theantisocialscientist-blog

[theantisocialscientist-blog]

This is problematic (Culminating Entry).

Everything I am now is a product of my history with my family. It’s a recurring theme in most blog entries, especially those that tackle family and peers.

It starts off in the dream house drawing wherein I designed a house and only realized after it was drawn that I had not made any accomodations for a family in that house, but I made a guest room for friends staying over. It depicts the part of me that wants nothing to do with my family, and would be more comfortable without them.

My unhealthy relationship with my family had conditioned my mind to associate them with negative thoughts and emotions - to the point where seeing them or even hearing about them brings me to a foul mood. In Bronfenbrenner’s theory, that would mean that my perspective of my family had been so distorted by my negative experiences with them that now I automatically feel negativity towards them. I stereotyped my family basically into something detestable.

In “The Feeling Self” terms, my antecedent for disgust would be my family and my cognitive appraisal of them would be my own history of negative experiences with them. Thus, the behavior or consequence that results from this would be isolation or withdrawal from my family.

That withdrawal is my primary form of self-regulation when it comes to family. But in the absence of positivity in the home, I find an abundance within my peers who, due to the more positive interactions and history I’ve had with them, had become more family than my actual family. And sometimes, this becomes a problem too.

My problematic history with my family had inhibited me from doing and experiencing many things. My id was sort of repressed while growing up and it wasn’t until late high school when I met the best people of my life (and continued to meet more) that I had felt the pleasure of being with a positive group of people. Because of that, I threw my ego out of the window in order to continue satisfying the id that had been repressed for so long. This is why, even while facing heavy deadlines, I can still be seen playing in Techtite with my friends because I absolutely enjoy it. I find it difficult to resist invitations from my friends because of my history with my family.

My overgratification of my friends had manifested itself even in my identity. While I try my best to avoid similarities between me and my family, I do my best to immitate my peers. My moratorium barely happened in adolescence because of the repressive nature of my family. It had only resurfaced in late high school when I had felt the pleasure from experiencing new things. This is why recently I had been trying new things - drinking, sports, smoking, playing games, going out with friends, etc - in order to find which activities best suit me. I recall how a graduating senior in college who was my upperclassman in high school commented how I had completely changed since the last time we’d met. And I still continue changing due to my id driving me to try things with my friends.

However, I try my best to avoid showing this change to my family, fearing that I’ll be repressed once more. And thus, at home, I act as if I have the same stoic personality I’ve had before to fool them into thinking nothing had changed. Essentially, I’m acting. And I do this to several sets of friends as well, each of them knowing their own me based on their interests that I try to faithfully copy as I desire more to be like them. In other words, I shape my own personality to be more appealing to certain groups of friends. And this shaping has become relatively easy due to my copying of their interests. While reconciliation may be the next step to my separation from my family, I don’t see it happening any time soon.

Thus, this is where I am now: isolating myself from my family and striving to be closer to my friends. Others, however, would say this is normal because my age dictates I should be separating myself from my parents. In my case though, this act of separation came earlier because of my problematic history with my family, and also the fact that my parents were OFWs ever since, which made the replacement of family into peers happen quicker. Early-mid high school, I already found intimacy in the family a difficult concept to understand. And this was because my loyalty was to my peers. I became part of several crowds whose interests I managed to copy in an attempt to form an identity. In college, the experience from intermingling with several crowds and forming a personality from them helped my acting around my peers. I could adapt to various crowds while still satisfying my desires and getting what I want. And my  family would know nothing of this.

This is who I am now: a guy who is driven by pleasure around his peers, his true family. And all this happened because of a problematic history with my actual family. This self is a product and a survival mechanism from a series of past conflicts.

[theantisocialscientist-blog]

Community Service (BINHI)

I used to live in a wooden house beside a dirty creek plagued by mosquitoes and trash before moving to Metro Manila. I knew the feeling of waking up to the smell of sewage, hearing your neighbors’ squabbles through thin walls, and fetching water from a pump. That was in the province, before I was moved to Metro Manila to live with other family members in order to start my education. It was a simple life, mostly just me running on the dirt with other kids as a form of play.

The BINHI project reminded me of that past. I was in a similar house with the same scent of sewage and the same noises from the neighbors’ houses that penetrate through the wall. To me, it felt like being reunited with a past I had almost forgotten entirely. It felt strange that I knew how to move in those tight spaces in Pioneer without difficulty, and how communicating with the family I was assigned to was easy because I already knew the right questions based from experience.

“How does the house hold during the rainy season?”

“Do mosquitoes breed in the open sewage?”

