Centric
My favorite writers write about mind and body, more specifically about the paradox of body and mind. I love reading paradox, especially Rushdie's parallel paradoxes, as well as Kundera's neatly discussed-but-not-entirely-explained paradoxes. I love them so much that a fantasy I've had about the results of an imaginary philosophy paper worries me with its possibility sometimes: I imagine that my paper will be handed back to me with a single message scrawled across the top, in bright red ink: Overly Fond Of Paradoxes.
Both Kundera and Rushdie discuss the duality of Body and Mind, and the attempted reconciling of, extensively throughout every one of their novels I've read. I'm not going to attempt discussing the entirety of their positions on the matter - read their books for that. Just one thing here:
Rushdie's characters are physical representations of mental characteristics. In the Ground Beneath Her Feet, every detail of Ormus Cama's execution of life is in accordance with his soul: He IS the body. Veena is the same in body and mind - she is the mind. His characters are unified.
When I was first drafting characters for the script I'm writing, my characters were all physical representations of mental phenomena - unified.
Kundera's characters are contradictions of physical body and mind. Laura's body points to the ground as her soul reaches toward the sky. Teresa, in the Unbearable Lightness of Being, and I believe Agnes too, in Immortality, looks at her body in the mirror and is disturbed by the fact that that is her.
I'm not sure where I stand on this.
I scrawled somewhere in a journal that children were unified in mind and body. Unlike Kundera's Teresa, when I was little, I never looked at my body and wondered that it was me. A year ago, I had no problem with accepting that every thought I had was a function of the body, like breathing, and that these things I call hands were filled with blood and moved because electricity in my web of neurons said so. I still understand that my body is my body, but I wonder about how connected thought is to it. I wish I knew more about neurotransmitters. I'm planning on reading the psychology books I have, looking for how related, exactly, to the experience of emotion -- which deserves its own post.
Now, I look at my hands sometimes and I am disturbed by their shape, their color, that they move.
I catch myself thinking that I should look at people's eyes when I'm talking to them because that's where they are. When I think that, I feel stupid, and I try to remember that they are made of flesh, and their eyes are hollow pale balls. When I look at people again, I find them disgusting. I can't look at their eyes, because they contain no person. I've said to myself that there's nothing there - and I imagine what it's like when there isn't anyone there. It's like trying to talk to a piece of meat.
This is the extent of my personal mind-body experience - the rest I take from books.
This entry is more about my personal person-body experience. Or outside-inside experience. See what I mean about that paper?
An hour ago I went downstairs and I looked in the mirror - really looked. I'm looking at a userpic with my face on it right now - and the same sensation fills me. It's not quite Kundera's "This is me?" because I'm not complaining that my body is not an extension of my soul. I'm not wishing for Rushdie. I'm not aware of a soul I'm striving for that my body doesn't meet. My face just looks like a face. It looks like it has two hollow pale orbs in it.
More importantly, I can't imagine meeting that face. I don't know what it would be like to talk to me, and I have little idea of how anything I do relates to that face.
When I meet strangers, they are unified. My friends are unified. They, no matter how close, are characters. Real characters - they're not flat, and I'm not saying that I could describe them well. Just that my perception of them, including a body and a mind, unifies both a body and a mind in a few choice metaphors.
The only thing that's split is the self.
What would I think of me, standing behind me, wearing a white baby doll with embroidery on the front, with a silver necklace, and whatever expression I can read on my face?
Not Teresa's disappointment, not Vina's unquestion - Miranda's lack of experience of her person.
Both Kundera and Rushdie discuss the duality of Body and Mind, and the attempted reconciling of, extensively throughout every one of their novels I've read. I'm not going to attempt discussing the entirety of their positions on the matter - read their books for that. Just one thing here:
Rushdie's characters are physical representations of mental characteristics. In the Ground Beneath Her Feet, every detail of Ormus Cama's execution of life is in accordance with his soul: He IS the body. Veena is the same in body and mind - she is the mind. His characters are unified.
When I was first drafting characters for the script I'm writing, my characters were all physical representations of mental phenomena - unified.
Kundera's characters are contradictions of physical body and mind. Laura's body points to the ground as her soul reaches toward the sky. Teresa, in the Unbearable Lightness of Being, and I believe Agnes too, in Immortality, looks at her body in the mirror and is disturbed by the fact that that is her.
I'm not sure where I stand on this.
I scrawled somewhere in a journal that children were unified in mind and body. Unlike Kundera's Teresa, when I was little, I never looked at my body and wondered that it was me. A year ago, I had no problem with accepting that every thought I had was a function of the body, like breathing, and that these things I call hands were filled with blood and moved because electricity in my web of neurons said so. I still understand that my body is my body, but I wonder about how connected thought is to it. I wish I knew more about neurotransmitters. I'm planning on reading the psychology books I have, looking for how related, exactly, to the experience of emotion -- which deserves its own post.
Now, I look at my hands sometimes and I am disturbed by their shape, their color, that they move.
I catch myself thinking that I should look at people's eyes when I'm talking to them because that's where they are. When I think that, I feel stupid, and I try to remember that they are made of flesh, and their eyes are hollow pale balls. When I look at people again, I find them disgusting. I can't look at their eyes, because they contain no person. I've said to myself that there's nothing there - and I imagine what it's like when there isn't anyone there. It's like trying to talk to a piece of meat.
This is the extent of my personal mind-body experience - the rest I take from books.
This entry is more about my personal person-body experience. Or outside-inside experience. See what I mean about that paper?
An hour ago I went downstairs and I looked in the mirror - really looked. I'm looking at a userpic with my face on it right now - and the same sensation fills me. It's not quite Kundera's "This is me?" because I'm not complaining that my body is not an extension of my soul. I'm not wishing for Rushdie. I'm not aware of a soul I'm striving for that my body doesn't meet. My face just looks like a face. It looks like it has two hollow pale orbs in it.
More importantly, I can't imagine meeting that face. I don't know what it would be like to talk to me, and I have little idea of how anything I do relates to that face.
When I meet strangers, they are unified. My friends are unified. They, no matter how close, are characters. Real characters - they're not flat, and I'm not saying that I could describe them well. Just that my perception of them, including a body and a mind, unifies both a body and a mind in a few choice metaphors.
The only thing that's split is the self.
What would I think of me, standing behind me, wearing a white baby doll with embroidery on the front, with a silver necklace, and whatever expression I can read on my face?
Not Teresa's disappointment, not Vina's unquestion - Miranda's lack of experience of her person.