The Mystery of Bodies

My body, I usually don’t give it a second thought – or as my wife will attest, often not even a first thought. I sometimes feel like an alien in my body, but sometimes I feel completely at home here, sometimes I’m awed by its complexity or amazed by its ability, sometimes I have wonderful fun because of it and even the occasional transcendent experience in it –sometimes many or all of these things at the same time or more.

But I wonder, as has I think probably every one of us with a body: Am I only this flesh?

Well, judging by how affected we are by its illnesses and injury, I have to say we certainly are our flesh in some very important ways. And because we perceive our bodies as both sacred (design, complexity, ability) and mundane (composition, excrement), it’s no surprise we wonder whether there’ll be anything ‘here’ after our flesh, whether there’s an ’afterlife’ for our ‘soul’ or a (D)ivinity to ‘shepherd’ that ‘soul’.

We’ve all had experience with religion’s absolute claims, claims increasingly difficult in a pluralistic society, but one ‘argument’ religion has going for it (as far as the ‘imperishable soul’) is the individual experience of the mind/body duality. Although I’ve heard even this seemingly basic experiential duality hasn’t always been so prevalent in western civilization.

I myself have suggested more than once (though pluralistic as I am, I too shy far from absolute claims of truth), that the search for and making of meaning is one of the most important motivations for all human life. And because meaning and its making seems to mean very little to the biology of bodies, I tend towards thinking of our time on earth as the playing of a very complex yet educational game matrix, where billions of souls (of all kinds and stripes) have a bodies (of all kinds and stripes) to interact with other incorporated souls (of all kinds and stripes) while we search for and make up our own meaning for the living of our game-matrix lives.

And yet even so, though I have this theoretical framework with great explanatory power for me – the mystery of bodies persists.

~

Relatedly: I sometimes wonder if there’s a waiting room for unincorporated souls somewhere, a place where they look upon the world of physical form with anticipation and excitement saying things like, “Oh, I can’t wait to do that!” “Wow, that looks liek so much FUN!” If there were such a place I think  it would help explain children’s sheer delight in running nowhere as fast as they can while sending out those ear-piercing squeals of delight.

Postmodern Society and Pluralistic Ethics

The problem of course with postmodernism is that there are few (if any) absolute truths whereas modernism at least held out the promise of a knowable absolute truth, even if that truth as currently unknown. Not that there is any lack of truth options in a postmodern world, indeed it’s the plurality of often contradictory truths that’s the problem.

I recently suggested on a forum that passion was the real reason behind the worth of an individual’s expression, yet even as I wrote I knew pluralism makes the rules of how one person’s expression of passion effects another person a serious social problem.  In fact I recently thought seeking humanity’s absolute truth is akin to trying to find lowest common denominator for the entire number line – the only answer, one (1), is of no help as it pluralistically leaves every person a rule and absolute truth unto themselves.

Most people then turn to a denominator less than one (depending on your metaphor), turn to getting a truth that though not an absolute truth will still cover as large slice of situations and examples as possible, cover as much of humanity as possible. And though this is the essence of governance, it inevitably flails and must flail on the rocks that people are real and not numbers. We live, grow, learn, change and most of all love – passionately, and those decimal point partial truths must constantly take stock and measure, then shift wherever the mass of us leads if it is to continue its optimal coverage.

However I think the difference between passion and action has allowed the sneaking of practical modernism in the back door as it were, for we often respect, admire and appreciate outlaws for their passions and individuality, even as we hunt them down and lock them away for their infringements upon others. And the where, when and why of human legal systems remain grounded in modern (more like pre-modern) absolutist religious expressions.

Thus, because there are no pluralistic ethics with a common denominator higher than one, humanity remains an odd amalgam of modern and postmodern frameworks, mostly modern at the larger scale social levels with postmodern occasionally breaking out at the lower social and individual levels.

