperature.
The great thing about my car is that the right and left sides of the car have separate air conditioning systems. This means, to throw out a random example, that if I were to lower the temperate on my side, my father would maintain the same temperature on his side. It's quite a luxury; two people can simultaneously operate in polar opposite conditions without being affected by one another. We've had the car for almost seven years now, but miraculously, my father still doesn't understand how the AC works.
So, when I turned down the heat (on my side of the car), my dad swiftly turned it back up without saying word, or even looking in my direction. I don't even think he looked at the dial. He did it so calmly, as if the temperate knob had rotated by itself and he was simply bringing it back to its correct position. It seemed like it was a natural reaction, like he had a sensor in his eyes that monitored the dial and anytime this sensor detected a change, nerves fired in his brain and caused his right arm to reach out and fix the error. It was so emotionless, so heartless, so inconsiderate, so rude, and so many other upsetting things, and it really made me mad.
I had to use all of my reserve energy and patience to keep from blowing up in that moment. I kept silent, but there was a formidable rage brewing inside of me that could've been recognized had my father taken his eyes off the road for only a second. I was at that point of frustration to where you don't want to explain how mad you are, you just want people to notice you and feel your rage through your burning eyes. It's like you're Superman (or Kanye West) and at any moment you could laser somebody with alien eyes and make their head explode. I was heated, which surprised me a bit, because I don't usually get that angry. I figured that if this one event made me this upset, it must be the thing that I hate. I've had some time to prove this hypothesis, and I think it's generally true.
What I've discovered about myself is this: I hate it when someone reverses an action that I've performed without addressing it. It's not the reversal or rejection that irks me, it's the disregard for how I might feel about it. For example, if I were to open a window on a beautiful day to enjoy the sunshine and someone immediately closed it after me, but explained why they hated the sun, I wouldn't be upset at all. But if they closed it and didn't even think to turn and look at me, I would lose my mind. If you have the nerve to cuss me out and tell me why I'm wrong, I can respect that. To act as if I'm invisible, however, is just unacceptable. And a word of advice to anyone who rides in the car with me; if I turn down the heat in the car, don't do what my dad did unless you want to get out and walk home by yourself.
Wednesday, October 25, 2017
Thursday, October 12, 2017
What I Think About: Gaze Perception
Our ability to detect when someone is looking at us is strong enough to make strong that it seems like a sixth sense.
I think this scenario proves to be relatable to almost everyone: You're in a public area (a classroom, a large building, a public street, etc.), and you're minding your business. You might be actively doing something, like using your phone, or you may be doing nothing at all. At some point, you begin to feel a tingle on the back of your neck, and you stop what you're doing. You get the idea that someone is looking at you, and you begin to look around to find your secret observer. You search for a few seconds without finding any clues, but at the last second, you spot somebody quickly turning their head away, trying to avoid eye contact. From these limited symbols, you have come to the definite conclusion that this was the person staring at you.
Or maybe this is more accessible: You're in a public space, working, reading, or performing a task. You get this tingling sensation again, and you look around and find someone who seems to be looking in your direction. With closer inspection, however, you find that they're actually looking directly above you, and so you decide that they did not mean to attract your attention. But before you turn your head away, they suddenly begin to smile, and then they wave. You're still unsure about whether they're looking at you or not, but you don't want to be rude, so you smile and wave back. Unfortunately, someone else walks in front of you and greets this person, and you realize that you not only look stupid, but have also misunderstood this person's signals.
These types of events happen so often that it seems as if we have a sixth sense that's devoted to detecting when others are staring at us. We sense that some is looking at us even when they're outside of our visible perception, and we often end up being correct, leading some of us to believe that we have superpowers or psychic abilities. It's almost as if we have a second eye that's controlled by our mind. There's are term for this ability, called ESP or extrasensory perception, which was developed in 1930 by Joseph Banks Rhine. He conducted several experiments in an attempt to prove the existence of psychic abilities such as precognition (the ability to see events in the future), psychokinesis (the ability to move or influence physical objects using the mind), and clairvoyance, which is what I've been discussing. While the concept was intriguing, skeptics concluded that the evidence supporting it was unconvincing.
