ColorTheBackground

Neha Dances, Poets, Paints, Loves, Hurts, Lives. Dies

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Volunteering at Wags & Walks, Santa Monica, CA!

#Wags&Walks #volunteer

[buttonpoetry]

We understood the many ways a mother’s shame can haunt a daughter’s body.

Blythe Baird, from If My Body Could Speak  (via buttonpoetry)

[juliayusupov]

freedom tower through leaves 

[mmarkle]

[neurosciencestuff]

Finding the brain’s generosity centre

Scientists from Oxford University and UCL have identified part of our brain that helps us learn to be good to others. The discovery could help understanding of conditions like psychopathy where people’s behaviour is extremely antisocial.

The researchers were led by Dr Patricia Lockwood, who explained: ‘Prosocial behaviours are social behaviours that benefit other people. They are a fundamental aspect of human interactions, essential for social bonding and cohesion, but very little is currently known about how and why people do things to help others.

Although people have a remarkable inclination to engage in prosocial behaviours there are substantial differences between individuals. Empathy, the capacity to vicariously experience and understand another person’s feelings has been put forward as a critical motivator of prosocial behaviours, but we wanted to test why and how they might be linked.’

The scientists used a well-understood model of how people learn to maximise good outcomes for themselves and applied this model to understand how people learn to help others. While being scanned in a MRI machine, volunteers had to work out which symbols were more likely to give them, or someone else, a reward.

They found that while people readily learn to make choices that benefit other people, they do not learn quite as fast as they learn to benefit themselves. However, they also identified a particular brain area involved in learning to get the best result for other people.

Dr Lockwood said: ‘A specific part of the brain called the subgenual anterior cingulate cortex was the only part of the brain that was activated when learning to help other people. Put another way, the subgenual anterior cingulate cortex seems to be especially tuned to benefiting other people.

'However, this region of the brain was not equally active in every person. People who rated themselves as having higher levels of empathy learnt to benefit others faster than those who reported having lower levels of empathy. They also showed increased signalling in their subgenual anterior cingulate cortex when benefitting others.’

'This the first time anyone has shown a particular brain process for learning prosocial behaviours - and a possible link from empathy to learning to help others. By understanding what the brain does when we do things for other people, and individual differences in this ability, we are better placed to understand what is going wrong in those whose psychological conditions are characterised by antisocial disregard for others.’

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what am i doing?

why am i here?

[colorthebackground]

I don’t know, how i got here. 

I mean, i do. but i don’t know just how... it all happened. so fast.

without trying, we grew up. or apart shall i say. 

one day it was crystal clear, for me, it still is today

but the solution to today is not clear for me

i haven't seen the light in over 2 years

metaphysically, of course

but 2 years and 3 months

i hold on to these numbers because time never scared me before this

i never knew, before, what its like to forget yourself.

well i do today,

i know exactly how it is to forget yourself

to not remember where you came from,

what you came from,’

what you've been through

what got you here

the reasons

the reasons

for you. 

i forget, all. 

[theintrovertnation]

Follow IntrovertProblems For More Posts!

[mentalhealthquilt-blog]

[buzzfeed]

21 Pictures That Will Make You So Damn Grateful For The Internet

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june 3, 2015

first, shivers

color change

colors changing

everything i think I seem to know

is a different shade of color now

dark, grey

color

dark, grey

color

scheme

seem to take you away

to a place of change

color change

color

change

color

change of things

change me

changeling.--

-N.S

[colorthebackground]

close to you

I tried to move a little closer to you 

last night.

tried to bring you to the centre of my comfort 

but you angrily

fixed your body in the middle of the bed

at 5 AM

2 hours before I have to wake up for work

and see you for the last time

for the next two weeks.

I feel myself getting colder for the next 2 hours 

as you, moved closer to stay warm but didn’t 

actually touch me

the cold has now swallowed me empty

and im empty of any love i may have left in me.

-N.S

[colorthebackground]

90 miles from home

I close my eyes

and try to picture myself

in front of you

vulnerable,

but standing so upright

than i can see the confused 

look on your face

but i remain silent.

/too afraid my words will fall on deaf ears.

//too afraid you wont understand the language my body speaks

when my words dont.

i see your ghost then.

slowly drifting

into thin air

                                                    & me

stranded,

90 miles from home. 

-N.S

[colorthebackground]

When I was in the presence of Eileen Myles

When I think about poetry/ especially as it happens in the world that is poetry/ its like when you’re no longer a kid or a bright idea but actually an institution/ I wind up thinking that poetry itself is a funny place/ awkwardly growing up/ it seems like an organization/ radical for the first ten tears and then has to be some place else/. to be perfectly frank, i don’t dwell on me too much/ well a little/ but this is the moment that i am direct of the poetry project.//

[colorthebackground]

When I think of you

I close my eyes

& see your warm smile

an inch away from my face/

I close my eyes

to remember your scent

your fingers in my hair

the sun’s rays causing

your skin to shimmer

like diamonds floating in the sea/

i recall your happy moments

the way you hug

the way you tell me about your talk

with your mother//

I soak it in

like a dry dirty forgotten sponge.

Like you’re water

and I, a fish

like you’re the poison

and me the next suicide.

like you’re heaven and me

the darkness of the night

like you’re the pot of gold

but I’m the rain

like you are alive

and me just playing dead

like you are love

and the last goodbye.

[colorthebackground]

How it feels to love the wrong one

like gravel raining on you 

as the morning shower.

like holding your own ashes and

watching it all slip out

of your grip, one

molecule at a time.

like eating fire and not the

marshmallow.

like the ground under a hoof.

like eating air for breakfast

lunch

and

dinner.

like finding your worth as nothing.

like being held captive in a hot air balloon floating away from the earth,

like taking your heart right out of your chest and

offering it to the wolves.

like dying with each heartbeat. 

-N.S

[colorthebackground]

The thing about loneliness that I’m learning daily is that it can consume you whole if you let it.

It can turn dreams into procrastinated projects that you may never touch again, 

friends into acquaintances,

lovers to bystanders,

and family into names in your contacts folder.

Loneliness has taught me to be uncomfortable at all times. 

it keeps me wanting things that may not necessarily good for my existence.

it takes away my motivation these days.

That push.

I feel far away,

From the world i once learned about. 

-N.S