In the book The
Misleading Mind, Karuna Cayton
compares the roles that people play on a day to day existence with the roles of
an actor, such as Tom Hanks. Yet the qualifying remark he makes is that unlike
actors, we often confuse our roles with our true selves. Hence, he remarks, “unlike
Tom Hanks, who knows he is acting, we typically do not grasp the idea that we
are constantly and continually playing roles.
These roles, or identities, are relative and temporary and serve a
purpose, but they are not who we are in an absolute sense.” (p.144) As I was reading this passage, I began to
think of all the ways people are bounded by social roles. However, one thing
that Cayton does not describe too much is that many roles arise in part from a
sense of embodiment, or a defense against the ‘invading’ or intruding body.
Many roles people play are not simply faces to show to the
world, but they are also ways of negotiating between body and world. If I did not have a body, it would be easy for
me to conjure up any sense of self that suits the moment, and I think this
happens a lot in the cyberspace world. There is even the opportunity to create
avatars of one’s choice, based on one’s liking or interests, or most preferred
personality characteristics. Adopting a moniker not only allows me to adopt a
persona; it also allows me to bring in archetypal notions of selves, as is the
case when one uses a famous actor or action hero to be one’s personal avatar.
If someone has a body that is creating pain or is
cumbersome, that pain and awkwardness has to be borne out in our daily social
roles. It is not often the case that I
can lie in bed or work less to compensate for body aches. The body is something
I must account for, even if I cannot say that the comes from me. So I still need to function socially, even
though my body or feeling state might operate in a challenged way. But it is
here that the question becomes: where exactly does the body begin, and where do
social roles kick in? One example of where I see this is when people who have
pain in their bodies need to choose between expressing that pain or somehow
transforming the pain through an attitude shift. In this way, people attempt to
cover over pain by adjusting themselves to a social norm on how pain is
properly expressed (or not expressed). There are always mini trade-offs that
could potentially take place when this happens. If, for example, body pain is
exacerbated through stress, one might try to seek less stimulation or simplify
their life, but it might be at the expense of certain kinds of social life.
I think where Chan and meditative practices in general are
useful in this sense is that they take people beyond identification even to the
body, or the sense of the body. Meditating on a particular method of practice, such
as the breath, allows me to start to see
beyond pain and overcome a subconscious fixation on trying to reduce or escape
from painful experiences. Sensations are seen as just sensations, and there is
a break in the association between sensation and proprioceptive impression of
the body. I also begin to sense that how
I experience the body is usually not just a direct contemplation, but is
actually the result of many conceptual filters that define the limits and
contours of body itself. Without these limits, I wonder if perhaps the mind
would be boundless.
In that way, I have
found myself realizing how much our impression of the body is actually socialized,
normalized, or discursively mediated in some way. There are several ways this
happens. One is through comparison of abilities across different bodies, as in
the case of what is called ‘ableism’, or a fixation on ability as a measure of
a person’s value relative to others. Here, the body becomes a social commodity
for comparison. Yet another way is comparison of body appearances, privileging
some body types based on social standards of beauty. A third way is to make the
body problematic, by labeling it as diseased, disordered, disabled or ill.
These again are social labels that are meant to suggest a limitation or a
challenge. But what social function does that sense of being “challenged”
serve? Does it lighten the burden of embodiment, or perhaps add an extra
conceptual layer to what it means to have a body? Does it make me afraid to
make a move that will impair the body, or might being labelled “ill” liberate
us to not obsess over pain and get on with the process of living? These
questions are complex, but they allow me to realize that body sensations are as
transient as social roles, and we don’t need to be bound by the illusory sense
that we are imprisoned to our bodies. We also don’t need to fall for the
illusion that there is a perfect body state somewhere out there, if only we
perform the 'right' regimen of physical and spiritual exercises.
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