“Does it usually get noisy because of your neighbors?”

et cetera.

What was different though was their access to luxuries. In the province, we had a small TV without cable for entertainment and a karaoke machine to irritate sleeping neighbors - the essentials for living in the slums. However, what I saw in Pioneer threw me off guard. Their TV was better than the TV I had in my current house in the city. It was an HD Smart TV with more channels than I had. The grandfather was watching the NBA Playoffs while tending to his crops in Farmville on a laptop. A few steps away from him was his son playing Roblox on his PC which, admittedly, was a better gaming setup than what I had. Honestly, it wasn’t the scene that I had expected to see while visiting a “vulnerable” community.

Honestly, their entertainment inside the house isn’t any different from anyone else’s. But what made them vulnerable was the absence of security in terms of housing. The family I was in had their previous house demolished in order to make way for the construction of new ones wherein they’ll be living. Eviction notices can come any time. What made me feel bad for the family was that their new house was still a long way from being built because of internal conflicts in the community. A family wouldn’t allow its house, where my family’s new house was to be built, to be demolished and thus the construction had to be put on halt. If anything, I think the most valued form of capital in that community is housing.

They’re not any different from us in terms of aspirations. They want the same things and they find joy in the same habits we have. I think the best way to connect with them is not through sympathy, which I made sure to avoid during the interaction, but through pop culture. Shallow, yes, but it is something they enjoy as much as we do. They listen to the music we like, they watch the movies we like, they play the games we like, and they follow trends that we do as well. Financial and class gaps are hard to bridge, but I think a cultural gap is easier to fill because our likes and dislikes are similar to theirs. It doesn’t solve their problems, sure, but it helps establish something that could help solve their problems - communication.

[theantisocialscientist-blog]

Social Crowds: From Active Marginalization to Tolerance

During adolescence, individuals spend less time with their parents and more time with their peers. This leads to an increase in social interactions, which, in turn, constucts one’s identity.

Much can be said about a person just by looking at his crowds because every crowd has it own stereotype. Being inside a certain crowd would encourage an individual to adopt traits or characteristics often associated with it in order to fit better with that crowd. These often include clothing, slang, and activities (both virtues and vices). However, this would make individuals with differing characteristics appear as outcasts, thus creating a sense of marginalization within crowd members. For younger groups, joining a crowd would mean isolating another.

However, as a person matures, the lines between crowds blur and often allow crossings in between. This may be due to the increase in exploration brought by late adolescence that makes people more open to new experiences. What was then marginalization would be replaced by tolerance, especially nowadays when people are made increasingly aware of social constructs that could simply be ignored.

In my case, I used to be, by default, with the “academic elite” (the outstanding students) of the school, often perceived as gods by the lower academic statuses. During late high school, curiosity got the best of me and I ended up joining the exact opposite of the academic elite - the academic poor. Those were the best people of my life. I learned that existing traits don’t define your crowds, but your choices do.

Later on, other crowds would become more open to different kinds of people, creating a diversity in members. Eventually, crowds simply became names to associate people with, and not existing barriers or territories because people matured.

Regardless, the time spent in a crowd is time spent molding yourself. Membership means you share the values they hold and, even when you leave, especially if you had spent a long time in that crowd, that crowd still “stays” with you.

[theantisocialscientist-blog]

Parents: From God to Human

It’s worth noting that I’m not an expert on the topic of parents, particularly because I my relationship with my parents isn’t the conventional kind. My parents became OFWs when I was five, so my transition to individuation came early.

Children often regard their parents as a supreme, inviolable, authority - akin to a god. This is because their parents are the benevolent source of sustainance and security. However, this godhood erodes as children grow and discover the flaws in their parents. A noticable effect of the erosion of this godhood is when a child starts to assert his claim as correct over his parents’. This is when the godhood degrades and the parents start to appear more human.

The humanizing of the parents leads to a disengagement and conflicts. Children test the limit of their powers against the then-perceived gods and the emotional turbulence caused by this leads them to seek comfort with peers. At this stage, children spend more time with their peers than their parents and shape their identities in an effort to be made distinct from their parents.

Only later will they, as adults, realize that their parents are people and are thus prone to mistakes. This is the stage of reconciliation, where there is mutual understanding, and at this point, the individual would have already found himself apart from his parents and made himself more open to their thoughts and ideas.

In my case, however, the early separation from my parents lead to an early disillusionment of status. Their absence made me see them more as humans because I understood their absence as proof of their imperfection. Eventually, the distance lead to a decay in relationship, not necessarily by fighting, but by long separation. Making myself distinct from them was easy because I never got to know them well due to their absence and they never got to know me as well. For all I knew, we were different people - strangers.

