Thinking

I do a lot of thinking. I know, you’re probably thinking “wow, he actually uses his brain?” or “thinking, wow, what a unique concept!”

All the same, it is a shame that many of the thought provoking subjects I consider blogging never make it onto the blog. Not because you would enjoy reading it but because there’s something about hammering out your thoughts on paper (be it the digital kind or not) to help you think through things. There’s something about writing it down that makes an experience or thought have a more lasting effect on you. There’s something meaningful, even if just to yourself, about expressing what’s in your mind and heart. I think it’s good for you. That is why I lament the thoughts that I get lost in that don’t ever make it into writing. What makes life real to me is thinking and feeling and understanding.

So I was reading the school paper today. Of course the articles on the school getting a digital learning center, the ethicality of the death penalty, etc. are mildly interesting. Of course the article that incites me to write is one about homosexuality written by a gay opinion writer.

Recent experiences and thought processes made this short opinion piece more interesting than it would have otherwise been. The article talked about how in a recent study in Europe, scientists took pheromones from heterosexual men and women and homosexual men and women and did a sort of “blind taste test”, if you will. They subjected various types to these pheromones without them knowing which pheromones they were being exposed to each time. Brain scans showed that straight men were more attracted to pheromones from straight women, less attracted to that of lesbians, and least attracted to that of gay men. Gay men were most attracted to pheromones of gay men, moderately attracted to straight men’s, and least to women’s. Same pattern held true for women as well.

This evidence suggests there is a biological component to homosexuality and that people may indeed be “born that way”. I won’t argue against that, I believe that there can be biological/hereditary factors at play with any type of human behavior. The opinion writer’s point in sharing all this is to argue against those who tell him that it’s simply a “choice” to be homosexual. I agree with him when he says “what motivation would I have to go against my friends, family, and religion to practice something that I find disgusting and unpleasant?” (not that he views it that way, but he says that if it were merely a choice he probably would view it that way).

Ah, biology. But here’s what goes through my mind that makes this topic much more interesting. Research probably also indicates that there are psychological factors at work in determining human sexual preference. The mind is something truly amazing and powerful that I am still trying to understand. The power of suggestion, the power of outside influences on our own perception of reality and of ourselves, the power others have to make us feel and act certain ways without us knowing it.

I still can’t figure out what exactly makes me tick the way I do. And it’s not as simple as some childhood experiences and environments– I would bet that another person given the same situations and circumstances could come out a completely different person. Maybe this is just because we’re all unique individuals; maybe biology has something to do with it… I’d like to think the two are related, though. I believe the body, mind, and soul (spirit) are connected and that they affect each other.

I’m rambling like I do so well, but I guess the question I ask is to what extent does the psyche influence our own biology? For example– scientists might never be able to find anything biologically in humans to explain homosexuality– some DNA strand that says “I’m gay”. But they have shown, at least in this study, that there are pheromones linked to sexual orientation, and that one reacts to those according to orientation. How much of that is the influence of the subconscious on the body?

I was talking to my mom one day a couple months ago about something along these lines. Years ago, neighbor and close friend passed away. Not too many days after, my mom began to feel ill. She didn’t link the sickness to this loss, and I don’t know if she was on the surface really that torn apart by the loss. But it was a change in her life. There was nothing physically wrong with her body– all the tests doctors ran indicated that here was nothing physically that would be causing the symptoms she was experiencing. The only explanation they could find was just this psychological link to the loss or change she had recently experienced. The mind, heart and body seem inseparably connected, what affects one can and often does affect the others.

Thank about how much of your own personal reality can be manipulated in your mind. Like, why do I think the iPod Nano is so cool? When I break it down and analyze it, it’s not really that cool or special in and of itself. Sure there are things impressive about it. But mostly it’s an image that society conveys that I accept. How does one unlearn what he has learned? Where is Yoda when I need him?

Perhaps not all gay people have some extreme psychological experience that causes them to be that way. Perhaps there has to be some sort of biological / hereditary pre-disposition to react to such stressors in that way. It’s probably not nearly as simple as I’d like to try to break it down to be. But at the end of the day, I feel bad that people are judgmental and discriminate– I feel bad that the writer of this article was pretty much outcast by his own community for being honest about who he is. We can’t change other people like we’d like to. We can only change ourselves, change the way we view things, change the way we react to things. I heard it said once that life is 10% action and 90% reaction– or in other words, 10% what happens to us, and 90% how we react to those things.

I guess I have a lot of things to ponder.

Wow, are you still reading this? What do you think, could I make a killing selling colognes and perfumes that are specific in the types of pheromones they give off? Hehe…