I write some pretty off the wall stuff at times, at least I think I do. This post may be farther out in left field than I have travelled yet. I have had this notion for a while, though I never gave it serious consideration until recently.
I have often wondered why with two similar people can have two drastically different lives. For example, two brothers and one leads a normal life and lives as a couch potato while the other brother becomes a successful marathon runner, turns to drugs or alcohol, or dies at an early age.
Descartes and others before him seriously pondered the separateness of mind and body. Mind and body are seen as two different forms in one place, with the mind the undisputed master. I had this slightly different idea in my head for years. A book I am reading mentions this idea as if it is fact. I thought a long time ago that perhaps we are riding in our bodies, not always a fully integrated package, and we are not in totally in charge as we like to think we are.
Do our individual bodies have wants and needs of their own? Is it possible our bodies take control and force changes our mind does not want? Do our bodies want certain things to happen, and if we agree fine, if not, too bad and our body makes it happen?
Where or how our body and our mind divisions are formed I am not sure. What if the physical struggle some of us experience in or with our body is a result of body demands, and we can not control it? The soul wants things one way, and the body wants them another way. Neither can take control completely, and conflict arises and the body wins in the long run.
We certainly do not have total control over our own body. We can bully ourselves somewhat, make our body do what we want to a certain point, but after that we can do no more. We can exercise our body to make it fit, but only to a certain level. We can feed it the right amounts of proper food. We can ensure our receives the proper amount of rest.
We assume physical and psychological limitations stop us when doing a physical task another person like us can do. In some cases this is true, but it does not seem to be plausible in all cases. An over achiever in one area is not able to become an over achiever in other areas. For some of us, our bodies do only so much and no more.
Is living in our bodies more of a two way street than the Master and Servant idea we are comfortable with? When we complete a challenging physical task perhaps our agreed to the challenge. When we can not do something many people can maybe it is not our will power that is at fault. Maybe we are no more masters of our own body than we are masters of the universe?
There are many examples of people who appear to have done everything right and experienced only normal or less than normal result in sports or other physical endeavors. Some people exercise and diet religiously, and die early with no previously known health issues. Other people who spend their live abusing their body live on to a great age and their bodies seem to do anything it is tasked to do.
Maybe our body has a lot of say of what we can and can not physically do. Maybe we need to have agreement with our body to achieve above normal results in a physical task.
We are barely out of the stone age of medicine, and far away from having a genuine understanding of how we really are put together and how we work. Perhaps our soul and our body usually work together, but not always. Perhaps one part of us needs the other for the physical survival of both, and one or the other decides to opt out.
Do we share our body with our body taking part in the decision making process? Are we a symbiotic parasite living in our body? Is the union of body and soul something we do not yet understand? Do we have unknown internal conversations reaching agreement with our body about what is and what is not acceptable and achievable? Are we really Masters of so many pounds of animated flesh until like a machine it one day starts to break down and stops working?