Yet in a very real sense the absence of absolute truth, or the substitution of absolute singular with a plurality of equals, wouldn’t matter were it not for the fact I occasionally have a Christ complex and want to save humanity from itself, were it not for the fact I mentally am still seeking the ‘progressive’ betterment of human-kind. This even though I frankly suspect such ‘betterment’ is either ultimately impossible, precisely because there is no single, universal, absolute, grand-scale schema available to ‘progress’ upon, or possibly just permanently stalled at the point wherever modern sensibilities end and postmodern relativity begins.

And though it’s unoriginal, I often think that the single greatest obstacle to large-scale, wide-spread, human happiness is that trait within us that overlooks what is best in the wide and large scale picture in favor of what is best in small and short term picture. But that trait has, I think, been proved unremovable (even occasionally advantageous) and so paradoxically though I want everyone to be happy I fear all proposed utopias, all utopian programs, all ideologies and frameworks – nevermind that aligning perceived self interest with perceived social interest is a problem outdating both the modern and postmodern frameworks.

~

Of course, as I recently pointed out and am painfully aware, though I just want everyone people to be happy and live in harmony, no one can make another person happy but that person alone, and the risks of living and playing in the biological meaning matrix (my own personal decimal point partial truth) include harm, hurt and pain.

And of course that there are no better answers short of systems that cause others more harm, hurt and pain I find extremely frustrating. So despite my being a pluralist, despite my believing in pluralism (may everyone find their passion as I found mine) I find postmodernism extremely frustrating (when will we all grow up?) it remains slightly less frustrating than anything else, and though it’s hard for me to swallow, I find postmodern social ethics mostly, almost entirely, ironically, an affair of the individual’s self education.

The Incoming Class

I knew Ansonia was working on a sensitive research project because my wife was the Head of Collections at the college library. I never spoke to Ansonia, nor she to me, the entire time she was there; near as I could tell she only ever talked to the other women in the group, and because they refuse to talk about her, I don’t think anyone else will ever know anything more about her.

 Of course that the women in the group never did talk to any outsiders, whether colleagues or even spouses, was something I only realized later, partly because the group isn’t made up of only campus faculty and staff: housewives, waitresses, business owners, one I’m sure is a highway surveyor for the state. I remember my wife would meet with some of the other women it seemed nearly two or three times a week, and though everyone knew they were always in touch with each other, no one seemed to know what they did at their get-togethers or what they talked about. Until I saw Ansonia that last night at the fundraiser, I’m ashamed to say I was entirely too self absorbed to wonder what they were doing, or to have noticed that they were doing something at all.

The Freshman Fundraiser is a grand event, a charity ball, complete with academic celebrities, auctions, speeches and a dinner comprised mostly of deserts, all on behalf of the incoming class. Yet despite the name there were never any actual freshmen present; the only person required to be there was the Dean of Freshmen, Yrev Bruto, a man many had found to be gruff and argumentative.

Thus very few people were likely surprised that evening when he could be heard over the pre-event dull murmur of voices and music in heated discussion with his wife. I was standing not far to the side behind Bruto, facing away and desperately trying to ignore him. But by the third or fourth exchange I, along with everyone else, was just beginning to turn my head when I saw Ansonia walk purposefully over to them, saw Bruto reach back to strike his wife, and saw him instead strike the intervening Ansonia.

I assumed I must have blinked against the thunderclap, briefly cringed in horror that anyone could do such a thing, let alone in public, regardless of the reasons or circumstances. But Ansonia barely seemed to move under the blow, and there was something about the way she seemed to straighten and stand yet even taller while everyone else drew back into the suddenly, even eerily silent room made me want to never even argue with my wife ever again.

And while Bruto seemed nothing more so than embarrassed at first, as I saw him get ready to speak I realized he would say nothing appropriate, if there were anything appropriate to such an occasion. But it was Ansonia who spoke first, and because I had overheard her speaking once or twice before, I could immediately hear something different in her voice: “To your gift I return in kind, from the time you leave my sight until you retrieve what you have given.”

