I started thinking about evolution and self-expression when,
within a few days, a few people told me of their love for country
music.
Let’s start with how one brain-based activity, whether internal
(a thought) or external (hearing someone else,) creates a
chain reaction in the mind.
Basically, how does country music lead me to the mechanics
of brain function and Darwin?
First, I really needed something to write about so that was on
the backburner. Then, I wondered what is mentally wrong
with people who like country music? This, finally leading me
to the question: what makes us driven to express ourselves?
Inside a tangled, mushy mass of nerves and synapses and
other technical jargon I’ve picked up from a DVD-marathon
of “House,” and other medical terms I couldn’t possibly spell,
lays the chemical translation of secrets, hopes and tendencies.
We can be genetically-prone to the love of sports or mathematics.
People can be nurtured into liking some foods over
others, and personality traits go both ways.
Inside us exists a fundamental drive to set ourselves apart
from another; more specifically, self-expression. The way we
dress and those stupid decals and magnets on our cars; we use
our interests all to show how different we are, to set ourselves
apart.
How about, it comes from an evolutionary pursuit to mate. I
watched “Planet Earth” a few weeks ago and I loved these
rainforest birds. I’ve never seen a bird like these before. One
cleaned a display area and fluffed himself up so all you could
see was a shiny black body and two beads of clear sky-blue
eyes and matching bowtie-like mark at the top of the chest.
Another slapped his plumage on a branch so hard it sounded
like a ballplayer cracking one out of the park.
We do this all the time, and with more than our clothes and
car-ornaments. We want to show everyone what we like.
Could this be because we are trying to attract someone with
the similar interest?
Once we stop thinking the other sex doesn’t have cooties we
are looking to reproduce just like any other animal on the
planet. Sure, we make it much more complicated because a
2,000-year-old book delineated ever-so-eloquently that we are
to mate for life. I don’t disagree. I just think social-issues stem
from a novel I disagree with and I would preferably have the
world bound by an internal morality rather than “because I
said so.”
So, here we are, showing off. We flaunt our attributes and
disguise our faults. We hide who we are and ease into the
truth and work out and groom in order to get a wife or husband.
We want to multiply. It’s not our fault.
I find it so interesting what we are willing to put ourselves
through in order to impress others. I’m pretty sure most, if not
all of us, would date or get into a relationship whether we
were self-actualized, happy with what kind of person we are,
happy with the life we have, or mentally stable for that matter.
We are willing to sacrifice our well-being, and possibly hurt
others, in order to have sex.
All this, and the quest for individuality does not explain
music tastes to me. It’s not something we are genetically prone
to. We don’t listen to it to please others. My love of Circa
Survive has nothing to do with my dad. Maybe there is a part
of us that no one can touch, something that’s all ours, something
that’s real and not propelled by the desire to do it. I
guess now I am in the pursuit of something that reminds me
of music, something that makes me feel the way it does rather
than someone I can bang for life.
For a hypothetical example, let’s use a a person that’s generally
manic and a control-freak. Someone too smart for their
own good and incapable of filtering their thoughts when
speaking. She…or he…would want someone that calms her…or
him… and makes the world move a little slower the way
Anthony Green, or some other singer, does. Maybe they need
the humor of the Dead Milkmen and the intellect of The Used.
Looking for one truly real state of body, mind and soul could
lead us to what we’re really after. Being what we really are,
untainted, could give us insight to our future. Knowing the
truth behind our genetic and natural drives can tell us why
exactly, we think country music sucks.