- "The body is a great intelligence, a multiplicity with one sense, a war and a peace, a herd and a herdsman." The moustachioed German.
When I was young my body did exactly what I planned. Running, jumping, climbing, fighting. I play-fought with my Dad and he landed on top of me, my left arm in searing pain. It wouldn't desist and he took me to hospital, my bone being fractured. My first experience that the body could be damaged. The first of many.
A couple of years later I fractured the other, at the collar-bone, leaping from my Grandmother's 'coal-bunker', with my own TV-action show copied role, which was of course highly unproffessional. Again the same constant, persistant pain. Again a sling, x-rays, hospital; scarey places. The smell almost overbearing, the demeanour of the people who analysed me, like that of a scientist, with a dead fly on a slide.
Later my Body changed. I was one of the last. My cock was not particularly impressive; indeed, I lagged behind. My muscles, my height, my running ability were all within the lower quartile. My attempt to pass footballs gave great amusement to my classmates and greater embarrasment to myself. "Rugby" with Mr. Chapman (who coached Brian Robson, something he would remind us of at each assembly), only vaguely represented this sport. In reality it was a free-for-all of pubescent male violence. Shin kicks, knee grazes, testicle blows, nose punches; I learnt a whole new world of pain the Body could be subjected to, if so required by sadistic middle-aged P.E. teachers.
Later I learnt the changes that could be brought about by drugs. Perceptual. Changes in confidence, reduction of anxiety, but also increased heart rate, vomiting, diarrhea, hang-overs. There is no escape from the Body, despite the temporary feeling that this may be possible under that state.
Early on I realised I will die. An ambivalent dualism developed. A narcissistic love of bodily pleasure, and an anxious realisation that this will end. A hatred even, that expresses itself, and to which I seem not to be able to control. My right hand bears the brunt of damage. Chipped knuckles, broken metacarples, fractured phalanges. From driving it into the face of others, walls, windows, public telephones, anonymous motor vehicles, policemen and policewomen (I believe in Equality).
Around the age of 21 I stopped taking speed in combination with alcohol. I couple of times I felt like I was dying, standing over the sink, longing to vomit, but being unable to do so. Watching that movie with Steve Martin, the only serious one he ever did, where he gets shot, and also The King of New York in combination with these come-down sessions, probably didn't help.
My Self remains the same. It does as it has always. It seeks to bring things to itself; to seek aggrandisement. But the Body is slower. It is hardly perceptibale at first. Perhaps artound the early twenties; the drinking sessions can no longer be indulged in without a long recovery period. Now, more than 5 pints and I'm squirting rusty water all the next day. Later, the changes become more noticeable. Climbing the stairs too quickly I might fall whereas earlier I wouldn't. My lower back may feel pains where before it didn't. If I do fall, the biting pain seems to take longer to go away. My Body is already beginning to fail me.
I am 28 years old. For the past 7 years I have been dying. Up until that point I was growing, developing, my muscles becoming larger, my hair thicker. Now I am decaying. Each time my DNA copies itself onto a new cell it allows free-radicals into my cells. The barriers to prevent this have weakened, and now each time a cell is replicated it is slightly worse than the last one. Age is genetically pre-programmed. I have been designed to die. Techinically, I should have reproduced by now, and my Body, which is nothing other than a vessel for transmitting a series of genetic codes, no longer serves a useful purpose.
Indeed, one would find it impossible to devise a crueller phenomenon; an existence that becomes progressively more difficult and then ends in pain, with each trial bringing more decay to the body (adulthood, children), and each potential escape (intoxiacation, danger, sex), simply speeding up the process. How can one love such a creation?
"Our own physical body possesses a wisdom which we who inhabit the body lack." A clean-shaven German.
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