Conversation

QC (in Berlin 7/29-??? w/ COVID 😷)
@QiaochuYuan
i'm fascinated by this for reasons i'm not sure i'll be able to articulate. i think it's becoming clearer that one of my interests i keep coming back to is tracking changes in folk psychology over time, trying to understand how people conceptualize themselves and each other
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QC (in Berlin 7/29-??? w/ COVID 😷)
@QiaochuYuan
one of the fascinating bits is that in the standard scientific reductive materialist ontology "you" are supposed to "be" your brain, so to see such a strong vein of disidentification with "the brain" raises the question: if "you" aren't your "badbrain" then what are you?
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QC (in Berlin 7/29-??? w/ COVID 😷)
@QiaochuYuan
separately, i think representing ego-dystonic stuff as "idk i guess my brain is just bad" speaks to this pervasive medicalization of suffering, hence the choice of "brain" as a symbol as opposed to e.g. demons, since brains Officially Really Exist
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QC (in Berlin 7/29-??? w/ COVID 😷)
@QiaochuYuan
when you medicalize your suffering into "there's something wrong with my brain" you conceptualize the appropriate type of response as "i should fix my brain," which lends itself to medicalized responses like pharmaceuticals, all the way up to extreme shit like lobotomies
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QC (in Berlin 7/29-??? w/ COVID 😷)
@QiaochuYuan
a more trauma-informed perspective might be something like "i was hurt very badly and i adopted extreme strategies for relating to myself and others to deal with that hurt that feel too risky to let go of" (relevant to the OP) which has a totally different vibe to it
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QC (in Berlin 7/29-??? w/ COVID 😷)
@QiaochuYuan
among other things it offers a *meaningful reason* that your "brain" is being "bad": it's trying to protect you from a form of harm you experienced in the past. that's a very different story from "idk i guess my brain chemicals are just wrong because of bad luck???"
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QC (in Berlin 7/29-??? w/ COVID 😷)
@QiaochuYuan
furthermore the cute thing's request in this meme in particular is to "be vulnerable with the people i love" (🥺) i read into this that the cute thing is 1) not the brain and 2) "really me" b/c it's functioning as a symbol for the heart, the part of us that loves
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QC (in Berlin 7/29-??? w/ COVID 😷)
@QiaochuYuan
so, the cute thing part of the meme expresses something true and important, i think. i do wish the brain part were different, and the best way i can describe the difference is to point to a comic with very different symbolism
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QC (in Berlin 7/29-??? w/ COVID 😷)
@QiaochuYuan
annals of "my brain" research
Quote Tweet
Erynn Brook
@ErynnBrook
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ADHD brains and dopamine is some weird stuff. I do something that needs to get done and my brain goes “Should’ve done it sooner, you asshat.” I save the world in a video game and my brain is like “finally, feels good to be actually useful, doesn’t it?”
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Andrea jw
@andreajw_
Replying to
@QiaochuYuan
cute bunny thing is my melody from the sanrio franchise, she is hello kitty’s best friend, and according to the fandom.com wiki she was born in a forest in london, likes almond pound cake, and the hood she’s wearing was made by her grandma
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alth0u🤸
@alth0u
Replying to
@QiaochuYuan
reminds me that Miyazaki uses this theme a lot where scary harsh agents will be overcome and become a nascent and cute domicile form of itself not the nature spirited monster to nice spirit but more like no-face transformation
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