Thinking With the Body
Spinning around, until we're down.
This song is called “Spinning Around.” I wrote it this weekend.
I am sick right now. It may be caused by allergies, it may be an infection. My left eye is horribly red and I can’t see out of it properly; the rest of me feels woozy and achy and bad.
I’m not sure exactly what’s going on, but I do know that my ability to think clearly and well is suffering.
This is not surprising. You get sick and mostly all you can think about is how bad it feels to be sick, how good it feels to be well, and occasionally (in a kind of “promises to God” for the non-believer), how if you do get well soon, you’ll never take it for granted again.
I don’t recommend illness. If you were thinking of trying it out, don’t. It tends to render the enjoyment of any other aspect of your life difficult or impossible as your whole consciousness focuses on one negative desire: “make it stop.”
But one thing I find useful about being sick is how clear it makes the mind/body connection.
Your thoughts don’t come from your head.
Like a lot of Western people raised after the Enlightenment, I have a basic model for cognition that is Descartes-influenced: “I think, therefore I am.”
If you drew me a diagram of myself with a little daemon in a tiny driver’s seat in my skull, with mechanical arms running down to my limbs and extremities, all controlled by the levers at the daemon’s fingertips, I’d sign off on it.
That’s how we’re taught about ourselves: we have a control centre at the top that directs the unruly but manageable mass of flesh below. Said flesh had better listen to the orders that are sent down, or else: detention.
Illness puts the lie to this model.
If I’m a brain in control of a body, illness is a situation in which I would reasonably say, “well, the fleshy bits are out of commission for now. I suppose I’ll spend this time contemplating higher things until such time as I can get back to piloting my meat-robot normally again.”
If that’s how it is for you when you get sick, please teach me. For me, the experience is mostly “ow, ow, OWWWWW, ugh, oh, makeitstopmakeitstopmakeitstop, ungh. Ugh.”
This is because most of what goes on in my mind at any given time originates not in my brainpan, but in my gut.
Your body decides, your mind follows.
While illness makes this rule from below extra clear, I see signs of it all the time.
For instance, when I haven’t slept and my body feels exhausted, my thoughts become chaotic and ungovernable.
I generally see this as a problem with my mind. If I rest more, my thoughts will become clear, and will regain control over my body.
But the reality is the opposite: my body is exhausted, and can’t govern the mind as well as it can when it’s had a good night’s sleep.
When I start to feel paranoid, it’s not because my mind is picking up on signals. My mind isn’t all that perceptive, generally. It’s because my body senses something’s wrong and sends signals upstairs, which I interpret as brilliant strategic insights.
No, brain. You’re not that great. All you’re doing is receiving signals from the giant supercomputer that you live on top of.
Build from the basement.
If you want to have a good life, don’t think about it too much.
Instead, take care of your body, and watch better things roll in.
I don’t just mean “live a healthy life.” That’s a good idea, of course. I even have a fun acronym that I find helps: take your M.E.D.S. (Meditation, Exercise, Diet, Sleep).
I also mean learn to hear what your body is telling you.
This is not something I’m terribly good at. But I want to get better, because again, my body is much smarter than my mind. It knows what I want and need in a way that my conscious intelligence never will.
What your body needs isn’t always controlled, careful living. As Martha Beck says, “When you want to dance, lying down is more stressful than dancing, and dancing is more restful than lying down.”
We need to know what our truest self feels like and needs in the moment, whether that’s a wheatgrass smoothie or a nice stiff whiskey.
Whatever it is, the good life starts in the basement where all the real shit is going down. What’s upstairs — the things you maybe think of as “you”; your consciousness, your ego, etc. — merely receives the news from down in the basement.
For now, I’m too messed up by allergies and eye pain to spend any more time on this. Which means my basement body is telling me to stop right here. For now, I’m going to lie down instead of dancing. Once I’m well, who knows?
Spinning Around
In a fallen room
Where I felt I could maybe make it out alive
I never knew if it would ever be
Quite the way that I wanted.
But now I see the reasons why
I don't want me to be
Who I've been before.
Everything I've done is all coming back to haunt me.
And I... I know why.
I know why.
I know why.
I know why.
Spinning around
Until we're all on the ground.
Spinning around
Until we're down.
You. You don't care.
You just can't see me
Lying there.
And I don't blame anyone but me.
This is my disease.
Why can't I just
Pick myself up
Dust myself off
And leave?
Why can't I leave?
Spinning around
Until we're all on the ground.
Spinning around
Until we're down.
Spinning around
Until we're all on the ground.
Spinning around
Until we're down.