(AHEM!) The body is not even experienced as whole. We never see it all, we cant feel our liver working or messages shuttling through our spine. We patch a phantom body together out of a cacophony of sense impressions, bright and partial views. We borrow notions from our friends and the blaring organs of commerce, and graft them on to a supple, undifferentiated mist of smart particles. Its like a column of dust motes standing in a ray of light, patted and tatted into a familiar shape. Our work is never very successful, there are always scraps floating loose, bits we cant control or dont want to perceive that intrude like outsiders on the effigy weve constructed in our place. The original body is dissociated, porous and unbiased, a generous catch-all. The mind, on the other hand, or rather discursive thought, what zen calls monkey-mind and Bataille calls project, has an almost catatonic obsession with stasis, centrality, and unity. Project would like the body to be its commemorative statue or its golem, sober testiment to the minds values and an uncomplaining servant. But the statue doesnt exist except in the mind, a hard kernel like a tumor, set up in the portal to the body, blocking the light. The project of writing, the project of life, even, is to dissolve that tumor. To dismantle the project is the project. - Shelly Jackson. Leslie and Jen; this makes me think of you. ;)
Posted on: Sun, 02 Feb 2014 11:58:35 +0000