The body
A HUMAN BEING AS A WHOLE AND THE BODY
PRACTICAL ACTION
A human being is primarily an practically acting being. That's why all the different functions of a human are intertwined around practical action.
A human being is also primarily a physical being, the different functions being centered around the body.
NATURAL PHYSICAL LIFE BRINGS THE BEST CAPACITY
During the evolution and most of the known history
humans have lived very much on the physical level,
so that's what is natural for humans and brings the best functioning.
To think otherwise is to lie to oneself.
The emotions are clearly connected to the body in natural gestures and facial expressions. The thinking ability of humans was also formed during the evolution,
so it functions best when one lives a very much physical life.
When one does things in the obvious natural ways,
one's capacity is much greater than when doing things in artificial ways,
but it is effortlessly so, so easily that
one needs to compare the results of doing things in those two different ways
before one notices the enormous difference in capacity.
THE BODY (This section is about the body. There is a separate section about sex.)
A human being forms a functional whole.
The body forms the most important part of a human being.
The body is the central part of a human being.
Emotions move the body, give it motivation and a way of moving.
In motion and practical action the body is essential.
Feelings are connected to the body, instincts too.
The senses work together with the body.
Communication and expression are connected to the body.
Emotional understanding and empathy are connected to the body.
So true understanding needs the body, too, and not just the brain.
MUSCLE TENSION MAKES ONE STUPID
Muscle tension restricts one's ability to feel and to experience. That's why it is also harmful to intelligence and happiness. Especially empathy and social intelligence naturally via it become almost impossible if the body is rigidly tensed like many men have in a cold climate. So one should abandon the rigid tensions and adopt the healthy relaxedness of athletes, social and emotional people instead. Relaxedness makes it possible to understand others via gestures. In our own relaxed body we naturally feel slightly the movements of others and can so understand them via our own body. Emotions are connected to the body and make our understanding richer and deeper since they help us to understand the meaningfulness of things to human life. The relaxedness of body makes also attitude shifts easier and so makes the memory work better since we can empathise with a past experience, its atmosphere etc.
PHILOSOPHY NEEDS THE BODY
Philosophical points of view demand more time from a thinker than ordinary thoughts because they include a change in one's attitude to life and that is a big thing, including the whole being, including emotions and the body (via the expression of states of mind and of emotions and actions) and mode of action.
Technical things do not include as much information and are often possible using the sense of sight only. They bring much less understanding.
Mainly I do not use my head to thinking. Instead I use my eyes, the spreading of attention, spatial thinking in the space before me, my body, empathy, feelings, atmospheres and the like.
These ways to conceive things that I have tried to teach you seem to be physical: my understanding is much better when I have practised sports in a relaxed way. Especially this applies to social skills, to the comparison between different areas of life, which include the body, and to emotional things, I estimate.
DANCE
The bodily movement should be an expression of an emotional state of mind. Emotions offer motivation and interpretation to things, a view to their meaningfulness to human life.
In communication the gestures, facial expressions and way of doing things
are important.
A human being should be largely one with one's body, to experience most things in life in ways that are intimately connected with the physical body.
This is ESSENTIAL.
Also the senses, attention, feelings, instincts, atmospheres and so on are important in connection with the body.
The Japanese dancer Anzu Furukawa, who lives in Europe in Germany, is an example of experiencing things in a way that is connected with one's own body.
Dance teaches the connection of tune and body.
One should conceive the connection of feelings and the body.
And the connection of feelings, motivation and action.
The Africans have a nice good relaxed way to live strongly with the body. The African dance (from Senegal?) has a healing effect in the picture of the body. Such is a good example to all.
AN UNIFIED WHOLE
Maybe some forms of shamanism and/or witchcraft have to do also with the role of the body in experiencing and doing things, maybe also in thinking and communicating.
A human being should form an unified functional whole in a completely natural way, so these things are very important indeed.
