Constantly Constructing

While on a walk today, in the beautiful and rare Miami fall weather of 83 degrees with 50% humidity, I clicked play on one of my favorite podcasts - Radiolab. The episode, titled The Theater of David Byrne’s Mind, combined topics I didn’t fathom would ever be combined so perfectly for my interests - Radiolab, David Byrne, neuroscience, and art! It really had it all. As I listened to the episode about Byrne’s new interactive art exhibit, Theater of the Mind, I was reminded about what had drawn me to neuroscience back in highschool. It is a hard science that is readily applicable and observable in everyday life, yet also incredibly laden with emotional meaning and the capacity for artistic creation. For me, neuroscience was the field that felt like my own version of a cop out - rather than really having to choose one field to focus on, I could study and learn about everything, especially human nature, via neuroscience. Byrne seemed to have a similar viewpoint as me as he was inspired to create this artistic and experimental concept after reading neuroscience papers about human perception. Human perception, as we all know, can be incredibly deceiving. Just as Byrne’s shows explore what it means for perception and memory to be malleable, I wanted to explore that topic here, in words.

The neuroscientist on the podcast episode, Thalia Wheatley, talked a lot about how our experiences shape our perceptions of the world and thus the realities we construct about the world we live in and ourselves. “We are the sounds we hear, we're the music we listen to, just as we are the books we read, and the films we watch, and the conversations we engage in. Our minds are constantly changing and adapting. We're continuously in flux.” she says. I’ve heard a version of that quote before, admittedly probably years ago on Tumblr, but if it held any merit to me back then, it holds even more now coming from a neuroscientist. As someone who loves reading and watching films, I can’t even begin to count the number of times I’ve experienced something in my everyday life that I then draw parallels back to in a book I’ve read or a film I’ve watched. And this works vice versa as well, clearly, as one often leaves a movie or finishes a book with a new perspective on life and how to approach its nuances and intricacies.

Wheatley goes on to explain that the brains of friends operate similarly when viewing the same media as opposed to non-friends, whose brains operate less similarly. In fact, they could predict who would be close and not-close friends based on brain scans done on college freshmen before they formed any social ties! Beyond the social and technological ramifications of that study finding, it reminded me of how much I was able to bond with friends who had seen the same movie, show, book, etc. as me. Not in a “oh that’s cool, we both saw the same thing” way, but in a way that allows us to make quick references and immediate understandings of certain situations based on our shared experience of that media. The pitfall of this of course, is we can often end up in a bubble and echochamber of people who think like us. The best remedy? The very obvious one of expanding who we talk to, what we consume, and how we view the world. Which leads to the main idea that I wanted to write about, the concept of change and human malleability.

If how we view the world is constantly shapeshifting and morphing, aren’t we as well, despite what our family and friends may tell us? (Yes, I know this seems like an obvious observation but bear with me for a second.) In everyone’s head who knows us, there exists an idea of who we are, a concept and a framework for how we behave and act, what we like and don’t like. For those close to us, these convictions are stronger as they’ve seen more of us, both emotionally and time-wise, than a mere acquaintance. However, as we get older and change as a result of our experiences, how we truly act and what we like changes as well, but for these close people their convictions and older perceptions of us often still stay in their mind. Furthermore, when we are together with these people again, their perceptions of us in turn alter our perceptions of ourselves and thus our behavior. For those of us who moved back home with family during the pandemic lockdown, we’re all too familiar with this concept - regression. Moving back in with my parents into my high school bedroom really did alter how I perceived myself and acted during that time. Their narrative of me being rebellious, easily irritable, and overly sensitive rang shockingly true, although I will also add to my defense that all of us living through lock-down were collectively off-kilter. This idea, that “old” versions of ourselves exist in the minds of others and even in ourselves when we refuse to acknowledge change, because it’s scary, or painful, or a million other emotions, is simultaneously frightening and relieving.

For a very long time, I’ve been fearful of ever saying or writing anything that I could change my mind or stance on in the future out of the fear that I would look back at myself and wonder how “wrong” and silly I was and how I could ever let myself say or write “xyz”. When in reality, that’s the whole point of being a human! It’s to look back at our younger selves and recognize that we have changed and grown and it’s not embarrassing that I used to think “xyz”, when I really should be thinking, “wow, I’m so lucky to have grown” thanks to the experiences I’ve had. It means I’m alive! As easy as it is to write this, I know that I will probably continue editing what I say and write in real time out of this fear, but to have finally acknowledged feels good right now. It gives me the peace of mind that I don’t need to be steadfast in my beliefs, I’m only 22 for christ’s sake what do I even know?!

It’s ironic to think that neuroplasticity and this capacity for change and human growth was one of the concepts that led me to neuroscience so long ago yet I was clearly pushing so hard against it, at least outwardly. I had this narrative in my mind of who I was and that meant that’s always how I’d be, and if I strayed from that it would be out of character. But I’m not a character in a movie, even though sometimes I act like one when listening to a soundtrack while on a walk, and I’m not confined to my narrative or anyone else’s. Does it mildly feel like I just wrote a convoluted essay similar to the effortlessly lovely song that is Unwritten by Natasha Bedingfield? A bit. But it also wouldn’t be me if I didn’t insist on taking the hard way to arrive at my destination…or so I tell myself.