Tag: mindfulness

Quantifiable

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How should we assign meaning?

Image by Steve Buissinne from Pixabay

I wish I could quantify my existence. In a meaningless world, we place meaning where we believe it should reside. In doing so, we do ourselves a disservice, by attempting to quantify the unquantifiable: the subjective experience we’ve all come to know as “life”.

Our lives are inherently unquantifiable. So in a subjective world, why do we place objective values on things and titles? Similar to how we value flashy cars, expensive clothes, the most lucrative jobs etc, as humans we are always placing meaning in hierarchies, attempting to quantify our success as people by assigning more or less merit to arbitrary items or statuses we hold.

Why do we do this? Because we realize deep down that no one else can really tell us what matters and what doesn’t. And maybe it scares us to not have a scale. To not have an easily packaged number that tells us our score in life. It leads us to the question of success, and how much “success” we’ve accrued in our time on this planet.

Some might have this realization and turn instantly to nihilism, what I like to explain as the belief that “nothing matters, so everything I do is meaningless and therefore sucks.” This is most likely not the best belief to hold, but if you really like it, I guess the point is that, well, you should do you, no matter what. So go be nihilistic if that’s your jam!

But Albert Camus, a very intelligent Frenchman, had a different way of thinking. He believed that because nothing matters, we can place meaning in absolutely whatever we want. That’s a powerful belief to hold.

I believe that placing arbitrary values on deeds or accomplishments is just as detrimental as nihilism because it creates unnecessary competition. The economy is the only thing that benefits, I guess.

So if success is inherently unquantifiable, what should we do? Frolick? Eat all your favorite foods? Sleep all day? Well, that’s not the right move either, at least in my mind. One thing that’s been built into us biologically is our desire for movement. We always want to be moving towards something. Maybe that thing is a promotion, or a new opportunity, or a trophy. Whatever it is, we should chase it. But we should never be so consumed by the chase that we forget to enjoy those things that make the chase worth it. Because the chase was never the end goal. It’s just a vessel upon which we can sustain ourselves in this experience.

Sometimes I think it would be nice to be able to quantify my existence. To say exactly how kind I’ve been, how good of a brother, student, son, or friend I’ve managed to be, or exactly how much potential I have. But the very fact that success is unquantifiable feels like a breath of fresh air whenever I realize it again. Because I do get trapped giving others more negative weight than they should in my life.

I guess what I really want to say is, please don’t try to unnecessarily quantify your life. What makes life beautiful is that it can’t be measured. So come join me, on this little ledge. Yeah, right there is great. Scoot a little closer. Here, we can gaze out in the void, and smile.

Patch of lovely grass (sonnet version 1)

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Image by Susann Mielke from Pixabay
Your pulse is just a high-stakes, predatory loan,
A strobe light’s frantic glitch
In a collapsing pit, so leave the "shoulds" alone—
Those leaden boots that make your spirit itch.
Stop watering the plastic, look at the crowd:
A billion ghosts all clutching
Their leaking bowls, wondering (quiet or loud)
Where the soup went, while they were judging.
The soil is a blind and neutral gut
That mulches down the CEO and the creep,
The Great, the Who?, the "I-wanted-to-but."
They're all the same shade of clover, six feet deep.
F*ck it, the lease on your breath is ending. Don’t be pinned.
Go graffiti your name on a passing gust of wind.

One day

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Image by Annette from Pixabay

You’re going to die one day,
so start acting in such a way
that you don’t have to apologize
when you’re having fun, even if there are a million eyes

on you.
They are people too.
You’re going to die one day
so do me a favor, okay?

Live, fight,
Take your canvas, your candle and burn it f***ing bright.
So that no matter what they say
the path that you take, you can call your way.

Who doesn’t love someone with a little fire?
Rub them wrong, let them declare you the fool.
Trust me, you can afford to raise your chin a little higher.

the infinity bucket

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Image by brittywing from Pixabay

i give,
you take.
they take
and blame gravity.
i give,
but i don’t lose,
not yet.
it comes from a bucket
i don’t look into.
last time i did
there was less of me
than before
and i chose not to notice.
my hands bruise.
the handle bites.
i switch arms.
i tell myself
this is what strength looks like.
i keep pouring-
everything,
everything.
until the word is hollow
and echoes when i say it.
i give
because stopping would admit
there is a bottom,
and i have been standing
just past it.
teetering.
i used to count
to prove it was endless.
now i don’t
in case it isn’t.
so i give,
give.
i don’t check
what’s left.