I think everyone was a bit startled by her gravity and word choice, as if the neighborhood preschoolers at a birthday party began chanting sequential exponential primes instead of “Happy Birthday”, but Bruto barely spluttered before declaring he wasn’t about to leave his own fundraiser. He was incorrect of course, it wasn’t his or even for him, but his refusal made the other women in the group begin pushing forward through the crowd, nearly fully assembled behind Ansonia when she must have made some sort of signal I missed and they all stopped.

Then without taking her eyes off the offender Ansonia said, “The man who removes him shall have my trust.” I wasn’t exactly sure what she meant this time either, but I was certian whole thing was getting absurdly preposterous, and perhaps only because I happened to be already standing right behind him, I grabbed Bruto by the arm. Surprisingly he came along willingly and thankfully silently too; I think he realized he’s lost any sort of favor, position or social capital he might have had in that room. I took him to the side door where there wasn’t going to be a crowd and opened the door for him and followed him through. And this was when I saw Ansonia for the last time, because although clearly Bruto walking ahead of me before the door, it was surely she standing before me after the door swung closed. Ansonia winked at me without smiling and walked off into the night, apparently no one ever to see her again, no one willing to speak of her again.

When I returned to the hall there was no crowd tending to a struck woman because of course Ansonia wasn’t there, but strangely neither was there any of the hushed and halting gasping that accompanies the aftermath of these things. Indeed with the music restarted, Bruto’s wife taken to the bathroom or home and the remaining women of the group milling and murmuring once more as if nothing had happened at all. Yet because in this extremity it could still seem as if nothing had changed at all, I began to feel as if they of this Group were the collaborators, the insiders, the rule makers, and we few outside The Group, the real freshmen, might finally have gotten to come to our own fundraiser.

I did see Mr. Yrev Bruto again a few days later before they moved out of town. We passed on the sidewalk near the park, but upon slowing and recognizing each other he gave me such a haunted look I could find nothing to say. And after a pause he then turned away, running to catch up to his wife.

Enthralled: Right Here, Right Now

She makes me move, act,
by her wanting, zest, fire;
I choose, she takes –me. 

Right here right now this–
part, extension, of she, one
with her, her fire. 

Right here right now this–
where I’m whole, when I’m one, this–
may this be our lives.

I am quite pleased with today’s poetry; it is somewhat reminiscent of and inspired by feeling her fire, which I thought an excellent expression marred only by the word ‘controlled’. So today I sought the compact experience behind and under ‘control’ -I choose, she takes- and I skipped the label entirely.

The result I admit is less like the now seeming standard of three haiku than a single poem (for further cohesion try reading the absence of the first period mark and a semicolon in place of the second), and I have never repeated a single word (‘this’) or an entire line ever so much in a poem.Yet, mechanics aside: She only makes me and takes me insomuch as she, in her fire, wants and as I choose her – and I choose her fire that is her because I am enthralled.

I have found new interest in words like ‘enthralled’ because I sense they aim at the same thing ‘control’ does in describing a (our) relationship dynamic, but they also denote a much less rigid structure. Although these words also aim at a sensed loss of free will like ‘control’ does, they are also unlike ‘control’ in that they are flexible enough to not place power definitively in one place or another in a relationship. They aim at the compaction of a sensed loss of free will as if due to a magical spell (as I use ‘ensorcelled’ here) and at the same time they aim at the retention of free will because it is only merely as if a person has been ‘captured’, and then only a part of a person, one’s interest or mental focus, and certainly not a whole person ‘controlled’.

beguiled: filled with wonder and delight
enchant: hold spellbound
bewitching: capturing interest as if by a spell; “bewitching smile”; “Roosevelt was a captivating speaker”; “enchanting music”; “an enthralling book”; “antique papers of entrancing design”; “a fascinating woman”
enthrall: to fascinate or charm or captivate
enthrall: to hold spellbound; to bewitch, charm or captivate; To make subservient; to enslave or subjugate

I also have noticed also there’s an overall concept of passivity involved in every one of these; such an other person must posses some certain and super active qualities, magical qualities, because they make, force, the observer to feel (possibly behave) a certain way. (Also I think there’s an implication objective reality must be a certain way because the observer subjectively feels or perceives a certain something.)

