Clowning Around: Reprise

I am not my body, although I consider us very close friends. Family in a way. Twins maybe. Fraternal twins. She's the means by which I interact with the world. It doesn't matter if I am the most determined person in the world and nothing is wrong, if my body ain't happy, ain't nobody happy. When she says, "I'm done," we're pretty much done. When my body gets exhausted, it doesn't matter if I'm ready to work till Jesus comes back, I shut down. Today I worked as hard as I could on practically no sleep, pushed myself to the limit and I was hell bent and determined to succeed and not give in. I was not sad, but for the first time in my life, my body cried without me. And I pitied her.

I am my body, and she works as hard as she can but there's only so much she can do. When she's not happy, I can't ignore her and I can't be happy either. We're much more connected than I realize, and my success and joy depend on her as much as they depend on my feelings and desires. I think it goes to show that thoughts can only get you so far: during the Enlightenment, the rich middle class came up with all these marvelous ideas about how life for the working class should be, but their ideas didn't work in reality. Before WWI the French and Germans had a very heroic and romantic vision of what war was like: until they experienced it and learned it wasn't as seductive an idea as they thought. I cannot live off of my thoughts and ideas and theories because real life doesn't play out like that.

I think there is something spiritually significant to existing in a physical world with physical limitations. If I had nothing to tie me down and put limits on me, I could do anything. I would be all powerful. As it is, I am not. I'm tied down. And there's a reason for that, and that reason is good. There's something to learn here; from this.

3/9/11