Scientists have effectively debunked this theory, and it's hard to find an article that supports the idea that ESP is used instead of natural biological functions of the brain. This article from Psychology Daily is frequently cited by authors answering the question, "How do we know when someone is looking at us?". In the article, Ilan Shrira and points out that this ability is attributed to a special "gaze detection" system in our brains. Specific brain cells fire when someone's eyes are pointed in a certain direction, allowing us to recognize subtle signals in space and determine where people are looking. The fact that we have dark pupils and white sclera makes it fairly easy for these brain cells to detect where we are looking, a characteristic not shared by other animals whose eyes don't have such a sharp contrast in color.
Although this sounds logical, there's still some room for ESP to exist within the framework. Shrira's explanation only applies when our observer is within our peripheral vision system - what about when our observer is behind us? How is it that we can feel this, even when we can't see it? A scientist would likely argue that this would only happen if we had recently seen this person, and that if we did feel as if someone was watching us from behind, we were probably misconstruing signals coming from other people in our peripheral vision. Regardless, our gaze perception, whether it's due to clairvoyance or extremely powerful peripheral vision, really is extraordinary.
Wednesday, October 11, 2017
What I Think About: Music
I have always been interested in how we listen to music.
This is likely due to the fact that I come from a family of musicians. Everyone in my immediate family sings and plays at least one instrument. My brother, mother, and father each have experience with teaching music, which leads to a wide exposure to various forms of music. I think we all have a rather diverse musical taste; at any time (at night), you may find one of us listening to Kirk Franklin, another listening to Edith Paif, someone else listening to Billy Joel, and the last listening to traditional Chinese Erhu music. During the day, however, all you would hear would be classical Opera from my mother's students (which is what I'm sitting through while writing this).
Despite the fact that all of us dabble in a bit of everything, each one of us have a certain genre or song that speaks to us in a way that nothing else in this world can do. I'd argue that this thing - a special connection with a certain type of music - is something every human being in this world shares, and it's what makes music amazing. Music can be so powerful that even those who know nothing about how music is made can be touched by it. Even my dog was in love with music; when someone sat down to the piano or began to sing, he would always sprint towards them and lay down next to their feet, and he wouldn't get up and leave until they were finished (or until he realized they couldn't sing).
I think music's magical power lies in its ability to make us recall memories, and appeal to our thoughts. For example, I know that I can listen to almost any genre and find something that I like about it, regardless of how familiar or foreign it is to me. Recently, I've been listening to a lot of Spanish salsa, which I'll admit is strange, but it's fun to listen to even though I understand little to nothing that is being said. Unfortunately, I have very little connection to this kind of music; I don't have many ties or much exposure to the culture it comes from, I can't understand the language, and it doesn't conjure up any memories for me. If you play the right hymn or an old-fashioned gospel music, however, I'll be forced to pay attention. That music, culture, and experience is so ingrained into who I am that it always tugs on something in my core, drawing out a pleasant feeling that comes from a clear or vague image or memory.
I always enjoy hearing people say, "OOOH that's my song!" because their face always lights up with smile, and obviously something has been sparked inside them. I haven't yet heard someone say "OOOH that's my genre!", but I believe that different types of music speak to individuals. It may be the soft, classical instrumental music that your parents made you play as a child, or maybe it's the smooth jazz that you watched your father listen to while growing up. Then, when that one song begins to play that embodies anything and everything you've ever loved, it blows your mind. In some cases, it makes people feel as if a song belongs to them - as if it was made for them and nobody else. All of us have likely seen someone get upset when one of their songs get popular and everyone else starts singing it. I've personally heard plenty of heated arguments centered around whether someone heard a song first or not. If people have the audacity to start fights around this issue, there can be no doubt that there's something special about music.
