Floating above my body

a thought piece

** note: references to bodily aesthetics **

Sometimes I feel as if I’m floating above my body.

That it is no longer my own.

I suppose this comes back to the mind-body disparity: are my limbs truly a continuation of my thoughts? When I run am I also utilising my mind? For all I feel is the drive, and the pain, and the fear.

The subconscious is both a wonderful and illicit thing. Scientifically we know the strings, the threads, but making it into a complete navigable map is pure conception at best and distant at worst. Ultimately, when we think of the mind, do we not implant our own ideas into our subconscious and thus reinforce what we believe our minds to be?

There is the mind and there is the brain, and perhaps by delineating these into distinct functional categories a near answer becomes accessible. For the mind is where we hold our thoughts and our beliefs, our coffee orders and our day-to-day anxieties. While our brain does the work to keep us alive as the heart or the lungs do (without conscious thought), our mind is something to be developed. It grows and it is uniquely ours.

Yet so are our bodies. So why, returning to the opening, do I sense their separation more acutely than between body and brain?

On the uppermost level, there are the superficial and existential themes. Superficially, we see our bodies at things to be clothed, decorated, an identification of another human in their anatomic equivalence. Beneath this, when our subject turns philosophical, we feel the dread that so often accompanies the human condition. We are flesh, bone, a conglomeration of cells and matter that perfectly aligns to bring function. On the surface, we have a morning alarm, a latte, and a book. Beneath, we have disrupted bodily rhythm, protein digestion, and circuit firing in our brains.

For myself, this links to the way in which we treat our bodies regarding dieting and exercise. When striving for a surface level aesthetic goal we lose sight of the underbelly that is our health. In many facets of life, however, we do not consider the biological impact of what we do for social prowess, whether this be on a significant scale (like the use of sun-beds) or a lower level.

I’ve lost sight of my body for multiple reasons. My relationship with it is tumultuous and aesthetically driven, even when I know all it does for me. I suppose one truly never appreciates what they have until it’s gone. Perhaps that it why we struggle with the concept of death — for one’s mind is a continuous property for them, the object they never forget to grab when they’re running late, and the idea that the body and the mind must end together seems incongruent to our life experience.

The thoughts of many live on for years after their passing, of course. Scientists, writers, artists of all generations have a part of themselves continuing throughout time when they themselves have long not been here. Striving to make a mark is a desire often seen across humanity, and it is in this that our minds transcend our bodies.

In my opinion, and on a personal level, to think deeply about our mind-body disparity (or indeed continuum) is not something to be done everyday. It has the capacity to be exciting, taking one to an almost spiritual appreciation of human life, but it can also become somewhat debilitating. I identify with my mind much more than I do with my body, and maybe I do not appreciate my body enough.

So, whoever you are reading this, I want you to take your own hand or touch your cheek, hug your knees to your chest or wrap your arms around your torso. Now, for just a moment, let us appreciate our bodies — and the minds that are their partner.