And so I had an earlier reconciliation after I was able to imagine myself clearer in their shoes, seeing their choices and justifying them from their perspective. I was already my own person and I had no insecurities listening to their inputs. I wasn’t even finished yet with high school when this happened.

[theantisocialscientist-blog]

Life is a series of performances, and I’m the star actor

Identity is formed by each interaction an individual has with others. The self is created outside the self, as seen in Symbollic Interactionism and The Looking Glass self. However, one theory stands out more than the two because of how closely I relate to it.

Identity is dynamic. The “self” that appears in front of the family may not be the same “self” that appears in front of friends. The indivual has a wardrobe of selves to choose from, for the right people and for the right situation. Essentially, it is a performance - the identity is an art. And the performance is always shaped according to the interests of the audience, meaning the “self” is outfitted to be more appealing to the individuals around it.

This is especially true for me who has a, as I had coined it, “Fidget Spinner Rule.” Like how the ends of a fidget spinner revolve around a center but never touch the other ends, my different social groups must never meet. The reason for this is because I maintain a different personality for each social group I belong to. If they mix, my “performance” would be conflicted by differing interests that my “self” should cater to.

The performance is made up of several factors: the message sent by the way I dress; the diction I use and its relation to certain social groups; the intellect I portray; the degree of self-expression I give; the “hobbies” I have; and more.

The performance never stops. Even when alone, I perform in front of myself in order to cater to my own interests and make myself more appealing to myself. If an identity is formed as a performance, then a likeable identity is formed by a good performer who can assess the preferences of his audiencce accurately and act in accordance to it.

My life just so happens to be a series of these “performances,” and I’m just simply playing the leading role.

[theantisocialscientist-blog]

An Identity in Question

You are not yourself, but an accumulation of “selves” engraved by others. How others treat you, where you grew up, and whom you spent time with - these were some of the things that shaped your identity. Children often try to immitate the adults around them and their favorite idols on television, hence why some would dream to grow up and have a profession similar to what their parents have or have a distinct characteristic that belongs to a fictional character. However, as the child grows into adolescence, the mechanics of identity changes as the increasing separation from the family prompts adolescents to identify themselves apart from their families.

Adolescence typically marks the quest for identity because the increased independence coupled with security from the absence of having to make adult choices. Adolescents go through a moratorium - a “time-out” period - wherein they are free to explore what they are and who they want to be without having to commit. If they choose an option for their future (partner, hobby, skill, etc.) that they realize they do not actually want, they can simply back out and find another with little to no consequences because of the lack of commitment.

If an adolescent finds a fitting option and he is able to commit, then he adds to his own identity an anchor to who he is; otherwise, he may lack the necessary confidence in the next stages of life because of a lack of a sense of self.

But even in adolescence, the person is still shaped by others, most notably his parents. In this crucial stage, how the parents response to the adolescent stage determines the formation of an identity. Parents who allow lengthen their children’s leashes create opportunities for them to explore and discover their identity; whereas parents who keep their children on a tight leash fail to provide opportunities of exploration, which often leads to lasting negative repurcussions on the child’s development.

My take-away on this lesson is that adolescence is a cruicial point in a person’s life. Despite knowing the importance of freedom for an adolescent, I had never known the consequences of the lack thereof to last longer than adolescence. Freedom is a necessary ingredient for identity because it is freedom that allows exploration. And overly strict parents, for the lack of freedom that they give, are negligent.

[theantisocialscientist-blog]

The Id, Ego, and the Superego

Theology tells us that every human desires an object (or objects) that give them pleasure or satisfaction. This part of the human personality, in Freud terms, is called the Id. Present at birth, the Id is what makes babies annoying - crying upon the denial of their wants. The Id’s goal is to achieve pleasure or satisfaction immediately and it consists of biological drives.

As the human person grows, he develops his Ego. At this point, the young human is no longer as annoying as before because the Ego grounds the person to the reality than some desires cannot be satisfied, or at least cannot be satisfied immediately. It is a more logical approach to satisfaction whose goal is to satisfy the Id’s desire but in a reasonable way. This is when the then-crying child realizes that there are limits to reality.

Further development leads to the Superego, which, as the name implies, is superior to the Ego. This is when the young human learns guilt - grown from a matured sense of morality. It inhibits a person’s sexual and aggressive urges, and substitutes the Ego’s realistic goals to moralistic goals. Morality becomes the standard for perfection.

