INTRODUCTION

Pillar 1: The Body

What is the Body?

The body - your body - is the thing that takes in information about the world from the world, and transmits information from you to the world. “It's a hot day,” is information about the world that you gain from your senses. “I am hungry” is information about yourself, which is transmitted to the world via the action of opening up the fridge, and grabbing last night's leftovers.

The Body is purely physical. But because it is the filter through which we receive the world, and the world receives us, it affects both Internal and External.

Issues with The Body

  1. We don't recognize it as its own entity. As a filter, this means a few things...
    • That our moods (Internal) are affected by External factors, like how much sleep we got, how many calories are in our system, and if we've been having veggies or junk food all week.
    • That people (External) aren't going to know what we want unless we explicitly express what we want. No one can read minds.
    • That being healthy - like losing weight and exercising (Body) - is necessarily going to feel awful (Internal), and there are no shortcuts to it, though there is a billion-dollar health industry constantly scamming us with supposed shortcuts.

  2. We don't recognize that the body is innocent, that it has needs and limits.
    • The body's needs and limits are real; we should be patient with it.
    • We shouldn't neglect the body's needs to the point of self-destruction.

  3. We don't perceive that other people's bodies work basically the same. There's a sense that...
    • some people are superior
    • some people are inferior
    • some people hold a lot of power over us

If we just recognized these 3 things about human bodies, we'd live in a more empathetic and fairer world. We should treat and consider each others' bodies respectfully, acknowledging needs and limitations, because we're more similar than different.

Everyone shits, women fart, men cry, your parents don't have power over you anymore...

...and yes, your one Body does make a difference in the world.

Exercise

SELF-DISCOVERY

  1. Do you take care of your body?

  2. Do you like your body?

  3. If your body were its own person, how do you think that person would feel about the way you treat it?