Of the Image of a Body
The other day I had a small tiff with an online friend, again a result of a glib comment or two on my part. This not being a new and emerging pattern really questions whether I truly belong in higher education, since I seem to be so spectacularly hard-headed about certain things.
But to the point. The gist of the tiff was that this person felt I was at that time bragging about having a perfect body and rubbing it in their face as they were dwelling on their struggle with their weight. However, I think the glibness to start all this had occurred a few days earlier, as I had jokingly declared amidst a conversation of their efforts to reach their ideal body that I already had an ideal body. Combine this with the second glibbituity* about how if I ever start dieting someone needs to phone in the nice men in white coats, and I can see where the impression of bragging may have come from. In fact, nothing could've been further from the truth; the first comment was intended in jest and the second one referenced my continuing struggle to avoid becoming underweight. But while it wasn't bragging, in a way the first comment was profoundly true.
You see, I do consider myself to have an ideal body. There, I said it, but before irrevocably writing me off as a conceited bastard, please allow me to explain what I really mean by those words.
I did go through a period of considerable dislike of my own body. It was too skinny, too short, too weak, too androgynous, too incapable. In other words, it wasn't enough. However, since I've always felt very strongly that I in fact am my body, it meant that I wasn't enough. Perhaps that was the key, since at some point I realised I simply couldn't go on thinking I wasn't enough for myself and/or others. I was what I was, a product of nature and nurture and there was nothing about those things I was in a position to change anymore. Thinking that there was something not good enough implied that there was indeed something I could do and something I should do. When I understood that my body and personality were what the genes and the environment had conspired to create, I also understood that on a fundamental level there was nothing I could do to change them. This then effectively meant there was nothing I should do, since obviously, if something's impossible for me, I can't be morally** obligated to do it either.
Feeling I wasn't good enough had meant there was a moral obligation to make myself good enough. When I realised I didn't have that moral obligation -since there was nothing I could've done- I also realised that in fact I was good enough.
That was the first reason behind my claim to having an ideal body. The second reason is perhaps less grounded logic and more in the very way I experience my existence.
To a great extent, I am my body. I can't imagine existing in any other physical form, when I try I simply feel I wouldn't be myself anymore. My body is perfect not because it fits some preformed ideal, but because it's mine. It's perfect and ideal because it's the only body I've ever had, or can ever have. Indeed, my body is perfect because it is ME. And because this perfection is innate and internal so to speak, if I do wish to change something about my body I won't be doing it because I feel my it isn't good enough as it is, but simply because I have an impulse to do so.
So there's a twofold argument behind my initial claim, or a proggression of ideas if you like. Feeling that my body wasn't good enough had at it's base a feeling of moral obligation to make it good enough, but this dissolved upon realising that to a large extent there was nothing I could do about it. This epiphany of my body actually being good enough combined with my strong sense of something like monism, and produced an innate feeling of being perfect, not by the virtue of fitting standards, but simply because I was myself and couldn't be anything else. This is why I claimed to have an/the ideal body.
My body, as it is, is perfect for me and it is perfect as me.
*No, that's not a real word. I just made it up.
**I use the word 'moral' in a loose sense, denoting a vague sense of 'virtue' and a feeling that one 'should' do something in order to be good enough
But to the point. The gist of the tiff was that this person felt I was at that time bragging about having a perfect body and rubbing it in their face as they were dwelling on their struggle with their weight. However, I think the glibness to start all this had occurred a few days earlier, as I had jokingly declared amidst a conversation of their efforts to reach their ideal body that I already had an ideal body. Combine this with the second glibbituity* about how if I ever start dieting someone needs to phone in the nice men in white coats, and I can see where the impression of bragging may have come from. In fact, nothing could've been further from the truth; the first comment was intended in jest and the second one referenced my continuing struggle to avoid becoming underweight. But while it wasn't bragging, in a way the first comment was profoundly true.
You see, I do consider myself to have an ideal body. There, I said it, but before irrevocably writing me off as a conceited bastard, please allow me to explain what I really mean by those words.
I did go through a period of considerable dislike of my own body. It was too skinny, too short, too weak, too androgynous, too incapable. In other words, it wasn't enough. However, since I've always felt very strongly that I in fact am my body, it meant that I wasn't enough. Perhaps that was the key, since at some point I realised I simply couldn't go on thinking I wasn't enough for myself and/or others. I was what I was, a product of nature and nurture and there was nothing about those things I was in a position to change anymore. Thinking that there was something not good enough implied that there was indeed something I could do and something I should do. When I understood that my body and personality were what the genes and the environment had conspired to create, I also understood that on a fundamental level there was nothing I could do to change them. This then effectively meant there was nothing I should do, since obviously, if something's impossible for me, I can't be morally** obligated to do it either.
Feeling I wasn't good enough had meant there was a moral obligation to make myself good enough. When I realised I didn't have that moral obligation -since there was nothing I could've done- I also realised that in fact I was good enough.
That was the first reason behind my claim to having an ideal body. The second reason is perhaps less grounded logic and more in the very way I experience my existence.
To a great extent, I am my body. I can't imagine existing in any other physical form, when I try I simply feel I wouldn't be myself anymore. My body is perfect not because it fits some preformed ideal, but because it's mine. It's perfect and ideal because it's the only body I've ever had, or can ever have. Indeed, my body is perfect because it is ME. And because this perfection is innate and internal so to speak, if I do wish to change something about my body I won't be doing it because I feel my it isn't good enough as it is, but simply because I have an impulse to do so.
So there's a twofold argument behind my initial claim, or a proggression of ideas if you like. Feeling that my body wasn't good enough had at it's base a feeling of moral obligation to make it good enough, but this dissolved upon realising that to a large extent there was nothing I could do about it. This epiphany of my body actually being good enough combined with my strong sense of something like monism, and produced an innate feeling of being perfect, not by the virtue of fitting standards, but simply because I was myself and couldn't be anything else. This is why I claimed to have an/the ideal body.
My body, as it is, is perfect for me and it is perfect as me.
*No, that's not a real word. I just made it up.
**I use the word 'moral' in a loose sense, denoting a vague sense of 'virtue' and a feeling that one 'should' do something in order to be good enough