And in knowing this, I have come to understand why I absolutely detest infants, and my resentment towards them is grounded in science. Before the Superego, they’re simply annoying, and it helps knowing what their goals are in whatever stage of life they’re in, in order to deal with them with more patience.

Also, it brings me comfort that morality triumphs over desire.

[theantisocialscientist-blog]

Positivity is contagious. It is a virus. The giver also doubles as the receiver. Even the smallest act of kindness can result in the most positive of effects. I’m not sure why, but sometimes the best way to make yourself feel good is to make others feel the same way. A simple kind message can have lasting effects on both the receiver and the giver. My theory is: a good deed, no matter how small, to some degree, seemingly removes the terrors that plague the world, if only for a moment.

In short: kindness is a form of self-regulation.

[theantisocialscientist-blog]

Emotions are complex. Most people already know how they surface - from an antecedent, to an appraisal, then finally to a form of expression (as seen in the infographic attached). The ones we express are often thought of as simply originating from within an individual. However, that does not seem to be the case. The emotions we show are actually influenced by the forces around us.

“But if you feel sad, don’t you simply express it by crying?”

Sure, it makes sense, assuming nothing stops you from crying.

“But what stops you from expressing what you feel?”

Display rules. Culture and social norms dictate what people can and cannot do, from physical actions to how a person should feel. Yes, societies regulate and repress emotions that do not follow certain norms they follow - display rules. This is why men must not cry in front of others, lest they want to be perceived as weak. This is also why women should be modest, unless they are fine with being labelled as whores.

This brings out a more complex mechanic of social interaction when taken into consideration.

For others, how do I know when I should follow display rules, and when I should not? Are there people less likely to find offense in deviation from these rules than others? Self-expression becomes a factor in successful intermingling with others and the adherence to display rules - or the lack thereof - determines the validity of one’s emotions from the eyes of another.

For the self, how do I know if I’m correctly reading someone’s emotion or if I’m being deceived by a facade that complies with display rules? This brings into question the genuineness of the self-expressions of others and adds the mechanic of further reading into the minds of others in order to truly understand them.

So from antecedent and appraisal, how do we know if the expression we get is based on actual emotion or conformity to display rules?

[theantisocialscientist-blog]

Globalization and Siomai Rice

Globalization is a double-edged sword in the way it gives and takes from us. We may benefit from the economic prosperity and technological advancements brought forth by globalization as our traditions and identities are snatched away from us.

A Filipina girl can now easily cram her research paper on Filipino history in one night through the use of the Internet from her Chinese-manufactured laptop in an American coffee shop while dressed in her Japanese-branded clothes. But once she finishes, she runs her Swedish music app and plays a playlist on shuffle - skipping every Filipino song she encounters, thinking of them as “low class” - and only listening to KPOP songs.

So how does one become part of the global community without losing the “self”?

My prof asked us to group up and draw a symbol that would best represent how the Philippines tackles the duality of globalization, and after a few seconds of thinking, I proposed: siomai rice.

Siomai (or dumpling) is a Chinese dish often loved by Filipinos because of its taste and affordability. Any Chinese restaurant has at least one flavor of siomai in its menu (sharkfin, pork, etc). But none of them will ever serve siomai rice because siomai rice is not Chinese, but rather, Filipino.

Siomai rice is the perfect example of an object from a foreign culture that Filipinos had modified into something that can better suit their needs. The masses and their limited budgets are always in search for food that can fit three criteria: delicious, affordable, and filling. Siomai could easily pass two of them, being both delicious and affordable. However, it lacks the carbohydrates that can make it filling to the hard-working Filipino. So, as a solution, the Filipino people had combined their rice culture with the Chinese dish to create the most affordable and delicious meal championed by students and workers - Siomai Rice.

In this sense, the Filipino accepts the global cuture but does not lose himself in it by anchoring himself to his roots and making something global, glocal. The global and the local are both implemented and because of this, new and creative solutions to modern day problems are born.

[theantisocialscientist-blog]

The Process, the Person, the Context, and the Time

TLDR; Urie Bronfenbrenner says that as we grow, the things we do, the people we interact with, the places we spend time in, and our daily agendas become part of who we are and how people perceive us.

As a city boy who wears branded clothing, speaks in English, stays at home more often than outside, and casually uses electronic devices, I am treated as nobility whenever I visit my relatives in the province. I can have the most rotten personality ever - corrupted by the Manila, the gate to hell itself - and they would still look at me as some sort of role model or deity, simply because of my background and appearance.

