Week 9--Anthropologists on Earth

So, last week. We started class with the photo of Lakshmi, the young girl with four arms and four legs. Our first reactions were visceral: a sort of horror, followed by concern for her health and well being. Lakshmi characterized the theme of Thursday's discussion. We talked about whether or not certain disabilities were enviable or pitiable. Lakshmi's many limbs made her the living incarnation of a goddess to some and made her a sad genetic anomaly to others. Greg's tumor made him enlightened to some and ignorant to others. We ended up talking about social disabilities such as Asperger's and autism and how they could be considered disabilites of the tacit mind, rather than the conscious mind.

We also discussed our reactions to whether or not the world that we see is reality. Some of us took that in stride, while others felt fear at the idea that what we see is not real. If we perceive something, doesn't that make it real to us? Does it need to be real to other people? 

Audra: sways back and forth, points to the screen.

Anne: a slight leaning of the ring finger, then looks down, touching new fingers with quick strikes. Her hand sweeps to the chest then cascades palms outwards. Rubs her fingers.

Allison: hands come up. Makes minute strokes with her pen.

Anne: pulls hand down past her head, thrusts hands back and forth. (repeated several times.)

Olivia: makes small taps.

Audra: a soft gesture, striking gestures, air quotes and eye contact.

Corey: touches her eyes, then the page. Her head makes slight turns.

Olivia: (hands grasp cheeks)

Corey: small nods with narrow eye brows

Meredith: vigorous head nods.

Anne: Vigorous pulls, light touches forwards, upon the page. Circular motion.

Meredith: touches her heart, touches her fingertips, leans on hand.

Madi: Jazz hands. Transforming into claws and finally a clasp.

Olivia: hands towards herself then touching, rubbing table. Hands strike (a karate chop) open palm.

Corey: thumb across lip, page, a head tilt, a hand grasp.

Ali and Olivia: head nods

Ali: shifts, rubs arm.

Audra: Ringing fist.

I cannot know if anyone else is intrigued by the ability to still “follow the conversation” in an sense. I have been having several conversations about body language recently, including its evolution in Csem. What I am struck by is how our body language has been developing. In the beginning, we hardly moved at all. Then last week I was told by someone, “I catch myself doing this (makes gesture) all of the time because you do it so much.” We are beginning to create a vocabulary of motion, something like learning to dance, or speaking sign language, or holding the attention of a room.

I've been thinking about mental illness diagnosis. For me, looking back at the time when I was depressed, I know that I didn't know why I was feeling how I felt, I could only understand that things were bad in my life and these things made me unhappy all the time. But it was more than unhappy- it was obsession with the unhappiness. I couldn't move on, I couldn't find things to be glad about, I couldn't function as a normal 11- or 12- year old.

This is most certainly not the case now. When something bad happens, I feel terrible for a while, but then I acknowledge that I need to continue on and that things will get better eventually. Eventually I will stop being mad with mother, eventually my father will forgive me, eventually. This crucial thought had no effect while I was depressed, but now it is comforting, and I can trust that things will, eventually, get better.

I was depressed long before I knew what depression was- what its symptoms were, how depressed people acted or responded to their world, or how depressed people could handle depression. And yet I still recognized that this specific part of my life was more miserable and very different from any other part after it was over but before I was taught about depression. I felt no real need to define it- 6th grade was rough, but I wasn't that way anymore so it's ok.

Depression is merely a label for a story. In my case, depression was 6th grade, moving to an enormous new school, not being able to stay friends with the people from my old school, not making friends in the new one, not having my parents notice that I was unhappy, having my academic work graded for the first time, being ostricized, getting my period for the first time, going through puberty without support, being unhappily different and feeling as if life was just not worth it anymore.

Physically, I was tired all the time, I felt constantly lethargic, I cried at anything at anytime for any reason, and was unable to explain why.

Biologically, depression is a label for when a person's brain is acting strangely: serotonin levels are off, and the LHPA axis- the Limbic Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenal axis- is hyperactive. In other words, the parts of your brain that control mood, stress, metabolism, [I'm forgetting a few] are talking to each other too much.

Names for mental illness are descriptive labels that indicate how a person's brain is acting and how these actions that differ from normal brains effect that person's emotions and physical actions. These labels have specific indicators: if a person does not show any of these indications, they do not have the mental illness. If an x-ray of a person's arm shows no break, only even, clean bone lines, then the person probably does not have a broken bone. Some exceptions: if the break is too small to be easily seen or if the x-ray was taken improperly.