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On a related but separate note:
Someone who has caught my attention recently has been Xxxtentacion, even though I can't say I'm a follower of his music, or a fan of any of the problematic aspects of his lifestyle. His personality and style is unique to say the least, which can be inferred from his name. What's even more interesting in my opinion is the message he sends through his music, and the nature of his fan base. I can't fully comprehend it, but I've come to realize that my inability to understand his music doesn't mean his music is impossible to understand. It simply means that I don't understand it. I was talking to one of my friends about Xxxtentacion earlier this year, and I told her that I thought his music was extremely confusing (at that time I had only heard "Look at me!" and in all honesty I feel like I had the right to be confused). She agreed that the message doesn't always reach everyone, but that his music spoke to her because she had gone through anxiety and depression herself, which is something he speaks to through his music. My friend's connection to his music was surprising to hear, although I understood that we had different life experiences which caused me to interpret his music differently (although I kept thinking, how is "Can't keep my d*ck in my pants" relatable?). Regardless, I appreciated her telling me that, because it gave me a new understanding that allowed me to hear his music in a new way, thus giving me the opportunity to be more musically diverse. That's another great thing about music - what's ugly to one person can be beautiful to someone else.
I don't think I'll be playing "Look at me!" around the house while my parents are home, though.
This is likely due to the fact that I come from a family of musicians. Everyone in my immediate family sings and plays at least one instrument. My brother, mother, and father each have experience with teaching music, which leads to a wide exposure to various forms of music. I think we all have a rather diverse musical taste; at any time (at night), you may find one of us listening to Kirk Franklin, another listening to Edith Paif, someone else listening to Billy Joel, and the last listening to traditional Chinese Erhu music. During the day, however, all you would hear would be classical Opera from my mother's students (which is what I'm sitting through while writing this).
Despite the fact that all of us dabble in a bit of everything, each one of us have a certain genre or song that speaks to us in a way that nothing else in this world can do. I'd argue that this thing - a special connection with a certain type of music - is something every human being in this world shares, and it's what makes music amazing. Music can be so powerful that even those who know nothing about how music is made can be touched by it. Even my dog was in love with music; when someone sat down to the piano or began to sing, he would always sprint towards them and lay down next to their feet, and he wouldn't get up and leave until they were finished (or until he realized they couldn't sing).
I think music's magical power lies in its ability to make us recall memories, and appeal to our thoughts. For example, I know that I can listen to almost any genre and find something that I like about it, regardless of how familiar or foreign it is to me. Recently, I've been listening to a lot of Spanish salsa, which I'll admit is strange, but it's fun to listen to even though I understand little to nothing that is being said. Unfortunately, I have very little connection to this kind of music; I don't have many ties or much exposure to the culture it comes from, I can't understand the language, and it doesn't conjure up any memories for me. If you play the right hymn or an old-fashioned gospel music, however, I'll be forced to pay attention. That music, culture, and experience is so ingrained into who I am that it always tugs on something in my core, drawing out a pleasant feeling that comes from a clear or vague image or memory.
I always enjoy hearing people say, "OOOH that's my song!" because their face always lights up with smile, and obviously something has been sparked inside them. I haven't yet heard someone say "OOOH that's my genre!", but I believe that different types of music speak to individuals. It may be the soft, classical instrumental music that your parents made you play as a child, or maybe it's the smooth jazz that you watched your father listen to while growing up. Then, when that one song begins to play that embodies anything and everything you've ever loved, it blows your mind. In some cases, it makes people feel as if a song belongs to them - as if it was made for them and nobody else. All of us have likely seen someone get upset when one of their songs get popular and everyone else starts singing it. I've personally heard plenty of heated arguments centered around whether someone heard a song first or not. If people have the audacity to start fights around this issue, there can be no doubt that there's something special about music.
