But is that three?

[aquaeri]

mrissa made a much-commented-upon post about naming three things you like about your body.

Comments

[ironed_orchid]

I think the three things exercise was designed for people who routinely say "I hate my body"/"I hate the way I look

[aquaeri]

I think the three things exercise was designed for people who routinely say "I hate my body"/"I hate the way I look".

I sincerely hope so, but that's not the impression I got from reading all the comments on mrissa's post. Or alternatively, hate is the normal, default attitude towards one's body.

I'm a very intellectual person in the sense that a lot of my identity is caught up in mostly intellectual activities. Yet it's through this thinking activity that I become more an more convinced that consciousness is primarily determined by embodiment, that is, that how we mentally interact with the world is intrinsically related to the body that we have (i.e. human, and not a pig or an ant).This is the kind of thing I was waving at, except for me, it required the actual physical experience of regular exercise for myself to be able to make all those intellectual connections, and thoughts about embodiment

[ironed_orchid]

I felt that the comments at mrissa's were a combination of people saying "it's hard to think of 3 good things" and of people saying, "well, I kinda like a lot about my body, really

[aquaeri]

Very interesting babbling, thanks. And your ideas seem fairly close to mine; it's reassuring that I'm not just randomly making up stuff :-). I'll keep an eye on reflexionen for sure.

[leback]

I could argue that the second sentence of your second paragraph *is* a list of three things you like about your body. :-)

More generally, thanks for sharing this--it's a useful perspective to be reminded of.

[aquaeri]

I could argue that the second sentence of your second paragraph *is* a list of three things you like about your body. :-)

I realise that, but it doesn't feel like three different things, it feels like I'm trying to say the same thing three times, and, well, English words are not designed to do this kind of job.

[leback]

Commenting again after reading the post you linked to...it bugged me, actually, a lot. It seems intended to be inspirational, but to my mind it falls in that category of "Count your blessings" lectures that can easily be offensive when directed from one more fortunate to one less fortunate. (I don't at all count myself as less fortunate in this regard, but I can easily think of people who almost certainly *are*--hell, even the apparently-intended-to-be-trivial examples she gave ,like "My mouse hand can get me away from this page," aren't true for everyone.) Sometimes looking at the bright side *isn't* the right thing for the place somebody's in.

But maybe this is just reducible to my usual twitch about the generalized "should." :-)

[aquaeri]

I didn't read it exactly like that, but I can see how it could be: it had a bit of an underlying sense, to me, of bodies being rankable by how many good things they had off an invisible master list, and I guess I was trying to side-step the whole list idea.

[pyrzqxgl]

Not having seen any other posts about this, my immediate thought on seeing the topic of your message was "That sounds like it would be kind of tricky to write about without somehow slighting people who don't have whatever the three chosen characteristics would be." For me there is just no end of anxiety-producing memes out there!

[aquaeri]

Well, given my recent anxieties, all I can say is I feel pleased I didn't get anxious about this meme. I hope I didn't contribute to your anxiety.

Re: But is that three?

[pir_anha]

it's amusing to see how one can come to similar conclusions from totally different vantage points

Re: But is that three?

[aquaeri]

In some respects, it feels like our attitudes might not be that far apart; I definitely recognise aspects of what you talk about. My own exercising was prompted by medical advice after teen years spent largely buried in books.

I tried quite a lot of things and I get bored stupid by most of them. Running works, partly because I run in interesting surroundings, and partly because running is the single most high-intensity-consistently thing I've found, and for me that seems to be important, and yes, I suspect endorphins are involved somewhere.

I agree that many "mental" problems seem to have at least a significant physical/chemical component. I don't know if the positive effects of exercise on my anxiety is chemical, in the sense of endorphins and so on. As I said, there are times when it feels as though anxiety is my brain twitching because my body isn't allowed to (or I've forgotten to let it).

Re: But is that three?

[pir_anha]

i also get an anxiety-twitchy thing, though it's not outright anxiety, but it definitely feelsrestive; i can't sit still. i get it when i am stressed over something where i have no way of affecting the situation. and physical activity is useful then because, well, it wears me out, *heh*, and when i am tired, i am less twitchy

Re: But is that three?

[aquaeri]

i think the one high-intensity thing i could do that wouldn't bore or annoy me would be dancing. i've been considering getting a dance pad for my computer, because i really must get more physical activity into my day, especially when the weather doesn't cooperate with doing anything outside.Oh, yes, you should try computer dance/fitness games. They're the most brilliant computer games ever in my opinion, 'cos not only do you get fit rather than lose fitness, the concept is so simple, and yet the skill level can always be jacked up further