I Sing the Body Electric
Yeah, there's an overused Walt Whitman reference as the title. Too bad, folks- 't is already done.
Sometimes I forget that I'm human.
Meaning: not only do I forget what I look like but my gender slips my mind, as does the fact that I am not actually a floating mind but I am a mind within flesh and muscle and bone. I'll look in the mirror or put on a dress or some part of me will start hurting and then I will be reminded of my physical form. I'm not a creature of thought- I have a body that is classified as human by other humans.
It isn't that I want to look some other way, be another gender, or be something inhuman (with the exception of jokes about being a robot). My body looks alright by my standards and I think I'd feel the same about being a man as I do a woman (which is to say, "Whatever, it's what I am") and being human is awesome because it means that I have the capacity to think about these sorts of things and articulate them! ... Nevertheless I still forget what I am from time to time, only to be pleasantly surprised when I remember it. (Again, I'm on good terms with my body- however they don't seem to be good enough that they're at the top of my mind...)
I've been doing a little bit of thinking about why this is, and the answer is freakishly easy and so I don't want to believe it's true: I forget that I'm human because I simply spend less time focused on the reality of myself than I do on the reality of others and things which are immaterial. I don't pay attention to myself. End of discussion.
Can it really be that simple? I want feedback because this feels very strange indeed.