National Sovereignty for Every Body-Territory Human Behavior Map
National Sovereignty for Every Body-Territory — Human Behavior Map
A map for learning where we are being
Before we know who we are, we are already learning ways of being.
Before words.
Before beliefs.
Before explanations.
Before labels.
The body was already perceiving.
The body was already feeling.
The body was already seeking safety.
The body was already seeking belonging.
The body was already learning with other bodies, other spaces, other sounds, other smells, other rules, other fears, and other forms of care.
Perhaps the most important question in adolescence is:
What am I learning to be?
This question opens the Human Behavior Map.
It is a map of location.
A tool for observation.
A simple way to perceive body, clans, environments, resources, and possibilities.
A way to open paths without trapping us in labels.
1. We are Body-Territory
We often imagine the State in buildings, laws, documents, and institutions.
But the State begins in the living body that needs water, food, school, health, safety, internet, culture, protection, freedom, and future.
The Body-Territory is the minimum living unit of the State.
Each adolescent is a Body-Territory.
This means we are more than students, children, patients, believers, fans, gamers, future workers, or future voters.
We are living units of the Democratic Rule of Law.
When we perceive ourselves this way, something changes.
We begin to feel that we participate in building the territory.
The State becomes the way we organize ourselves to care for shared life.
2. The State also happens within us
Every Body-Territory already has small forms of State happening within itself.
We have an Executive: the part that does, rises, walks, acts, tries, creates, builds.
We have a Legislative: the part that plans, imagines rules, makes agreements, organizes choices, thinks of paths.
We have a Judiciary: the part that remembers, compares, evaluates consequences, recognizes patterns, and learns from experience.
These three forces act together.
Sometimes we want to act and need to plan.
Sometimes we plan too much and need to recover movement.
Sometimes memory weighs and asks for care.
Sometimes action appears before reflection.
The Human Behavior Map helps us perceive these forces in motion.
We are always whole, even when we make cuts to understand.
3. Pain is legitimate information
Pain is a signal from the Body-Territory.
It may be physical pain.
It may be endometriosis.
It may be anxiety.
It may be loneliness.
It may be rejection.
It may be grief.
It may be fear.
It may be tiredness.
It may be shame.
It may be hunger.
It may be violence.
It may be the feeling of losing belonging.
Pain signals that some process needs listening, resources, protection, care, movement, or reorganization.
We learn to regulate ourselves.
We also learn that many forms of regulation happen through networks.
When the signal becomes greater than our capacity to regulate, we expand care.
It may be SUS.
It may be school.
It may be a teacher.
It may be CAPS.
It may be social assistance.
It may be the police.
It may be the Public Defender’s Office.
It may be a possible family.
It may be another clan.
It may be science.
It may be culture.
It may be a community that opens space for the body to keep signaling and reorganizing.
Asking for help is also sovereignty of the Body-Territory.
4. Extended Yãy hã mĩy: before language, we already learn to be
The Maxakali people use the expression Yãy hã mĩy to speak about the process of imitating and becoming what one seeks to understand.
In the Human Behavior Map, we use this idea in an extended form.
Before we know who we are, we are already learning ways of being.
We learn by observing.
We learn by imitating.
We learn by living together.
We learn by belonging.
We learn by trying.
We learn by making mistakes.
We learn when the body feels it can stay.
We learn when the body feels it needs to leave.
Adolescence is a moment when many ways of being appear at the same time.
A self at school.
A self at home.
A self among friends.
A self in love.
A self afraid.
A self that wants to appear.
A self that wants silence.
A self that wants to create.
A self that wants to obey.
A self that wants to break away.
These versions are real ways the body organizes itself in response to environments, tasks, people, and expectations.
In Decolonial Neuroscience, we call these configurations Tensional Selves.
5. dEUS as metacognition of Tensional Selves
Here, dEUS appears as a scientific concept.
dEUS is the metacognitive function that observes the different Tensional Selves trying to act within the Body-Territory.
Some Tensional Selves seem easier to guide.
Others escape.
Some appear when we want to be accepted.
Others when we feel threatened.
Others when we want to win.
Others when we need to rest.
Others when we feel desire, shame, anger, joy, courage, or fear.
dEUS is the attempt to perceive this set.
It is the capacity to look at our inner movements and ask:
What is trying to act in me right now?
Does this way of being respect my body?
Does this way of being respect other bodies?
Does this way of being expand my life or reduce my movement?
dEUS helps us perceive.
And perceiving already changes the map.
6. APUS and Tekoha: one continuous cycle
We exist by feeling and positioning ourselves at the same time.
Tekoha is the world entering the body.
It is hunger.
Heat.
Cold.
Fear.
Welcome.
Pain.
Smell.
Sound.
Memory.
Tiredness.
Desire.
Tension.
Belonging.
APUS is the body positioning itself in the world.
It is posture.
Movement.
