Walking downtown, 12:15pm
The editor of the Pythagorean Brotherhood's newsletter 'O Logos asked me for a "meditation," so on the way to the computer lab I thought up one. Here is the final result.
Thoughts are censored; some things are simply unthinkable. But a body that is free will do the undoable.
Susan Farr, “The Art of Discipline”
“God, Helen,” she said to me. “Stop being so discarnate.” Catholics have the best insults.
I was acting like I didn't have a body, and sometimes I wish I didn’t. No hangovers, no job, no expenses. Who needs rent when you’ve transcended the material plane? Bodies get sick; they frequently demand nourishment; they drive us into the warm embrace of bed when we really should be pulling all-nighters. More than an inconvenience, a man’s body is his prison.
At least, I thought so before coming to Yale (although as a straight A student and self-declared teetotaller I was obviously a girl of unreliable opinion). Two things reformed me: the Catholic Church and the Party of the Right.
“By his stripes we are healed.” “It cannot be that the child of these tears should perish.” I know that the Church has a reputation for being a wet blanket when it comes to matters of the body, but remember that Christ didn’t just pronounce us all saved and check out until the apocalypse. He had some very unpleasant, very carnal work to do first.
As for the POR, it mostly just got me drunk. At first this only reinforced my annoyance with the limits of being incarnate, but once I got past the frustration of wanting to drink more and not being able to because of utter gastric revolt, I stopped trying to lead the body and let the body lead me.
“Some things are simply unthinkable,” Susan Farr says, and she’s right as far as thoughts go. For instance, no man can ever be truly unafraid of the prospect of his own death; it is too powerful and natural a fear. (“Saying you have a fear of death is like saying you have a coitus fetish.”) However, there are ways for the body to subvert the mind’s impotence and just do indifference to death. Smoking a cigarette is one way; bravery in battle is another. (I would mention one more, but you do not talk about POR Fight Club.)
I don't know exactly what unthinkable thought I'm perform when I go for a ten-mile run, but I know that jogging is what housewives do to lose weight; when John Parker said, “It was all joy and woe, hard as a diamond, it made him weary beyond comprehension, but it also made him free,” he was talking about running, and running has nothing to do with getting into shape, or losing weight, or getting girls, or anything except running.
The mind and the body both have limits, but the body’s can be overcome in a way that the mind’s can’t. Trying to free your thoughts by thinking differently is like drinking whiskey to sober up. The mind cannot free itself. However, by ceding your body to a different master (alcohol? pain? adrenaline?) you may find yourself free of the shackles you didn’t know you were wearing.
Some people are worried that if they relinquish control they will disappoint themselves or do something they’ll regret. Speaking from personal experience, I find my drunk and sober selves equally regrettable. The real advantage is this: the moments when we feel the least in control are the only moments in which it is possible to surprise ourselves.
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