SPORTS AND PHYSICAL WORK
Sports and philosophy of life (+ some arts and lots of practical things and friendly social life) is the right combination for me: for healthier ways of living!
the role of thinking is: enough to form a picture of what the world is like and to get intellectually fit.
Getting enough physical exercise keeps us in good condition in many ways.
Being physically fit keeps one fit also otherwise. My attention is much sharper when I have exercised physically a lot.
The spreading of attention in sports should be open, natural, relaxed, open to new possibilities, and the movements likewise, social atmosphere friendly and kind. Such brings a really enjoyable feeling and a good capacity in everything that one does also in other things than sports.
Sports ability is connected to feelings. The mode of functioning of the human body and motivation -> how one moves.
A natural way to run
There is a natural base for human functioning. One must build upon that base.
For example there may be a natural way to run: in a nature environment: in an uneven terrain via a path, so we may need our sense of sight, lots of reactivity and our sense of balance when running naturally. Could one learn to be a better runner by practising starting from such a ground?! Should we likewise have each step of a slightly different length, of a somewhat different kind, at a different place in the ever-varying rhythm of running?! (We could use such reactivity at least to the varying social situations as we run with others (run past them, run with them or lack behind) and inevitably copy something of the movements of the others and express our feelings in our gestures: nearing the movements of another, using them and then letting partly go of them. Read the section about modes of using the attention: such can be seen from the movements.)
The movements reflect our thoughts: if we want to move freely, we need to be able to act freely. That means that we must always choose courses of action that lead the world toward good, toward Gaia. So we have a safe world however far we go to that direction. So we get a free movement that way too, via the way that our thoughts are reflected in our gestures and via the body analogy to our intentions. So raise athletes to be moral too, to support world peace etc. in a well understood way, which is born out of their own thoughts and feelings and not from following others.
The sense of sight is also very important, also in connection with the body and movement. What we typically see affects our 3(or 4)-dimensional picture of the body. So we should move in the nature or admire the beauty of natural things. That makes our sense of structures more complex and so also our picture of the body finer.
When I say that the body is the central part of humans, I mean central in our functioning: the part that connects all the other functional parts and gives us wisdom of life. Also the sense of sight is important but in a different way: it is a single function which helps the functioning of the intellectual side of humans by giving sensory analogs to things in our experience. We are not our thinking even though we need enough sensory stimuli also via the sense of sight in order to be happy. But we are what we do in practise, what we experience with our senses and our feelings, with our whole understanding which all work together with the body. Understanding that what we experience, we experience via our body which is interconnected with our whole being, gives us wisdom of life, a new perspective which makes us understand things from the human point of view via our own experience in sports and sports' analogies to other things.
My body, senses and feelings are the most precious things in the world to me!
The words are insufficient to describe the reality. The most important masters can be only experienced, felt. Maybe that's why this central part of my text is quite unsuccessful in communicating the major importance of these matters.
MOTION
Motion
* is healthy
* keeps one happy
* makes one stronger in also other activities and better able to work
* is natural for human beings, is a basic thing in life and should not be forgotten
* brings the level of experience to a more central position in life - like it should be
* strengthens the connection with the body
* is good emotionally and socially
* makes one look better
* makes one move in healthier ways
* increases one's sense of balance
* offers a good analogy of healthier ways of doing
* offers sensed models for thinking
* by taking anther person as a model for ourselves in some physical task, teaches us to better understand others and the similarities and differences between people and how they affect things
* teaches reactivity and activates senses
* is fun and rewarding
MY BODY IS MY ESSENCE, WHAT I AM MADE OF,
MY BASIC BUILDING MATERIAL,
TOGETHER WITH MY BODY COME MY ACTIONS AND FEELINGS AND SENSES OF COURSE.
I ALWAYS WANT TO KEEP MY BODY = ME! FIT!
My Favorite Things About Angelfire
My Favorite Web sites
The body as music
Email: KaisaHanneleTervola@webinfo.fi