Winnie the Pooh and the Art of Being Fully Alive

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https://pixabay.com/photos/bear-winnie-the-pooh-toy-2982809/

Daily writing prompt
What’s your favorite cartoon?
View all responses

What a bear with very little brain can teach us about consciousness, mindfulness, and the ethics of care

At first glance, Pooh Bear seems simple. He walks slowly, he loves honey, and he forgets things. That’s it. Nothing complicated, nothing dramatic. And yet, the more you watch him, the more you notice: there’s a quiet wisdom in the way he inhabits his world.

Not wisdom in the “sage on a mountaintop” sense. Wisdom in the way he pays attention. The way he interacts with friends or navigates the small ups and downs of life.

The Power of Paying Attention

Pooh’s adventures are funny, but they also reveal a surprising truth about attention. Floating on a balloon to steal honey, he’s completely absorbed in the task, oblivious to how absurd it looks. Neuroscience tells us that attention is a finite resource.

We can’t multitask perfectly, and our brains are constantly prioritizing what matters. Pooh doesn’t “practice mindfulness” or meditate; he just throws himself into what’s in front of him. And he doesn’t overthink it. In doing so, he shows us how simple focus makes life richer.

And then there’s his forgetfulness. When Pooh tries to help Eeyore find his tail, he forgets details and causes a small ruckus. According to cognitive science, forgetting is normal. Research suggests that our brains prune memories to prevent overload and allow for more mental bandwidth for other things.

Care Without Drama

Pooh’s ethics are quiet. Checking on Piglet during a storm or helping friends in small ways, he makes the most of small actions rather than grand gestures.

Philosophers call this relational ethics, or care practiced in the moment rather than in theory. Pooh isn’t a moral model; he’s just kind because it feels natural. His friendships emphasize that being a good person is about the tiny, consistent ways we attend to others.

The Simple Joy of Desire

Pooh loves honey. It’s intense, sometimes compulsive, and it drives many of his adventures. From the perspective of affective neuroscience, desire and reward shape mood.

By grounding his happiness in something that he can get everyday (honey!), he lives a steady and reliable existence; he avoids the entrapment of the novel and the grand. In a world obsessed with achievement, Pooh’s satisfaction is a call to anchor our emotional lives in something familiar.

Lessons Without Preaching

Pooh, to put it simply, lives. The Hundred Acre Wood shows us that small acts of attention and care matter, that imperfection is human. And above all, that ordinary life can be magical.

You don’t think of a sage or an ideal when you think of Pooh Bear. But he sure is a good guide, a reminder that contentment often comes not from striving to be perfect, but from noticing the little things and caring too.

In his gentle simplicity there lies a lesson modern life sometimes makes us forget: you don’t need a lot to live well, you just need to be fully present for the small, sweet moments that surround you.

Written by Mason Lai, a California high schooler.

The Plastic Instinct

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Who is Danny - stock.adobe.com

How instinct and intuition shape us, and how the nervous system allows us to rewrite our oldest impulses

Daily writing prompt
Do you trust your instincts?
View all responses

We usually imagine instinct as something permanent, a force that precedes thought and resists revision, moves faster than reason, feels older than memory, and often arrives before we have a chance to interpret it.

A sudden flinch, a tightening in the chest, a hesitation in front of a crowd; these are signals from biology’s first draft of the self.

Intuition, by contrast, feels learned yet inexplicable. It is judgment from experience, from patterns we have absorbed but cannot fully articulate. The distinction seems clear: instinct is inherited, intuition is acquired. Yet according to neuroscience, they are closer than meets the eye.

I. Instinct as the First Draft

Neuroscience shows that instinctive circuits through the amygdala, periaqueductal gray, and other subcortical structures operate at speeds that bypass conscious thought (LeDoux, 1996) in order to guide us toward survival. Instinct carries ancient wisdom, but it is not absolute, and in modern life some consider it an outdated architecture.

Instinct can change. Neuroplasticity allows the nervous system to reshape itself in response to experience, so emotional memory can be updated each time it is recalled in a process called reconsolidation (Phelps et al., 2009). Fear responses once thought permanent can be weakened through repeated exposure. Prosocial impulses can be reinforced through practice.

