Attempts to understand the differences between persons.
It is with great sadness everyday that I trudge through a “social structure”, for lack of a better term, that disvalues the beautiful variations on the human person, conceiving of them to be malfunctions and disorders. And thus, by the restricting and confining walls of such a structure, it turns the characteristic features of such variations into handicaps on successful life within that structure, because it advocates a narrower conception of what a proper human being should be, and what a proper human life should consist in.
But, at the same time, I would be lying if I did not acknowledge that some of those features of this variation, apart from struggling within such a social structure, themselves build a cage in which I am often trapped: it is a kind of paralysis, for my own self is, too often, engorged with motivations and inspirations and aspirations, but utterly lacks all power to effect them, because of an unreasonable disconnect between my self and the body in which it is; unreasonable, for it cannot be reasoned with, but can only be pleaded with by use of tools of a similar nature to that body. It is *that* feature of this variation that I can only suppose most others lack some understanding of, because it is not the consistent obstacle of their daily life. And there is a deeper, more inherently problematic aspect of this that causes another kind of daily sadness that I bear: in a way, that disconnect is that my self (or mind, if you like, whatever it is, all terms are vague here) is just too big for this body to be an appropriate medium of its expression. Perhaps this is inappropriate, perhaps a misunderstanding, a skewed projection of my own perspective, but I am suddenly reminded of Nietzsche, and the idea of an evolutionary step in human beings toward a more “godly” kind (the scare quotes are not quoting N., but a vague idea). But, what would happen if such an evolution of the mind occurred prior to a correlative evolution of the body? What if we consider it not as an evolution, but just a special variation, for which, still, the human body as it is, is unprepared for? Here lurking is some kind of conception of what a human person is, in a normative sense, but have we any justification for that conception?
And so, I continue to struggle…
“It is with great sadness […] human life should consist in.”
YES! I KNOW YOU, WANDERER!
“But […] expression.”
I suspect that from time to time, most everyone is “engorged with motivations and inspirations and aspirations, but utterly lacks all power to effect them, because of a [not to be reasoned with] disconnect between [themselves] and the body [they inhabit]”. If you are in fact right in saying that this is “not the consistent obstacle of their daily life”, I put to you that this is only because circumstance has swayed towards a feeling of powerlessness in the face of what you call ‘disconnect’.
Yes, that is what everyone says. “It’s all in your head: you just *think* that’s the way it is, and so your thinking it makes it so.”
No, *you* and most others may not really be so powerless. If so, then count yourself lucky.
But I’m used to this kind of response by now. Everyone wants so much to believe that as human beings, we’re more special than other animals, because we’re somehow not *governed* by our biological structure and composition, and the chemicals running through us. A romantic fantasy, indeed, of such freedom and power.
I am reminded of this incident:
Three fingers on my right hand were broken, the bones snapped completely in half, the knuckles shattered. When the bones healed into solid pieces again, they had healed with the tendons quite literally cemented down to the bones, leaving me entirely unable to move my fingers. This wasn’t known at first, so more surgeries followed, in attempt to fix the problem of my unmovable fingers, and the problem was eventually known and understood, and techniques employed to take care of it. Additionally, I had to have physical therapy after every surgery. But where I was going to physical therapy was hardly covered by my insurance, so it cost me quite a bit, which motivated me to try to find another place I could go that my insurance would cover more for. So I tried one place. I met with the woman and, with my files and paperwork in hand, discussed the problem with my hand. She flat out rejected the claim that the reason I couldn’t move my fingers was because the tendons were stuck to the bones. No, she said, the only reason I couldn’t move my fingers was because the muscles in my arm had atrophied, so it was merely a complete lack of strength that they wouldn’t move. The solution, she proclaimed, was to work on strengthening the muscles. I explained to her the surgeries I had, what the hand surgeon saw inside my hand, and I even explained her to the very process by which my tendons came to be stuck to the bones–because I made the point of asking the hand surgeon why something like that would occur. She would have none of it, and insisted that I was wrong. I argued with her for nearly 15 minutes, and I about wanted to slap her silly. She refused to believe me that I was *physically incapable* of moving those fingers, and insisted it was just lack of strength, and that the muscles just needed exercise, because ultimately, she insisted, I *could* move them. I walked out of that place so infuriated, because I had been treated like a fool, and disbelieved about a genuine physical condition that could not simply be overcome by sheer strength *of will*.
Looks can be deceiving, especially when such an appearance may have any one of various causes. One should be careful in judging the outer condition when one doesn’t know what it’s like from the inside.
I don’t hold that it’s just in my head. Or yours. I recognize a feeling of powerlessness that matches your description. For one, I mean to say that many would. For another, I mean to say that in my experience circumstance brings about the feeling of (my) powerlessness. When this happens I am more or less (usually the former: more) helpless against it. The powerlessness is about as much in my head as the circumstances that seem to bring it about are (that is, not very much!). What little power I have learned to wield against it is wielded so as to avoid the circumstances, rather than squander precious life-force in a doomed fight against the soul-sucking feeling of powerlessness.
Few things cut me deeper than feeling misunderstood.
Attempts to understand the differences between persons.
