#hardwiring

Bad Drivers and the Short View

“To survive in a modern world in which not only traffic engineering but our reigning political and economic systems reward shortsightedness, you learn to think, or to not think, like a bad driver.” – Jonathan Franzen This short essay features at the end of Jonathan Franzen’s collection The End of the End of the Earth, a grounded, concerned and sometimes even optimistic take about what it means…

To Change our mindset , how do we alter our minds to have less noise and more understanding?

As I look back in our many amazing centuries of strong empowered and beautiful humans men and women you saw them in our families, friends, movies on television, there was so many strong and empowered brilliant minds…

When we are born we are defined by our sexuality being a boy and a girl this is determined by our human anatomy however, as most of you all know things have somewhat become more…

New Post has been published on http://www.crownofcompassion.org/2016/04/15/the-person-you-were-meant-to-be/

The person you were meant to be

“Often, it’s not about becoming a new person, but becoming the person you were meant to be, and already are, but don’t know how to be.”- Heath L. Buckmaster, Box of Hair

“You’re blessed when you’re content with just who you are- no more, no less.  That’s the moment you find yourselves proud owners of everything that can’t be bought.”- Matthew 5:5 (The Message)

Matt Bays begins Chapter 12 (“Default Settings- Accepting Who You Are”) of Finding God in the Ruins with the assertion that our genetic makeup- our character traits- can be only slightly modified.  Maybe our hardwiring does not need to be tempered with- that we are what we are for a reason.

Pastor Bays adds that change most definitely is a good thing.  But checking everything on our “alternate settings” list can give us the kind of false hope that can be destructive.  Matt believes the recurring twinge within us of past damage can become manageable.  However, the deeper ache in our spirits won’t ever be completely torn out by the roots- and maybe that is okay.

Acknowledging the truth actually can set you free.  You always will be you.  This sometimes painful truth can be liberating, because you can finally stop chasing after  the person you will never be.  In order to move forward in this life or even  survive, we must accept that “who we are at the core is exactly who we were always meant to be.”  Thomas Merton believed the ordinary would find freedom- the ordinary would inherit the earth.  As The Message paraphrases Matthew 5:5- “You’re blessed when you’re content with just who you are- no more, no less.”

Today’s question: Are you content with who you are- the person you were meant to be- at this present moment?  Please share.

Coming Monday: the new Short Meditation, “Rainbow Days”

Rebecca M. Jordan-Young have potentially led to revolutionary implications  for scientists as well as how we think about gender and sexuality as a society. Jordan-Young has been trained in epidemiology, measurement, and study design. She focuses mainly on "brain organization theory". This theory claims that males and females have different brains because of early exposure to different hormones. These differences in the brain are drawn upon to a person's sexual orientation, men are more prominent than women in mathematical fields, and even why one woman is more "nurturing" than another. In her book Jordan-Young explains how most of these studies fail the "standard of science".  

In her research Jordan-Young points out that most scientists would not point out what "traits", masculine and feminine, that they were measuring. Due to this fact many of the studies done varied because the very idea of what masculine and feminine consists of is a matter of opinion so there is no consistent quantitative data. Jordan-Young spent many years doing HIV epidemiology studies and prevention work with with drug users and prostitutes through programs in Washington, D.C and she learned that even slightly changing how you asked a question could dramatically change the results you achieved.  

Jordan-Young addresses neural plasticity and how the brain is constantly changing. This is causing the idea of "hardwiring" to leave the neuroscientific community because "hardwiring" suggests that the brain is not changing, it is constant. Jordan-Young has researched what other scientists recognize as a difference in gay and heterosexual brains. What is flawed in these studies however is that most of the research that takes place in communities where the population of gay people is fairly homogenous. This causes the data to be inaccurate because outside of these particular communities it does not apply. The same goes for when neuroscientists try and look for sex differences. 

I agree with the fact that the brain is always changing and that the theory of hardwiring is very medieval. I disagree with the fact that hormones do not contribute at all to a person's brain activity however. Hormones do affect mood somewhat which can affect how people interact with each other, i.e. who is more nurturing. A person might ask if Jordan-Young thinks that there is any difference at all between men and women when it comes to neurology. Jordan-Young is not as comical in her approach as Cordelia Fine but more so than Celia Edell. She is also more informative than Celia Edell because she has studied and worked in the field intensely. 

Works Cited: 

Jordan-Young, Rebecca. Brainstorm:The Flaws in the Science of Sex Difference. N.p.: Harvard College, 2010. Print. 

Our brains are wired in complex and intricate ways, conduits for thoughts both rational and irrational – and, of course, for the chemical mayhem that is our feelings.

Sometimes, when enmeshed in strong emotions, one is able to sit back dispassionately and think, ‘When I am dead, and the raw materials are decomposing, none of this will matter a jot – so why am I getting so het up now?’

It is a…

Sometimes, I think God was drunk when he made me.

My hardwiring is all fucked up. 

Red wires are connected to blue wires,

wires are loose,

and some wires don't even belong there in the first place. 

It's like he found every part of me in human a junkyard and put me together like Frankenstein's monster