*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^
On a related but separate note:
Someone who has caught my attention recently has been Xxxtentacion, even though I can't say I'm a follower of his music, or a fan of any of the problematic aspects of his lifestyle. His personality and style is unique to say the least, which can be inferred from his name. What's even more interesting in my opinion is the message he sends through his music, and the nature of his fan base. I can't fully comprehend it, but I've come to realize that my inability to understand his music doesn't mean his music is impossible to understand. It simply means that I don't understand it. I was talking to one of my friends about Xxxtentacion earlier this year, and I told her that I thought his music was extremely confusing (at that time I had only heard "Look at me!" and in all honesty I feel like I had the right to be confused). She agreed that the message doesn't always reach everyone, but that his music spoke to her because she had gone through anxiety and depression herself, which is something he speaks to through his music. My friend's connection to his music was surprising to hear, although I understood that we had different life experiences which caused me to interpret his music differently (although I kept thinking, how is "Can't keep my d*ck in my pants" relatable?). Regardless, I appreciated her telling me that, because it gave me a new understanding that allowed me to hear his music in a new way, thus giving me the opportunity to be more musically diverse. That's another great thing about music - what's ugly to one person can be beautiful to someone else.
I don't think I'll be playing "Look at me!" around the house while my parents are home, though.
Tuesday, October 10, 2017
What I Think About: Race
The concept of race has to be one of the most problematic social constructs that we have in this country.
There's a very good reason for the fact that when applications ask you to describe yourself, they ask about your race and/or your ethnicity. There's an obvious reason for this. If you were only asked to describe your race, you would have to find a way to accurately categorize your skin color. For those of us higher up on the "whiteness to darkness" scale, the word 'white' will be accurate enough. On the other end of the spectrum, black will do. But what about everybody else in the middle? Are you tan, light brown, beige, chestnut, or smokey topaz? Even if you were able to successfully label the color of your skin, it wouldn't tell us much about who you actually are. A person with a light brown skin tone may be Hispanic, African-American, Native American, Indonesian, Indian, or any other ethnicity that brown people belong to. Even if you're white - are you purely American? Or are you Jewish, Swedish, German, or Irish? You're likely a little bit of all of these. Still, we continue to use this construct even though it has proved to be faulty.
Over the years, Americans have tried their best to make this system work, often resulting in some problematic solutions. At some point, we decided that 'we' (white Americans) would try to give every ethnic group a color code. This obviously didn't work very well - Native Americans are not 'red' and Asians are not 'yellow'. In fact, African-Americans are not really black, but I guess brown wasn't "descriptive" enough. Nevertheless, we persisted. At some point, people gave up trying to figure out names for every ethnic group. That brings us to the way we operate today, where the only racial groups we really recognize are whites and blacks (and ever so often, brown people). Of course, the thought process behind this wasn't as benign as I'm making it out to be, but I think we all understand that behind all of this is deep-seated racism and ignorance.
I woke up this morning thinking about how strangely we discuss race in America, probably because it's a topic that my class is discussing in an Introduction to Cultural Anthropology course. I was thinking about the nature of these conversations, and how it often seems to come down to a discussion about whites vs. blacks. Every time race is brought up in the classroom, I always wonder why it takes this turn. I'm often thinking, "What about everyone else in the middle? Why is race treated like a dichotomy?" I realize that I cannot fairly put the blame on others, because the construct of race is faulty, and attempting to discuss it will always be problematic. I also realize my own imperfections in that when the topic of race is brought up, I immediately jump to the conclusion that the conversation will be dominated by a discussion of African-Americans. Furthermore, I understand that when we decide to diverge away from the dichotomy of white vs. black, we're no longer talking about race - we're talking about ethnicity. If we want to have a more inclusive discussion, we have to make ethnicity the topic of discussion rather than race. It's easy to talk about white people and black people, but it's difficult to discuss tan, chestnut, brown and beige people, because at that point we don't really know who we're talking about. When we want to talk about these people, we start to use ethnic descriptors, such as Hispanic, Chicano, Native, Arabic, Asian, Cuban, and Indigenous. When we switch from race to ethnicity, it often leads to a much more productive conversation, because we have now allowed ourselves to use a much wider vocabulary. I think people tend to realize this, and generally we have grouped race and ethnicity together so that we don't have to be restricted to talking about skin color. So when someone says, "Let's talk about race", we often talk about ethnicity as well.