II. Intuition as the Brain’s Ongoing Revision

Intuition is the mechanism through which these revisions emerge through pattern recognition: the brain compressing thousands of experiences into a single instant of guidance.

A seasoned firefighter senses a building is unsafe before assessing the evidence. A guitarist feels the right chord before theory explains it. These are instincts refined by experience and practice.

The distinction between instinct and intuition fades because both rely on the nervous system’s ability to encode and adapt information. What feels immediate is often the negotiation between our ancient foundations and modern experience.

III. Rewriting Instinct and the Responsibility of Freedom

The possibility of rewriting instinct raises ethical and philosophical questions. If our deepest reactions can be altered, we bear responsibility for which impulses we cultivate. If courage can be trained, empathy practiced, fear tempered, then nothing stops us from imagining “ideal” humans—creatures optimized for rationality, cooperation, or moral virtue. History brings up a cautionary lens. Communism and socialism were once heralded as systems that could perfect society, yet the unpredictability of human behavior and the complexity of the world made total control impossible. Even carefully designed utilitarian experiments struggle to account for the emergent consequences of individual choices and the infinite ways context shapes action.

Maladaptive environments, however, can carve unhealthy patterns into the nervous system just as easily. The plasticity of instinct is both liberating and fragile. It allows us to grow, but it is also inevitably shaped by forces outside conscious control. In this sense, instinct is less a fixed verdict than ongoing revision. Human potential will perhaps always remain uncertain. We cannot manufacture perfection, yet we can still strive. So, the work of shaping instinct cannot be absolute; rather it fluctuates between what can be trained and what must be lived.

IV. Living Between Draft and Revision

Instinct is the prewritten framework of the self, a set of impulses we inherit before we can interpret them. Intuition layers experience atop it, shaping quiet guidance we rarely notice. Conscious attention is the instrument of our change, refining and redirecting without ever fully controlling the story.

Reflex can become deliberate as reaction can become understanding. We are neither prisoners of our earliest wiring nor masters of its total rewriting.

Rewriting instinct carries ethical weight. If courage, empathy, or fear can be trained, shaping the impulses of others through education, culture, or biotechnology is imaginable. History reminds us that attempts to “perfect” humans or societies fail, as the world resists total control. Yet this imperfection also carries hope: the same plasticity that allows harm also allows care, reflection, and responsible guidance.

To trust instinct is to honor its voice while recognizing limits. To engage thoughtfully is to co-author the self. Living fully must mean navigating the tension between inherited and cultivated impulses, letting both guide us. But this responsibility extends beyond personal growth. How we train instinct shapes the ethical contours of who we become. Courage cultivated in adolescence can influence moral choices in adulthood. Empathy reinforced through social experience alters how we respond to strangers. Fear tempered through exposure can prevent harmful overreactions. Shaping instinct means editing our identity. The ethical dimension is unavoidable: the self is inseparable from the impulses we refine, and the values we choose to embed in them.

References

  • LeDoux, Joseph. The Emotional Brain. 1996
  • Kahneman, Daniel. Thinking, Fast and Slow. 2011
  • Damasio, Antonio. Descartes’ Error. 1994
  • Phelps, Elizabeth et al. Nature, 2009
  • Sapolsky, Robert. Why Zebras Do Not Get Ulcers. 1994

Written by Mason Lai, a California high schooler.

Frames of Identity

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Hurca! - Stock Adobe
Daily writing prompt
What’s the first impression you want to give people?
View all responses
Hurca! - Stock Adobe
The first impression you give someone feels simple.

A glance, a phrase, the slight tilt of your voice as it tries to decide whether to sound confident or careful. But beneath that moment sits a truth most people never notice. It may be easy forget that others never gain awareness of the full architecture you are. Rather, a moment of awareness is simply one frame in a long sequence, and your brain rushes to stitch these frames together so you can believe there is a solid self living behind your eyes.

Identity is not what we think. I understand it as a continuity the brain desperately creates from separate moments to make sense of the movement of our lives. Neuroscientist Anil Seth calls this a controlled hallucination. The mind fills the gaps so you do not feel the gaps. It connects the flicker of one second to another until the whole thing seems unbroken, like a film reel running just fast enough to appear real.