It is with great sadness everyday that I trudge through a “social structure”, for lack of a better term, that disvalues the beautiful variations on the human person, conceiving of them to be malfunctions and disorders. And thus, by the restricting and confining walls of such a structure, it turns the characteristic features of such variations into handicaps on successful life within that structure, because it advocates a narrower conception of what a proper human being should be, and what a proper human life should consist in.
But, at the same time, I would be lying if I did not acknowledge that some of those features of this variation, apart from struggling within such a social structure, themselves build a cage in which I am often trapped: it is a kind of paralysis, for my own self is, too often, engorged with motivations and inspirations and aspirations, but utterly lacks all power to effect them, because of an unreasonable disconnect between my self and the body in which it is; unreasonable, for it cannot be reasoned with, but can only be pleaded with by use of tools of a similar nature to that body. It is *that* feature of this variation that I can only suppose most others lack some understanding of, because it is not the consistent obstacle of their daily life. And there is a deeper, more inherently problematic aspect of this that causes another kind of daily sadness that I bear: in a way, that disconnect is that my self (or mind, if you like, whatever it is, all terms are vague here) is just too big for this body to be an appropriate medium of its expression. Perhaps this is inappropriate, perhaps a misunderstanding, a skewed projection of my own perspective, but I am suddenly reminded of Nietzsche, and the idea of an evolutionary step in human beings toward a more “godly” kind (the scare quotes are not quoting N., but a vague idea). But, what would happen if such an evolution of the mind occurred prior to a correlative evolution of the body? What if we consider it not as an evolution, but just a special variation, for which, still, the human body as it is, is unprepared for? Here lurking is some kind of conception of what a human person is, in a normative sense, but have we any justification for that conception?
And so, I continue to struggle…
“It is with great sadness […] human life should consist in.”
YES! I KNOW YOU, WANDERER!
“But […] expression.”
I suspect that from time to time, most everyone is “engorged with motivations and inspirations and aspirations, but utterly lacks all power to effect them, because of a [not to be reasoned with] disconnect between [themselves] and the body [they inhabit]”. If you are in fact right in saying that this is “not the consistent obstacle of their daily life”, I put to you that this is only because circumstance has swayed towards a feeling of powerlessness in the face of what you call ‘disconnect’.
But are we truly utterly powerless?
Onward!
Yes, that is what everyone says. “It’s all in your head: you just *think* that’s the way it is, and so your thinking it makes it so.”
No, *you* and most others may not really be so powerless. If so, then count yourself lucky.
But I’m used to this kind of response by now. Everyone wants so much to believe that as human beings, we’re more special than other animals, because we’re somehow not *governed* by our biological structure and composition, and the chemicals running through us. A romantic fantasy, indeed, of such freedom and power.
I am reminded of this incident:
Three fingers on my right hand were broken, the bones snapped completely in half, the knuckles shattered. When the bones healed into solid pieces again, they had healed with the tendons quite literally cemented down to the bones, leaving me entirely unable to move my fingers. This wasn’t known at first, so more surgeries followed, in attempt to fix the problem of my unmovable fingers, and the problem was eventually known and understood, and techniques employed to take care of it. Additionally, I had to have physical therapy after every surgery. But where I was going to physical therapy was hardly covered by my insurance, so it cost me quite a bit, which motivated me to try to find another place I could go that my insurance would cover more for. So I tried one place. I met with the woman and, with my files and paperwork in hand, discussed the problem with my hand. She flat out rejected the claim that the reason I couldn’t move my fingers was because the tendons were stuck to the bones. No, she said, the only reason I couldn’t move my fingers was because the muscles in my arm had atrophied, so it was merely a complete lack of strength that they wouldn’t move. The solution, she proclaimed, was to work on strengthening the muscles. I explained to her the surgeries I had, what the hand surgeon saw inside my hand, and I even explained her to the very process by which my tendons came to be stuck to the bones–because I made the point of asking the hand surgeon why something like that would occur. She would have none of it, and insisted that I was wrong. I argued with her for nearly 15 minutes, and I about wanted to slap her silly. She refused to believe me that I was *physically incapable* of moving those fingers, and insisted it was just lack of strength, and that the muscles just needed exercise, because ultimately, she insisted, I *could* move them. I walked out of that place so infuriated, because I had been treated like a fool, and disbelieved about a genuine physical condition that could not simply be overcome by sheer strength *of will*.
Looks can be deceiving, especially when such an appearance may have any one of various causes. One should be careful in judging the outer condition when one doesn’t know what it’s like from the inside.
I don’t hold that it’s just in my head. Or yours. I recognize a feeling of powerlessness that matches your description. For one, I mean to say that many would. For another, I mean to say that in my experience circumstance brings about the feeling of (my) powerlessness. When this happens I am more or less (usually the former: more) helpless against it. The powerlessness is about as much in my head as the circumstances that seem to bring it about are (that is, not very much!). What little power I have learned to wield against it is wielded so as to avoid the circumstances, rather than squander precious life-force in a doomed fight against the soul-sucking feeling of powerlessness.
Few things cut me deeper than feeling misunderstood.
Avoidance is one way of coping.
It is the most common way, actually, for people with such a variation.