I could also see a streetchild walking towards me to beg for alms as I commute through the busy streets of Cubao during the night, and immediately shield my pockets as I see her messy hair, ragged clothes, and bare feet. Mean? Sure. But as the child comes closer, your mind starts imagining the things the child may do in order to survive as one of the impoverished in Metro Manila. You think of all the news reports of street children committing crimes such as abusing illegal substances and petty theft. You allow the circumstances of the child dictate your response to her presence.

Perspective is a weird thing. We see something and yet we can never see it fully. We can never view a person as the sum-total of every event that has happened in his/her life, hence what we see will only remain true for us and our knowledge of how certain events and aspects of a person can determine an approximation of one’s being.

More TLDR; don’t judge a book by its cover, at least read the table of contents too.

[theantisocialscientist-blog]

January 29, 2019 (Tuesday) I have friends from other universities who had taken architecture. Naturally, they'd send pics of their plates to show their pride in their hard work, and I'd often see them as I'd check our group chats. Anyway, I'm sharing this because my prof asked the class to bring a sheet of paper and coloring materials (which i did not use). She instructed us to draw on said paper our ideal house. It could be anything, feasible or not, as long as the house was our ideal house. So of course, I started thinking of what my ideal house would look like. How many floors will there be? How many rooms? How big will they be? Where will I place them? I apologize to all architects and architects-in-the-making for touching your delicate craft and making use of it in my class activity. Upon finishing my attempt at illustrating my ideal house, I looked at the papers of the people seated around me. While my default idea of drawing a house was based on the plates my architecture friends kept sending in our group chat, everyone else drew the usual front-side image of a house often drawn by children. I found it weird because my idea of a "normal" drawing of a house was a blueprint. When my prof told us that the house represented something about us, it dawned on me that the reason why I took that subjectively normal approach was that computer science was never my dream course. Instead, I had wished to enter a fine arts course. My attempt at making a plate similar to what my architecture friends did was me trying to associate with them and reunite myself with a dream that had never come into fruition. Inside the house, the most notable features are the large dining and living rooms, the entrance, the fully-equipped kitchen, two bedrooms, office, and storage stand out. It seems weird to have two bedrooms when my house is made with the intention of housing only me inside. Filipino culture dictates that Filipinos must stay and live with their families, but to this I say: to hell with that! My relationship with my family isn't ideal for a healthy family, hence the idea of a house wherein I live alone. One bedroom is mine while the other functions as a guest room or an extra room for me to sleep on. I suppose the extra bedroom is just me seeking companionship from others (excluding family) and my willingness to offer them a place in my ideal home should they need it. The large dining and living rooms are pointless to have for a person who lives alone. The size is meant to accomodate several people, meaning that despite being alone in the house, I want to be able to invite plenty of people whom I trust and feel comfortable with. The entrance was inspired by the usual entrance seen in anime and japanese households. Rather than leaving outdoor footwear outside the house (just Asian things), I could leave them in a shoerack in the entrance. I'm not really sure how practical this room can be but I personally find the idea of having it appealing. The fully-equipped kitchen is there for my interest in cooking. Being fully-equipped with ovens, stoves, pots, and other essentials, my cooking becomes open to a variety of recipes that I could attempt. The office is there as a room specifically for work and study. I suppose I wish for an office because I never had the opportunity to work under peaceful conditions in my small house where family members would come out of the corner every five minutes. Having a private room for that purpose would allow me to perform well in school. It can also be a place for other hobbies such as crafting and reading. The storage directly connects with the office because I am not fond of throwing away work that has been used or graded, fearing that I may need it again. Also, it can function as a place to keep items I collect such as books, video games, souveneirs, and other valuables. The entire first floor is elevated from the ground because I personally know what it is like to have to deal with floods entering the house. And finally, my ideal house is located near a McDonald's restaurant so I can get a cheeseburger whenever I crave for one. I do not know the color nor the style that will be used for my ideal house because I was too occupied with the interior rather than the exterior. Perhaps in another activity I can give some thought about it. Whether I make my house modern or victorian in architecture, I'm sure even the choices I make there will show more about me. Behold, my ideal house! Shaped after my mind! Open to those I welcome!

[theantisocialscientist-blog]

Welcome to my blog!

Hi, I’m a Computer Science major from a certain prestigious university, taking a particular social science subject that requires me to blog about the stuff I learn after each discussion.

This is the story of someone who’s been taught to understand the world around him his entire life, and is now about to tackle the one thing he has never been told to understand - himself.

“The journey of a perfect QPI begins with one blog post” -Confucius