Regardless, we continue to attempt to discuss issues in the context of race, not ethnicity, as if that will lead to some profound revelation that we haven't discovered before, knowing that when we talk about race, it will come down to a very constricted conversation. I'm not sure why we do this; it may have to do with the constant reinforcement of a racial dichotomy that the media (social and commercial) provides. I think all of us can agree to some extent that society seems to be painted by the media as whites vs. everybody else (brown people), if not whites vs. blacks. All of us are exposed to some form of media, which is extremely influential. Perhaps if this construct was abandoned in popular media, and we were able to look past skin color in initial evaluations, it wouldn't be such a problem in our everyday lives.
Before starting this post, I tried to find a solid definition of race that I could use to discuss and breakdown its meaning. I was surprised to find that there is no official definition of the word 'race' that pertains to the physical descriptor we use. There is a definition for 'racial', however, which is "of, relating to, or based on a race", according to Merriam-Webster. I found it funny that they felt the need to provide some sort of definition even though they had to define 'racial' by using an undefined word. It shows how irrational our use of this construct is, but also how ingrained it is into our society. It's because race is so entrenched in our culture that I believe will still need to discuss it, even with its many issues, misconceptions and various definitions. We don't need to have a destructive discussion on 'the battle of the races', or limit ourselves to talking about whites vs. blacks, or whites vs. the colored world. But a discussion about why we discuss race this way can be productive. Why do we emphasize a characteristic that is so basic, but so significant? How did we come to categorize people this way? What does the word 'race' mean to different people? Should we continue to use it?
I see these discussions popping up frequently today, and they always feature a multitude of opinions and attitudes, and rarely ever end up in a single conclusion. But I do believe that these discussions can be productive, because they're challenging this problematic construct rather than operating beneath it.
Ultimately, I'm promoting the use of ethnicity over race, even though ethnicity is another poorly-defined social construct with its own set of difficulties and problematic elements. We'll have to spend time breaking down the meaning and use of ethnicity in the same way, but I won't do it here. I also won't evaluate nationality, heritage, gender, sexual orientation or culture, which are all shifting entities that make up our messy and unique individual and group identities. All that I'm saying here is that race doesn't mean nearly as much as we are trained to think it does, and we need to search for other descriptors that get to the core of who we really are.
There's a very good reason for the fact that when applications ask you to describe yourself, they ask about your race and/or your ethnicity. There's an obvious reason for this. If you were only asked to describe your race, you would have to find a way to accurately categorize your skin color. For those of us higher up on the "whiteness to darkness" scale, the word 'white' will be accurate enough. On the other end of the spectrum, black will do. But what about everybody else in the middle? Are you tan, light brown, beige, chestnut, or smokey topaz? Even if you were able to successfully label the color of your skin, it wouldn't tell us much about who you actually are. A person with a light brown skin tone may be Hispanic, African-American, Native American, Indonesian, Indian, or any other ethnicity that brown people belong to. Even if you're white - are you purely American? Or are you Jewish, Swedish, German, or Irish? You're likely a little bit of all of these. Still, we continue to use this construct even though it has proved to be faulty.
Over the years, Americans have tried their best to make this system work, often resulting in some problematic solutions. At some point, we decided that 'we' (white Americans) would try to give every ethnic group a color code. This obviously didn't work very well - Native Americans are not 'red' and Asians are not 'yellow'. In fact, African-Americans are not really black, but I guess brown wasn't "descriptive" enough. Nevertheless, we persisted. At some point, people gave up trying to figure out names for every ethnic group. That brings us to the way we operate today, where the only racial groups we really recognize are whites and blacks (and ever so often, brown people). Of course, the thought process behind this wasn't as benign as I'm making it out to be, but I think we all understand that behind all of this is deep-seated racism and ignorance.
