Passenger

 

 

August 1, 2022

 Greetings from the puppet,

 I put the milk in the pantry.  Later when I found it, I thought: “Who did this?”, even though the answer was obvious.  It was as if there were three people involved in the vignette.

 This is a simple part of life, but suddenly held another facet for me.   A week ago, I tried to remember a name from years ago and gave up, and then for no reason the name was in my mouth.  It was as if a stranger delivered it, like a telegram.  It’s a common, ordinary thing for humans of any age, but it made me wonder.

 Yesterday I set out to run eighteen miles, which I managed to, but not at the pace I hoped for.  This by itself is not what interests me, although it’s related.  I ran as well as I was capable of, and if you had been there to ask me how it was going, you would have heard different answers at mile four and mile fourteen.  It was not an issue of motivation; some moments the body was just not interested in the effort, and then for no reason, I felt like I could fly.

 In the hours that unfolded on the narrow road, I intended to think, take time in my head.  I expected to ruminate about a project I have, about plans for the coming week, even compose the first words for this essay.  Instead, my mind was filled with other things, none of them unpleasant, just thoughts and ideas that seeped in.  Uninvited, unexpected, random snippets from all corners of my mind, none of which were particularly important, certainly not memorable. 

 After I showered and devoured my breakfast, I felt the morning catch up with me, and I relished the idea of a nap.  I stretched out and felt the satisfying unkinking of the various things that knot up when you run for a long time, already smiling at the rest, the sleep I knew was coming like a wave.

 Except the sinew in my body would have nothing to do with it.  I could see the muscles in my legs jumping and twitching, as if some alien thing was working its way beneath the skin.  Ugly cramps rippled through my legs and that caused my feet to chime in.  Watching my toes twist and gnarl, as if it were someone else’s feet I was seeing, or some kind of animation.  I finally gave up on the nap, knowing my body was at odds on the subject.

 Not for the first time, I marveled at all the autonomous activity that takes place in my body, breathing and heartbeat and blinking and sweating and the production of all the goo that makes us possible.  And, not for the first time, I started to feel like more of a passenger in the process.

 A few nights before I had a persistent dream, very complicated and so compelling that I wanted to see it to the end.  I had nothing to do with its production, it was simply in my Subconscious Netflix queue. 

 Before I thought about it much, I saw the confluence of mind and body and will as a fluid partnership.  Of course, I always picture myself as in charge of this partnership.  In truth, I may be more of a stagehand than holding a lead role.

 Of course, we are intelligent animals, capable of incredible plans and deep thinking.  We can train our bodies and ask amazing things of it.  The will, the desire to act, to move the body and mind into accomplishment, is powerful in all humans.  We can create, we can dream, we are self-aware, we can love, we can empathize, we have free will, the ability to choose our own lives.

 But isn’t it interesting while we are doing all of this, that often our minds and bodies are busy doing something else?

 Science will explain dreams and absent mindedness and depleted muscles and random thoughts and the auto functions of our body, and that is satisfying to a degree.  Some days our bodies will do what we ask, while our thoughts ignore us.  Other days it’s reverse, or just as often, neither body or spirit will cooperate with our intent, and it feels as though whatever the outcome it’s more magic than motivation. 

 I feel all this whirling around in me and it feels more mysterious and amazing than what science can explain.  It is something to marvel at, another reason to be astounded at the world we get to live in. 

  

Hope this finds you enjoying the view,

 

David

 

 

 

 

 

Copyright © 2022  David Smith