We like to believe we are consistent people. Yet the research on memory says otherwise. We are creatures of reconstruction. Every remembered version of yourself is edited, packaged for memory, and rearranged. The brain rewrites the story so you can wake up each morning and believe today follows yesterday. This introduces a unique conundrum. Rather than storing identity, we regenerate it every day.

So when someone asks what first impression you want to give, the real question is much, much stranger, and it sounds something like this:

Which version of yourself do you choose to step into the next moment of your life? Which frame do you choose as the doorway?

This is where things shift from science to philosophy. Time feels like a flowing river, but psychologists who study chronostasis suggest that much of time is perception layered on top of uncertainty. The brain inserts its own continuity to prevent us from feeling the world as a collection of tiny, isolated pulses. If we experienced pure discontinuity, we would lose our sense of self within days.

Identity is the story your brain tells so you can stay afloat.

And yet there is something quite beautiful in that. If the self is an invention, it means you are not trapped by whatever story you once believed. You have a say in how the next frame develops. The first impression you offer someone is a creative act rather than a performance. It is the moment you decide which what stays, and what goes.

The poet Ocean Vuong once wrote that memory is a story we carry in order to survive. I think identity is similar. A living thing. An ongoing choice. A narrative held together not by perfect accuracy but by the desire to be understood.

So when someone meets you for the first time, they encounter a glimpse. A soft outline of a self that is always shifting. You might wish people could see the fuller version of you, the one that carries all your experiences and contradictions and small private joys. But this gentle incompleteness is part of what makes human connection meaningful. We meet one another through keyholes. We will never know the full interior, so we stay curious, listening. We keep evolving our impression of each other.

The mind protects us from the terror of a fractured reality by mashing together all the sense-datum we receive each day into something that seems continuous. Our task is just to participate in that creation with care and to let ourselves change while accepting that others will only ever see fragments.

Identity behaves a little like starlight. From a distance you see a single shimmer and assume it is the whole story. If you could travel closer, you would find a roaring furnace made of collisions, and pressure, and centuries of change. The light you see from afar, while seemingly false, is simply the only version that can cross the distance. It gives you a place to aim your attention.

A first impression works the same way. It is the part of you that travels. The part that reaches others first. The person you are is not the glow but the whole constellation of experiences that shaped it. And the self beneath all of that, the one even you struggle to map, is the vast system of forces and history that the mind is still learning to name.

The good thing about all this is that identity does not need to be solved. You do not have to know exactly who you are to live as someone real. You can be in motion, gathering pieces, setting others down, changing shape without warning. For you were never meant to be a statue.

Even scientists who study memory admit that the brain edits and revises and rearranges our story. If the mind keeps rewriting you, then you are allowed to participate in that creation. You are allowed to change your mind about yourself. You are allowed to hold uncertainty without feeling lost.

There is nothing weak about that. There is nothing broken about being unfinished.

Identity is a conversation between what made you and what you choose next. It is a bridge you are always building, even when the blueprint is unclear. The gaps are not failures. The gaps are invitations. They ask you to imagine, to choose, to become.

And maybe that is the real beauty. We are not defined by the parts we cannot explain. Instead, we are defined by the meaning we learn to create from them. Every time you step forward, you add a piece to your ever-growing puzzle. It does not matter if you don’t see the full picture yet, because, truth is, life wasn’t made to make sense from the inside.

So if you feel unfinished, good. It means there is space to grow toward a self that feels honest. It means you still have room for new light. It means the story is unfolding and you are awake inside it.

You are allowed to be a work in progress. You are allowed to be a constellation still forming. You are allowed to discover who you are by living, not by knowing.

And that is enough.

Written by Mason Lai, a California high schooler.

How to Rewire Your Brain in the Last 60 Days of 2025

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Sixty days left in 2025. That’s enough time to either coast through the end of the year or to reprogram how you think, focus, and act. The truth is, your brain remains remarkably adaptable.

This is not about resolutions. It is about neuroscience and the quiet biological fact that change is built on repetition and reflection.

1. The Myth of the Big Reset

We love the fantasy of transformation: new notebooks, gym sign-ups, the illusion that change begins on command. But real rewiring does not happen that way.