It's the same with mental illness- sometimes it's hard to see, sometimes the tests are done incorrectly, sometimes people lie to try to seem healthy or sick. This does not change the fact that if a person is mentally ill, it is visible after examination.

Yes, psychiatric doctors can be poorly trained, yes, patients can lie, yes, tests can be rigged, yes, all of these things happen. But I firmly believe that they do not count for many cases. Which means that most children diagnosed with ADHD probably actually have ADHD. Most people diagnosed with depression probably are depressed. And while I agree that medicine should not always be the first answer, I think that a great number of people need to be medicated to be healthy, to function closer to normally, to be happier.

The exceptions are not the rule.

Both these stories brought up extremely intriguing questions about the self and personality and how the actual biological workings affect how we view our identity and the identity of others. Greg's parents felt as if the Greg they knew was gone -- lost forever. The first impression of Greg is that he has become a drone - a vegetable of a sort. However, the doctors and nurses all felt like Greg had a continuous cheery, open disposition and liked to think that this was his personality. However, this personality only came out when prompted by outside stimulus. I cannot even begin to imagine what it would be like to live so in the moment that you are only present with a personality when someone is speaking to you. Also, I found it fascinating that each outside person saw Greg’s condition drastically different from each other – the religious people saw him as having reached enlightenment, the fact that he was so present in only the moment that was taking place was a good thing in their eyes. The family saw him as lost, gone from all reality and transformed into almost an empty shell of what he once was. The doctors who lived with him every day saw him as someone who may still have depth of emotion and a glimmer of personality.

Though Greg’s story stuck with me more, the Surgeon, too, brought up some of the same interesting questions – what constitutes personality, and how much does our biological make up, with all its quirks, create that personality? I feel like I have always thought of people with diseases such as tourrettes as having a personality that is then hindered by their disease – but maybe, as this reading seems to suggest, the disease is just a part of their personality. Why do we feel the need to separate these ‘abnormalities’ into, well, abnormalities, and not just accept it as personality? Obviously, yes, there are the basic health reasons, but I feel like we separate them even deeper than that….

       I was intentionally avoiding the exposure to the field of psychology because I thought the study of psychology would make oneself unnecessarily self-conscious and detached, and because I always wanted to focus more on natural sciences.  However, these readings were eye-opening for me.  Not that I totally changed my view and am willing to delve into the field of psychology, but these readings somehow were eye-opening for me. Simply put, the readings were interesting!! I appreciated the conscientious effort of the observer in the readings.   I made the wisest choice during last summer when picking the CSEM choice.

       I found the second reading as an optimistic version of the first reading.  Those two are related to each other in that sense.  While reading Greg's story, I kept on checking if I am like Greg.  It's like medical interns and residents often think they have the same symptoms with thsoe of their patients.  I was like comparing all my unconscious/habituous traits with thsoe of Greg, and constantly justified myself that I am still ok.  Indeed, I don't have a tumor.  But it was really scary when there was something that I have in common with Greg such as being oversensitive etc.  However, when it comes to the second reading, a story of the surgeon, I was totally relieved.  He was awesome, professional, and saint who had overcome all his difficulties.  It's very fascinating that his tics stopped when he was to perform a surgery.  Very ironical moment, but the most beautiful moment of human that can ever have.  I valued the surgeon's optimism, humor, and his family's attitude toward him.  (like Helen) 

       Focusing on 'difficult' people's life stories, and their efforts of overcoming it (I'm talking about the surgeon), I was able to have a more accepting , unbiased view of people from every walk of life.  The second reading really encouraged me to be confident and optimistic whoever I am, or however I am appeared to be to others because in the end, those things really don't matter as long as I can be the best in my 'beautiful moment.'

The first story was definitly a heart-wrenching tale in its way. The second seemed more personalized to the reader. Both were intiguing in the possibilities they opened up on the topic of the unconscious. Where is the unconscious? Does it ever go away? The actual destruction of the brain in Greg's story added another element of confusion: when does the conscious and the unconscious collide? The author seems to give the perspective that they were both there, sometimes sinking back to one when stimulation wasn't present. Then there is the addition of music into the equation, why could he remember tunes and jingles when he couldn't recall much else? Another thing I enjoyed about this peice was the relation of his past to the story. His hippie revival days staying sound in his head.

A Surgeons Life brought up different issues. Even though Tourrettes does not actually tear out part of the brain like in Greg's case, people with the disease deal with habitual resurfacing of the unconscious. It's interesting that the author tells us what Bennet is saying about his own disease. A first hand account of what the brain is telling the mind to do. Speaking of the brain and the mind, is there a conscious difference?

