Unable to Anticipate

Even after sitting with Watts' ideas for a day, I still feel a bit overwhelmed by being confronted with and really recognizing the multitude of perspectives concerning time, space, the physical body, and nature that span the international and cultuarlly delineated "human universe." However, in reading Katie's post, I found the following idea to be both terrifying and more overwhelming than any number of ideas, conflicting and abstract, we have talked about in class:

"The fatalist view of humans as puppets being pushed around in life is much easier to accept, although its implications are not always pleasant. It is much easier to take what life has handed to you or what you feel life has handed you and live in that small bubble."

I have never bought in to the fatalistic view of existence, and people I've met that do seem to be markedly less stressed, worried, and anxious than I, but are particularly dumb. This is not to say they are intellectually dumb, but dumb in the sense that they do not find argument or problem in the world, as it simply is the way it is and we must take what we get. If Martin Luther King Jr. "took what he could get," would racial prejudice - and perhaps even slavery - still be rampant in our society? Why is living without what I might call "life friction" so tantalizing? Isn't that a massive part of negotiating our own existence, and doesn't it give us a great sense of purpose we otherwise lack? Perhaps I am, like Erika noted, too caught up in my own human construction and belief system, but it seems that the fatalists are people who are completely secure with events because they can displace them, much like the way that humans who view the body as an entity separate from nature, community, or the universe cannot reconcile the systematic movement of everything together. To them, the body was handed down and it must be "conquered" for success.

But where do we draw the line? I will be the first to confess that I certainly see my body as a machine (and, although this might be a pure construct of my Westernized identity, it is nonetheless a driving force in how I communicate, understand, and treat others, myself, and the world). When I first began having severe stomach pains Spring Quarter of last year, I immediately went to the Health Center and followed a wild goose chase to doctor after doctor to figure out why my body was not functioning as I thought a body should, or at least, to find out why there was a kink or a cog missing in the machine. In September, when my doctors finally recognized that I had a disfunctional gallbladder and recommended that I might need surgery to remove it, I was not the least bit fazed - I had to do what I had to do to ensure that my body, the machine where my consciousness is stored, was working properly, and perhaps even to its optimum potential. Part of me was so willing to go ahead with a surgery that I was told may not relieve all of my symptoms because I was tired of being in pain, but I think most of me was just so conditioned to using my body as a tool that I felt I could not function at my full potential without this fully functional machine behind me.

So where is that line between "conquering" or "commanding" the body and appreciating its own nature? I often look at my body as something I must treat gently, kindly, something that I use to give physical voice to my self-expression. I dress it, I groom it, sometimes I put makeup on it. I use my body to do what my mind cannot on its own, and I try to respect it accordingly. I understand that I am not in full control of it, however, and that my body really has no boss - not me, not my DNA, not G-d. It is, as nature as, its own autonomous entity. However, as I do recognize and appreciate the nature of the body, I also recognize and appreciate that my body is meant to create action and motion originated by my consciousness. In this respect, the body is certainly a machine where all the parts need to work together, without problem, to achieve the ultimate goal of full physical and mental capability. After all, isn't sex really a purely physical act (in other words, can't one have sex, and procreate, with ONLY the use of the physical body)? So, can the Western idea of body as machine and the Eastern idea of the boss-less nature and trust of nature in spite of and perhaps because of its dual "good and bad parts," exist together peacefully?

I'm not sure if Watts really put a bit of a negative spin on his discussion of the Western theory of the body or if the class put it that way, but for some reason I walked away with a sort of antagonistic view of the idea of the body as a machine. However, isn't this also a positive? In cultures where the body is not seen as a machine, medicine is typically not as advanced or readily available. Is this because those cultures appreciate the nature of the body for what it is, and when it malfunctions, it is not unexpected? What if we saw the machine, but understand that it was ungoverned?

So, ultimately, isn't the body a machine that functions as a part of the wider machine of the universe? The scientific nature of both entities exists and can be studied, and the parts of these wholes do work as a machine does, with mechanical precision and a precise order. This does not mean, however, that the machine can be conquered. Just because we understand how something works does not mean we can command it or predetermine what it may do. Machines can break, and sometimes machines even undergo completely unexplained changes. We can study how the machine functions, but we will never be able to predict its capacity. Therefore, inadvertently, doesn't this post exemplify how technology could overtake man? Machines are tricky for just this reason: we understand how they work, and can sometimes work them to our advantage, but cannot, by any means, anticipate their full potentiality for use or misuse, function or disfunction, good or bad.