Mirror Mirror, on the Wall...

“I am not a cow, or thistles for camels
to browse on. People who insult me
 are only polishing the mirror.”
 -Rumi, Polishing the Mirror trans. Coleman Barks

“Societies never know it, but the war of an artist with his society is a lover's war, and he does, at his best, what lovers do, which is to reveal the beloved to himself, and with that revelation, make freedom real.” -James Baldwin, The Creative Process

I want to research mirror neurons. Apparently they're a relatively hot topic in the body sciences right now. The basic idea is that if you watch somebody do something, the same neural pathways that are activated when you do that action are activated when you watch. You watch someone throw a ball, and in your brain you are throwing the ball, just without actual physical motion of your arm.

The idea keeps getting brought up in my kinesiology classes, because, well, it's a pretty cool concept. It's how we can learn to do something well just by watching it enough times and practicing through imitation. For kinesiologists, the appeal is obvious, we like bodies and are always focusing on how to better use them.

What I want to know though, is how sensitive are these mirror neurons? If our brains can extrapolate a human motion by watching floating dots on a screen move a certain way in relation to each other, how human does what we see have to be? Can we watch a cartoon or a stick figure and have their movements incite mirror neuron activity if it's human enough? Are they activated if we read about something instead of seeing it?

In another direction, what kind of credence does this give to the notion that violence begets violence?

Studies have already shown that smiling and being around smiling, happy people, tends to make you a happier person. Then if we see violent things like abuse and physical altercations, does that make us more violent or prone to violence? When I see someone kick a dog or smack a child, I feel bad. Is this because in my head these mirror neurons have me taking that same action? Perhaps I feel bad because in the act of watching, I am the one inflicting that pain. That's a scary thought to me. It means that I'm complicit in the violence around me because of my inaction in stopping it.

It reminds me of a line from the movie Shortbus where one of the main characters is gawking at the orgy happening before her and a person passing by comments “Voyeurism is a form of participation.” Maybe that's why watching porn feels good. Watching sex excites your brain similar to the way having sex does. That's also why it can feel dirty or inappropriate, because on some level you're experiencing something without doing it.

Mirror neurons seem to represent a kind of physical [visceral] empathy. When watching a slasher flick, how many people wince right as one of the characters gets stabbed and dies? Is this because we're feeling the knife?

Based on what little I know of them, the existence of mirror neurons suggests to me a hardwired drive toward community and social interaction. We get along because I feel your pain and I feel your happiness. My body is made to respond to those around me. I am shaped and inscribed by the environment around me.

Queer Body Issues.

A friend asked me to write up a short piece for a zine they're making on Body Image in the LGBTQ community so I thought I'd post here as well. This will likely remain a work in progress for a few days.

Growing up, the remnants of the anti-drug movement of the nineties taught me that my body is my temple. I internalized this like so many of those early messages, but reshaped it and adapted it for my own use as I grew up. I'm also queer, which means growing up my body has been subject to a range of external pressures telling it to be perfect through various media (mis)portrayals since junior high onward.

I suppose I could tell you how since starting college I've lost weight, that more and more I find that I fit the stereotypical "twink" body-type: smaller, relatively hairless, more cute than hot, more harmless than imposing. And I could let you assume that there's a correlation, that it was a conscious decision to fit this mold, but that would be a lie. I started losing weight because I got involved, started living what the health world calls an active lifestyle. I found things that I'm passionate about and I've yet to let my metabolism (or eating habits) catch up. But now I'm faced with a different kind of dilemma: the image my body projects doesn't necessarily reflect who I am.

And I dislike the box my body is forced into, it tickles the back of my mind like a badly made woolen sweater. I know I'm being judged. My body image issues aren't between me and my body, they're between everyone else and my body. Well, my body is my temple, subject to change, open for business on a whim. I'm not some twink, I reject this assumption because I would be just as awesome no matter my size or shape.

To quote that infernally popular John Mayer song, "I'm bigger than my body gives me credit for." The more I'm immersed in the queer community, that sex-positive, open-communication, radical activist side of the LGBT spectrum, the more this is reinforced because we're taught that everything is culturally encoded, everything is socially filtered and policed for acceptability so you can either change yourself or change your surroundings. I'm lucky, I'm able to do the latter and find a culture that accepts and celebrates me.

Body's A Temple

I'm a writer by practice, a dancer in step, silly by default and here to help.

I'm fond of lists like this; summing myself up in a few silly words. They're incomplete snapshots of a life far more complex and simple than you can really see.

It's like vacation pictures. Everybody's smiling in the pictures, but what you didn't see was little Jimmy crying an hour earlier when he stepped on a bee, or Dad swearing because he couldn't figure how to put up the god damn tent. Selected memories that will eventually replace the reality with a fiction, a farce. Eventually the happy pictures become the memories.

I don't want to replace myself with a representation though and create a doppelganger of the mind. I want to leave people guessing. It's said that information is power, and if I don't always share everything about myself, then I will always be the one with the most power over myself. That said, it's probably pretty ironic that this is coming from someone who has no qualms turning a friendly stranger into a fast friend.

Sensations through connections. We say there are 6 senses (I'm counting balance here), but really, aren't they all a product of touch? The photons touch the cones and rods in our eyes which send electrical signals to our brains. The molecules touch the taste buds on our tongues and whatever scent receptors are in our noses. Soundwaves touch and vibrate our eardrums. Gravity pulls on the inner ear, sloshing little bags of water around so they squeeze hairs. It's all tactile. You can't always see it, but it's all touch.

How touching.

And each touch, each moment, is the quick firing of a neuron/synapse to the brain.

Remember that catchy phrase I won’t worry my life away? For the first time in my life it’s manifested into something more than just a concept. Worry is what happens when we create meaning in a way that brings us down and it’s usually about an event that never really happens.
-Jason Mraz

I quote this not just because it's from one of my favorite musical artists, rather because I think it wonderfully illustrates that this connection of touch works both ways. The mind is by no means a passive beast.

People look at the mind-body connection and are filled with images of esoteric meaning, but it's very much a real thing "scientifically" studied. They of course call it the placebo effect, but nomenclature has always been a matter of contention between science and the masses. Swine flue, anyone. Excuse me, I mean the H1N1 virus.

Which brings me back to my original point, your body is a temple. The distinction of whether it's a temple to the mundane or to the transcendent or anything for that matter, I'll leave up to you, but there's more to us than just the flesh and all of its associated filth.

We are the temples of our ideals, represented by words and actions. We decorate ourselves with jewelry and clothes and tattoos like the flags and flowers that go up when there is a festival.

We are the temples of ourselves, but should we celebrate? What reason do we have? Do we even need one? Rhetorical questions are stupid, more so when you don't have an answer.

I once did an activity where you were supposed to complete a sentence about yourself.
"I am... gay."
"I am... more afraid of coming across as a bad person than anything else, which is why I try so hard to be so compassionate and loving to the world."
"I am... a constant procrastinator."
"I am... actually a pretty bad student because I was smart enough to ace my way through high school without ever really needing to try."

But I think the best answer any of us could give is simply "I am." When you truly are yourself, everything else speaks for itself.