Thus I think by all my this’s (as by “all my uxory“) and my doubled line of poetry serve to show a duality in compact experience too:

(1) that being an extension of she is as being one with her and her fire – and

(2) this one-ness of us is a one-ness of me, and

(a) a one-ness of us-me that I desire for me and my sake (because “for you is for me“), and

(b) as the one-ness of us-me is a meaningful fulfilling experience, I also desire its unending continuance.

Fire on My Mind

Indeed as I return to some of my earliest essays here, most often they are not so much better or worse than more recent ones as they intriguingly carry the compact kernels of thoughts and ideas I later differentiated more fully.
~ OH, Contents Map – Seven Seas

I am beginning to realize that in so many ways I miss the power and fullness of the compact experience by needless differentiation … my ‘fire epiphany‘ … in retrospect seems more like a mere moment of clarity in a sea of obtusity.
~ OH, Feeling Her Fire

… compact isn’t less intelligent, less modern, or less enlightened, just different, more holistic …
~ OH, Compact and Differentiated

Apropos of symbol atrophy, I think one reason I have a differentiation predilection in the first place is because I still tend to assume (automatically, unconsciously) differentiation is how ‘progress’, ‘knowledge’ and ‘advancement’ of self and one’s interests happens – an assumption I make despite daily seeing my wife and the amazing way she compactly exists and interacts. I think this ‘framework blind spot’ where I fallaciously use differentiation as a symbol of ‘progress’ is why I am (still) surprised differentiation doesn’t always ‘get me somewhere’ other than where I am, (still) intrigued differentiation doesn’t always translate into more clarity and advancement.

(This is also why I think people offer differentiated knowledge as a means to help people’s compact feelings improve – and why it usually doesn’t work. The compact subjective experience of, say, fear remains a valid interior experience for an individual even if differentiated knowledge reveals no objective reason for fear.)

Today I came across more of my own words (again), from a year and a half ago - almost a year before I even began writing here. Yet these few early words also contain (compactly, in such a small space!) so many of the ideas and concepts I’ve been on about (read ‘differentiating’) ever since: for you is for me, life lessons, flow, happiness, passion and desire, maximizing a choice for love and passion, erotic truth, intuitive-holistic compactness, adequacy and accuracy of love symbols in a relationship negotiation for the sake of intimacy and the maintenance of loyalty, kink and sorts of uxory, passion’s fire (“the fire in her that is her” is great in its amazingly simple construction) - in other words just plain why I love (and enjoy loving) my wife so much.

I think they illustrate that since differentiation is merely a way of parsing existence (by reflecting on thoughts and experiences and analyzing them) in order to better understand our experiential existence in a ‘biological meaning matrix‘, it is no wonder I sometimes differentiate merely in order to better understand and appreciate my own compact thoughts and experiences, and that differentiation of itself doesn’t necessarily result in more ‘progress’, ‘knowledge’ and ‘advancement’.

I want the desire I have for my wife to be the background hum of my life, but a desire rooted in who she is, a desire to draw us closer and more intimately so.    [...]    I don’t even have much kink beyond my desire to please my wife and make her happy. Why do I want to make her happy? Because when she is at her best and clicking (not a rare event), it is truly a sight to behold. Strong, smart, intelligent, intuitive, witty and holistic. In a word, amazing. At times like these (and most others too) I want nothing more than to feed her fire – the fire in her that is her – do my best to keep it growing. And yes, do my best to enjoy the raw beauty. [...] I’m simply in love with her, her character, and frankly a bit in awe of her as well. I love participating in the process of optimizing her happiness (and thereby our happiness) by any means she deems, because I love her and want to make myself as useful as is possible.