This reading was a very sad one indeed but none-the-less, still very interesting.  Two parts that intrigued me the most were; his blindness to his blindness and; how positively he responded when questioned about music.

Greg didn't even realize he was blind, he believed his eyes were simply poor.  His unconscious is really his dominating mindset, and we can easily see this when he watches TV.  He imagines pictures of what is happening and doesn't even realize he's not looking at the TV.  This sounds a lot like what we talked about last week with optical illusions and how our mind makes up things that we see!

 I don't know enough from my year of AP psychology to really asses Greg's love of music, and why he responded so well when asked about music; but maybe it's just because music was and is his passion and interest.  I hope we discuss this more in class! 

I must say I was quite pleased that my vague, unofficial hypothesis for my project-- that music is powerful and relevant to studies of tacit knowledge-- was totally confirmed by the reading this week! Greg's reactions to music are strikingly different from his reactions to pretty much everything else. Although I was horrified and sobered by the account in the Last Hippie, Greg's reactions to music gave me some hope that he isn't as blank as he appears.

Also, the rhythmic motions described in the Tourettic doctor's performance of surgery reminded me strongly of music. Conclusion? Music conquers all!

We interrupt your regularly scheduled programming for an angsty moment: this study of different aspects of tacit knowledge-- cognitive studies, linguistics, music, senses and beauty, neuroscience, psychology, philosophy-- are not helping me zoom in on a potential major, but rather reminding me that I can't focus on everything I find fascinating because a) that wouldn't be focusing, and b) there isn't enough time in the world, let alone four years, because I'm easily fascinated. The bright side? I don't have to worry about completing division requirements.

I feel really sad right now. I found this week's reading very interesting, but in particular "The Last Hippie" really pulled at my heartstrings. Imagine, for example, you are the last one to know that your parents are getting a divorce. Your argument would be, of course, "Impossible! I would know if that were the case!" And then you may feel rotten and glum. But then imagine that within a few minutes you’ve forgotten about that conversation entirely. I simply cannot imagine. I thought it was very profound when the author admitted, though, that if he had ever doubted Greg’s capacity for deeper feeling, he no longer doubted it after seeing his gut reaction to hearing of his father’s death. One part in particular really made me think, once more, of the conscious and unconscious. When they brought Greg in for Braille lessons, he proclaimed, “What is going on? Do you think I’m blind? Why am I here, with blind people all around me?” It made me think about the idea that perhaps, somewhere deep down inside his unconscious, Greg does indeed know that he is blind and with certain exercises, he could bring that thought into the conscious. And, perhaps, the new “facts” that he learns and then instantly forgets are actually hidden away in the unconscious. I think that that is possible and perhaps even demonstrated when he would get up in the middle of the night saying he had lost something and was looking for it right after the news of his father’s death. Maybe, then, these thoughts and facts that seem to disappear actually just slip away into an area of the brain that we have not yet learned how to tap into. One thing that Dr. Sacks brings up is very interesting and ahs stuck with me: “But while Greg was so often unable to recall events or encounters or facts to consciousness, he might, nonetheless, have an unconscious or implicit memory of them, a memory expressed in performance or behavior.” 

Of the two stories I found the one of "The Last Hippie" the most intriguing. The fact that he didn't believe he was blind was fascinating. Especially when he refused to learn braille saying that if he was blind, he would know it. Also, he makes up what he sees, which makes me think of the "blind spot" that we all have. I wish that Greg could have vocalized what he saw in an articulate way, but I am sure that that is impossible even without a frontal lobe condition. The most powerful part of the story was how he tacitly knew that his father was gone, or at least that is my interpretation. He didn't know his father died, but felt the loss and searched for it. The story made me think about the idea of "Ignorance is Bliss." Greg was unable to really grasp onto new memories, and new horrors. He was ignorant to the goings on in the world, and his own personal life. But that does not seem blissful at all. I believe that this story proved that no one can be tacitly ignorant. Greg felt a loss, and he was able to recognize new Grateful Dead songs, but was at the same time "ignorant" of them.

The similarities of the two stories was that of communication. Both Bennett and Greg used "abnormal" forms of communication. A more primitive communication. Greg was able to use music. I always think of music as coming before language, I don't really have any facts to back this up, but there is a very deep connection that I believe humans have to music that is not shown through language. But anyway, Bennett uses sparatic motions. We know that he is around someone he knows and is used to if he touches their shoulder with his toe. He also uses primitive noises, most commonly, owl noises. These two forms of communication are very different, but are similar in the sense that they are different from the norm.

I really enjoyed this week's reading--very interesting.