Will There Be Any Stars In My Crown?

[poliphilo]

I've got a birthday coming up. It's not a round figure one, so I'm not making a deal of fuss. Actually, even if it was a round figure one I'd want to keep things low-key. Once you're past 50 the only birthday that's worth jumping up and down about is your 100th.

I used to take my body for granted. Now I'm acutely aware of its frailty.

And its unreality.

So what is it? A column of water stiffened with carbon and calcium and other elements. Or, as Webster put it, "a little crudded milk, fantastical puff-paste."

It ain't me.

(Babe)

It's this thing I'm using while I work my passage through this heavy dimension. It's like a space suit or a diving suit. If I'm lucky it has another 20 or 30 years wear in it.

We'll see. But every birthday brings it closer to systems failure and the awfully big adventure.

Detachment, that's the thing to be working at when you get past 50. I like it here, but I'm hoping they won't have to pry my fingers loose at the end.

I had a flying dream last night. I said, "look, this is how it's done," spread my arms like dicky-bird wings and took off for the ceiling.

Can't do it now, but one day maybe.

Something to look forward to.

Comments

[butterscotch711.livejournal.com]

I find some specific things weird sometimes - when I was waiting for the school bus, it was my knees. I used to look at them and think 'those aren't possibly a part of me!' And then I would touch them to make sure. And at school a favourite conversation amongst my friends was 'Aren't noses just so weird when you think about them?'

I guess it's like words - if you think about any single word for long enough, it becomes unbelievable and alien.

What freaks me out sometimes is the thought that what we conceive as our body is actually a bunch of stuff that's happening in our brain - our body is out there, but our interpretation of the data we get from it, what we feel, actually goes on in our brain, our sense of our body is an illusion and our actual body is this abstract thing out beyond us.

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

What freaks me out sometimes is the thought that what we conceive as our body is actually a bunch of stuff that's happening in our brain - our body is out there, but our interpretation of the data we get from it, what we feel, actually goes on in our brain, our sense of our body is an illusion and our actual body is this abstract thing out beyond us.


Instead of freaking me out, I find this very articulate interpretation comforting! I think you have it right, too--we are first Mind, then brain, actually--the brain is the machine that coordinates the machine that is basically an illusion machine--

It's like the Virtual Reality we're playing with now--the Matrix--

I really like the way you said it.