Neuroscience shows growth is not a switch but a slow layering of signals. Every day your brain listens to your behavior and adjusts. Patterns of thought and action, repeated often enough, become automatic pathways. You do not “flip” into a new self. You train your neurons into one.

Mindset shift: Stop thinking in resolutions. Start thinking in repetitions.

The 1% Rule

Improve by one percent each day – one percent more focus, one percent more rest, one percent more presence. After sixty days, that is not sixty percent improvement. Compounded, it is exponential. Neural networks strengthen with consistency, not drama.

2. The Science of Rhythm: Finding Your Neural Schedule

Your perfect day is already coded into your biology. The brain runs on circadian (daily) and ultradian (hourly) rhythms that govern alertness, creativity, and fatigue. Ignoring those rhythms is like rowing against a current: possible, but exhausting.

The Focus Framework

  • Track your natural peaks for three days. Note when your brain feels sharpest and when it fogs.
  • Protect your high-focus window for deep work – writing, studying, thinking.
  • Use low-focus hours for logistical tasks and errands.
  • Rest every 90 minutes to align with attention cycles and help neurotransmitters reset.

Once you align your schedule to your neural rhythm, productivity will come more easily, not just from sheer willpower.

3. The Novelty Principle: Reawakening Dormant Circuits

The brain thrives on surprise. Novelty (new experiences, ideas, or environments) activates dopamine pathways tied to curiosity and learning. When everything feels repetitive, the brain goes into predictive mode and attention fades.

Novelty is not merely entertainment. It is biological nutrition for attention.

Small Ways to Add Novelty

  • Change your study or commute route.
  • Read an author or genre you rarely choose.
  • Listen to a podcast outside your usual subjects.
  • Rearrange your workspace or swap your morning routine.

Each small disruption forces your sensory and motor cortices to re-coordinate, for more whimsy in life.

4. The Attention Economy and the Art of Recovery

Your attention is your most limited neural currency. Every task switch or phone check spends dopamine and glucose, the fuels of focus. Constant context switching leads to micro self-interruption that accumulates fatigue.

The Two-Window Method

  1. Deep Work Window: One 90-minute period daily for immersion. One task, zero notifications.
  2. Restorative Window: 20 minutes of real rest after deep work: walking, breathing, or silent reflection. No screens.

During rest, your brain consolidates learning.

5. Sleep: The Night Shift of the Brain

Sleep is not optional. During deep sleep, brain cleaning processes remove metabolic waste. During REM sleep, emotional and sensory memories get integrated into long-term patterns.

The Rewind Ritual

  • Thirty minutes before bed, dim lights and screens.
  • Write three lines about what you learned or noticed today.
  • Visualize your brain sorting and storing those experiences overnight.

After sixty days, this simple ritual strengthens hippocampal memory consolidation and emotional balance.

6. The Emotional Brain: Reframing Stress

Stress in small doses sharpens focus and motivation; chronic stress is what harms the brain. The trick is to reframe stress as signal, not threat.

The Stress Reframe

  • Name it: say to yourself, “My body is preparing me.”
  • Breathe in for four counts, out for six to activate the calm response.
  • Turn the task into curiosity: ask, “What is this trying to teach me?”

This practice trains the prefrontal cortex to interpret pressure as stimulation. Over time, that narrative becomes automatic and resilience grows at the circuit level.

7. Reflection: The Architecture of Identity

Your brain learns not only from action, but from what it notices about action.

The Nightly Check-In

  • What did I learn today about the world or about myself?
  • What felt meaningful?
  • What drained me, and why?
  • Who made me smile?

Five minutes of nightly journaling rewires self-awareness. You begin to see patterns in the quiet beginning of self-creation.

8. The 60-Day Framework for Lasting Change

Use this structure to make the final sixty days of 2025 transformative without theatrics or burnout.

SystemActionNeural Benefit
FocusOne 90-minute deep work block dailyStrengthens prefrontal control
Recovery20-minute restorative breakResets dopamine and consolidates learning
SleepConsistent bedtime and Rewind RitualEnhances memory and mood stability
NoveltyOne new experience weeklyActivates neuroplasticity
Reflection5-minute nightly journalingStrengthens self-awareness circuits

9. The Quiet Revolution

When the year ends, the world may look the same. But beneath the surface, your brain will have changed. You will return to focus faster. You will respond to stress with more equanimity. You will notice life more clearly.