I woke up this morning thinking about how strangely we discuss race in America, probably because it's a topic that my class is discussing in an Introduction to Cultural Anthropology course. I was thinking about the nature of these conversations, and how it often seems to come down to a discussion about whites vs. blacks. Every time race is brought up in the classroom, I always wonder why it takes this turn. I'm often thinking, "What about everyone else in the middle? Why is race treated like a dichotomy?" I realize that I cannot fairly put the blame on others, because the construct of race is faulty, and attempting to discuss it will always be problematic. I also realize my own imperfections in that when the topic of race is brought up, I immediately jump to the conclusion that the conversation will be dominated by a discussion of African-Americans. Furthermore, I understand that when we decide to diverge away from the dichotomy of white vs. black, we're no longer talking about race - we're talking about ethnicity. If we want to have a more inclusive discussion, we have to make ethnicity the topic of discussion rather than race. It's easy to talk about white people and black people, but it's difficult to discuss tan, chestnut, brown and beige people, because at that point we don't really know who we're talking about. When we want to talk about these people, we start to use ethnic descriptors, such as Hispanic, Chicano, Native, Arabic, Asian, Cuban, and Indigenous. When we switch from race to ethnicity, it often leads to a much more productive conversation, because we have now allowed ourselves to use a much wider vocabulary. I think people tend to realize this, and generally we have grouped race and ethnicity together so that we don't have to be restricted to talking about skin color. So when someone says, "Let's talk about race", we often talk about ethnicity as well.
Regardless, we continue to attempt to discuss issues in the context of race, not ethnicity, as if that will lead to some profound revelation that we haven't discovered before, knowing that when we talk about race, it will come down to a very constricted conversation. I'm not sure why we do this; it may have to do with the constant reinforcement of a racial dichotomy that the media (social and commercial) provides. I think all of us can agree to some extent that society seems to be painted by the media as whites vs. everybody else (brown people), if not whites vs. blacks. All of us are exposed to some form of media, which is extremely influential. Perhaps if this construct was abandoned in popular media, and we were able to look past skin color in initial evaluations, it wouldn't be such a problem in our everyday lives.
*****
Before starting this post, I tried to find a solid definition of race that I could use to discuss and breakdown its meaning. I was surprised to find that there is no official definition of the word 'race' that pertains to the physical descriptor we use. There is a definition for 'racial', however, which is "of, relating to, or based on a race", according to Merriam-Webster. I found it funny that they felt the need to provide some sort of definition even though they had to define 'racial' by using an undefined word. It shows how irrational our use of this construct is, but also how ingrained it is into our society. It's because race is so entrenched in our culture that I believe will still need to discuss it, even with its many issues, misconceptions and various definitions. We don't need to have a destructive discussion on 'the battle of the races', or limit ourselves to talking about whites vs. blacks, or whites vs. the colored world. But a discussion about why we discuss race this way can be productive. Why do we emphasize a characteristic that is so basic, but so significant? How did we come to categorize people this way? What does the word 'race' mean to different people? Should we continue to use it?
I see these discussions popping up frequently today, and they always feature a multitude of opinions and attitudes, and rarely ever end up in a single conclusion. But I do believe that these discussions can be productive, because they're challenging this problematic construct rather than operating beneath it.
Ultimately, I'm promoting the use of ethnicity over race, even though ethnicity is another poorly-defined social construct with its own set of difficulties and problematic elements. We'll have to spend time breaking down the meaning and use of ethnicity in the same way, but I won't do it here. I also won't evaluate nationality, heritage, gender, sexual orientation or culture, which are all shifting entities that make up our messy and unique individual and group identities. All that I'm saying here is that race doesn't mean nearly as much as we are trained to think it does, and we need to search for other descriptors that get to the core of who we really are.
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