Distance.
Approach.
Escape.
Presence.
Territory.
Path.
Place.
Direction.
Tekoha and APUS form a living cycle.
The outside enters.
The inside responds.
The body moves.
The world returns signals.
And we learn new ways of being.
7. Inclusive and Exclusive Clans
We participate in many clans.
Family.
Friends.
School.
Religion.
Sports.
Art.
Science.
Gaming communities.
Cultural movements.
Online groups.
Future professions.
Territory.
Inclusive Clans build bridges.
They expand circulation, cooperation, learning, and coexistence.
Exclusive Clans express each person’s peculiarity in participating in one or another set of belongings.
“Exclusive” here means singular.
Each Body-Territory has its own combinations.
Some find regulation in religious communities.
Others in scientific environments.
Others in sports groups.
Others in art.
Others in silence.
Others in nature.
Others in professional groups.
Others in hybrid forms.
Family exists to expand possibilities of life.
School exists to expand possibilities of life.
Religion exists to expand possibilities of life.
Friendship exists to expand possibilities of life.
The State exists to expand possibilities of life.
The Human Behavior Map reminds us:
we belong, and we remain greater than any isolated belonging.
8. The practical map: questions for locating ourselves
When we are confused, happy, in pain, excited, in love, lost, irritated, stuck, or searching for direction, we can open the map calmly.
The first question is:
What am I learning to be?
Then we can observe:
What is my body signaling right now?
Pain, hunger, tension, calm, fear, desire, joy, tiredness?
Which Tensional Self appeared most strongly?
The self that wants to please? The self that wants to escape? The self that wants to attack? The self that wants to create? The self that wants to rest?
Which clan is expanding me?
Who helps me breathe better, think better, create better, live better?
Which clan is reducing me?
Where do I feel my body losing space to exist whole?
What resource from the larger State can help me?
SUS, school, culture, sports, safety, assistance, university, federal institute, Public Defender’s Office, Guardianship Council, CAPS, library, laboratory, scholarship, transportation?
How are APUS and Tekoha dialoguing?
What did the world place inside me? How is my body trying to respond in the world?
What is dEUS perceiving?
Which Tensional Selves ask for care? Which movement respects my body and other bodies more?
What is the next small possible step?
The map helps locate movement.
9. I am the world I perceive to exist
We live the world that our Body-Territory can perceive, feel, interpret, and construct.
Light becomes vision.
Sound becomes meaning.
Pain becomes signal.
Affection becomes belonging.
Threat becomes defense.
Care becomes trust.
Memory becomes path.
Clan becomes reference.
State becomes protection.
World becomes experience.
So one phrase can accompany us:
I am the world I perceive to exist.
Everything we call world needs to pass through the body to become perception.
And if perception can be cared for, the future can also be reconfigured.
10. Decolonial Neuroscience: from the whole to the cut
Decolonial Neuroscience begins from the living whole.
DNA.
Body.
Territory.
Interoception.
Proprioception.
Perception.
Affect.
Memory.
Learning.
Clans.
Jiwasa.
State.
Then we make cuts.
We study the brain.
We study neural networks.
We study the prefrontal cortex.
We study the connectome.
We study interoception.
We study behavior.
We study culture.
We study groups.
The cut remains necessary.
It helps us learn.
It helps us measure.
It helps us test.
It helps us create science with evidence.
The difference is that the cut serves the living whole.
We use the scissors to understand.
Then we return to the whole body.
The whole territory.
The whole life.
Decolonial Neuroscience recognizes that the human being can be studied in detail while keeping the broad questions of daily being and existing alive.
11. Human Behavior Map
One day, this idea may become a great international gathering.
A Human Behavior Map.
A Latin American event to study human behavior, consciousness, body, territory, belonging, technology, State, democracy, clans, youth, and cognitive sovereignty.
Just as there are major events about the brain, we can also create a major event about the living maps of human behavior.
But this event begins before that.
It begins when an adolescent perceives:
my body signals.
my clans influence.
my State begins in me.
my Tensional Selves can be observed.
my pain deserves resources.
my belonging can expand.
my freedom needs space, care, and responsibility.
I can learn new ways of being.
Closing
The Human Behavior Map exists to help us locate ourselves.
It reminds us that we are Body-Territory.
That we learn ways of being before language.
That we participate in clans and remain greater than each isolated belonging.
That pain deserves listening and resources.
That APUS and Tekoha form a living cycle between inside and outside.
That dEUS can observe Tensional Selves with metacognition.
That Jiwasa helps us perceive together.
That the larger State exists to expand the protection of the Body-Territories that constitute it.
The first question remains:
What am I learning to be?
And the final perception may be:
I am the world I perceive to exist.
When we learn to perceive this, sovereignty becomes care.
It becomes map.
It becomes body.
It becomes territory.
It becomes shared life.
References — from DNA to behavior, clans, and State
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