That is the real miracle of the human brain: it is always becoming. And sixty days is enough time to begin again.

You got this. Now take the steps, no matter how small, and finish the year strong.

Written by Mason Lai, a California high schooler.

Razumihin’s Wisdom from Crime and Punishment

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“I am a man because I err! You never reach any truth without making fourteen mistakes and very likely a hundred and fourteen… To go wrong in one’s own way is better than to go right in someone else’s. In the first case you are a man, in the second you’re no better than a bird.”

-Razumihin, Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment, Constance Garnett Translation

Dostoyevsky, Fyodor. Crime and Punishment. Translated by Constance Garnett, The Macmillan Company, 1914.

In Sync: How Music Aligns Our Brains and Binaural Beats

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There is a strange calm that washes over you when lo-fi beats fill your headphones while studying. There is an unspoken connection in a crowded concert hall when thousands sway together. These experiences are more than just beautiful; they are neural. Music has the power to synchronize brain activity within and across individuals, aligning thoughts, emotions, and attention in ways we are only beginning to understand.

Neural Synchronization

Neuroscientists call this neural synchronization. When your brain hears a beat, its neurons start to oscillate in rhythm with it. Note that this is not just happening in your auditory cortex; it spreads to motor regions, the cerebellum, and prefrontal areas involved in focus and expectation.

Even more fascinating, people listening to the same music often show inter-brain synchrony. Studies reveal that their brainwaves can match up in time and frequency, creating a subtle shared experience of connection (Lindenberger et al., 2009; Sänger et al., 2012). In a very real sense, music can make our minds move together.

Binaural Beats & the Brain’s Rhythmic Flexibility

Neural sync isn’t just for concerts. Binaural beats use two slightly different tones, one in each ear, tricking the brain into hearing a third, imagined beat. This auditory illusion can nudge your brain into different rhythms, from alpha waves that calm you to beta waves that sharpen your focus (Lane et al., 1998; Goodin et al., 2012).

Listening to binaural beats in specific frequency ranges can modulate brain states. Alpha-range beats (8–12 Hz) are associated with relaxation, while beta-range beats (13–30 Hz) may enhance focus or alertness (Lane et al., 1998; Goodin et al., 2012). While research is still exploring the effects, the principle is simple: our brains are rhythm machines, and sound is a powerful conductor.

Why It Matters

When our brainwaves align with others through shared sound, the boundaries of self and other blur. The same mechanisms that allow a drummer to keep time also underlie the neural foundations of empathy and cooperation. It explains why music feels social even in solitude. When our neurons align with rhythm, whether in a concert, a quiet practice session, or through binaural beats, we experience a sense of belonging.

Music organizes our inner worlds and aligns them with others, proving that even when we’re alone, our brains are seeking resonance.

References

Garcia-Argibay, M., Santed, M. A., & Reales, J. M. (2019). Efficacy of binaural auditory beats in cognition, anxiety, and pain perception: A meta-analysis. Psychological Research, 83(2), 357–372.

Goodin, P., Wildermuth, L., & Sumners, C. (2012). Binaural beat audio and cognitive performance: A review of the evidence and potential mechanisms. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 6, 44.

Lane, J. D., Kasian, S. J., Owens, J. E., & Marsh, G. R. (1998). Binaural auditory beats affect vigilance performance and mood. Physiology & Behavior, 63(2), 249–252.

Large, E. W., & Snyder, J. S. (2009). Pulse and meter as neural resonance. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1169(1), 46–57.

Lindenberger, U., Li, S.-C., Gruber, W., & Müller, V. (2009). Brains swinging in concert: Cortical phase synchronization while playing guitar. BMC Neuroscience, 10, 22.

Oster, G. (1973). Auditory beats in the brain. Scientific American, 229(4), 94–102.

Sänger, J., Müller, V., & Lindenberger, U. (2012). Intra- and interbrain synchronization and network properties when playing guitar in duets. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 6, 312.

Trainor, L. J., & Cirelli, L. (2015). Rhythm and interpersonal synchrony in early social development. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1337(1), 45–52.

Zatorre, R. J., Chen, J. L., & Penhune, V. B. (2007). When the brain plays music: Auditory–motor interactions in music perception and production. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 8(7), 547–558.