Friday, February 5, 2010

36

It is possible to live a life in which one's conscious awareness of the world is entirely physical. It is possible to be aware of the world through one's open nerves, one's working muscles, one's raw skin, one's naked hunger, one's urging thirst, one's soothing comfort, one's rushing pain, one's creeping fatigue, one's pumping invigoration, one's mindless desire. Happiness and fulfillment don't exist as part of this awareness because they are neither functional nor appropriate. Happiness and fulfillment are inefficient: satisfaction does the bodily work of both words. He knows this, now, not because he is thinking it but because his body tells him so. His own body is a masterful poet of non-symbolic language. Obey the body. He looks up at the ceiling and smiles in a rapture that can only come with the absence of thought. Thought is near, however, but it is mercifully slow. He can sense its presence and is delighted at how handily he can avoid it. He is completely satisfied with everything.

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