The Joy of Living in One's Body
By Steve Clark
Man is, as the subtitle of Mike Mentzer's Heavy Duty II indicates, a being of mind and body. Every major school of thought in history has declared these two primary elements to be incompatible, and man's life to be a constant, terrible battle, with reason pitted against emotion; morality against practicality; love against sex; in short, mind against body.
A central tenet of Ayn Rand's philosophy of Objectivism is the rejection of the mind-body dichotomy in all its forms. Man, said Rand, is properly an integrated being; the mind and the body need not be antagonists, but can exist in harmony--and must, if man is to live a life proper to man. Rand addresses this issue in the title essay of For the New Intellectual (and in other writings), and the Objectivist position on mind-body integration is further illuminated by Leonard Peikoff in Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand.
Here I would like to explore a particularly eloquent manifestation of mind-body integration which has not been treated explicitly by Rand or Peikoff: that of kinesthetic awareness.
*** *** *** That kinesthetic perception has not received recognition commensurate with its importance is evidenced by the fact that it is not included among the "five senses": sight, smell, taste, touch, and hearing. Kinesthesia is not the same thing as tactile perception (touch), which is the perception of the shape, texture, temperature, etc. of other entities through physical contact. Kinesthetic perception is that sense which makes the tactile sense possible: the awareness of one's own body as a physical entity--every part of it, inside and out.
(Note that in this essay I use the terms "kinesthetic perception" and "kinesthesia" to designate a faculty, and the term "kinesthetic awareness" to designate a state --the state of focus on or consciousness of that faculty.)
Consciousness, in essence, is the awareness of reality; and through kinesthetic perception, man's body itself is a conduit of awareness. The intimate connection between mind and body is, in this context, inescapable; from the standpoint of kinesthetic perception it is possible, as Nathaniel Branden says in The Art of Living Consciously for "our entire body [to] be viewed as part of our brain."
Kinesthesia is unique among the senses in that it allows for the perception of but one entity: one's own body. This single entity is, however, of enormous importance to man's life; it is, in fact, a part of him. My mind is kinesthetically aware of my body, and only my body. In this way, the mind-body link can be experienced at the level of direct perception.
Kinesthesia is also unique in that emotions are, in part, perceived kinesthetically. Emotions are defined by Nathaniel Branden (in The Psychology of Self-Esteem) as "the Psychosomatic form in which man experiences his estimate of the beneficial or harmful relationship of some aspect of reality to himself," (emphasis added). "Psychosomatic", defined by Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary, means "of, relating to, concerned with, or involving both mind and body."
"Every strong emotion," Ayn Rand says in 'Art and Cognition' (from The Romantic Manifesto) "has a kinesthetic element." The kinesthetic element of an emotion is just that--a part of the emotion itself, not just a secondary consequence of it. This kinesthetic element, Rand continues, is "experienced as an impulse to leap or cringe or stomp one's foot, etc."--i.e., as an impulse to take some form of action. It seems likely that this impulse has an evolutionary basis; the automatic evaluations experienced by animals are accompanied by irresistible impulses to take specific actions. These automatic evaluations, and their built-in 'impulses to action,' are necessary--and, all things being equal, sufficient--for the survival of non-volitional beings; but man, as a volitional being, is a different matter. Man still experiences them, but is free to act against them if he chooses.
Indeed, man's faculty of volition confers a special responsibility upon him in regard to his perception in general. As was mentioned parenthetically at the beginning of this essay, there is a difference between a faculty of awareness and a state of awareness. All of man's modes of perception are constantly operational--but to experience the information they provide, to be aware of his awareness, a man must perform a volitional act of focus. This means we also have the choice not to focus, and even to unfocus, our awareness of any of the senses.
It is a well-known fact that man can repress the experience of his emotions, as well--and as emotions are in part kinesthetic, such repression is achieved, in part, kinesthetically. Wilhelm Reich identified the fact that emotional repression is enacted through a chronic tensing of certain muscles--"those muscles which would be mobilized were the emotion fully felt and expressed." (Nathaniel Branden, The Art of Living Consciously).
Emotional repression, then, always results in some degree of kinesthetic repression. Kinesthesia can also be repressed directly, in the form of bodily alienation (and a result of this will also be a lower level of emotional awareness).
This last sort of kinesthetic repression, as a cultural tendency, has its ultimate philosophic root in the mind-body dichotomy: the idea that the mind is noble but that the body is lowly matter, not worthy of the mind's regard. Intellectuals, in particular, are often guilty of regarding the body as a nuisance, at best; some state explicitly that they wish they could exist as "pure intellect." (This is an obvious example of the attempt to evaluate the metaphysically given--the irrational desire to "rewrite reality.") But to enact a policy of kinesthetic unawareness--deliberately or not--is to split the mind and body in two. For a being who can only survive as an integration of mind and body, the consequences can only be disastrous.
While (for example) a sense of hearing keenly developed through exercise and attention might be critical for those in the musical professions, or very acute color discrimination might be required for graphic designers, the average person can get along without such fine discernments. Kinesthetic awareness, however, is a sense which everyone has a need--a life-or-death need--to cultivate.
As man is not "hard-wired" to act toward his own preservation, he must pay careful attention to the signals of his body in order to properly meet even the most basic needs of his physical survival: to drink when he is thirsty, to eat when he is hungry, to take time to chew his food sufficiently, to not eat when he is not hungry, to rest when he is tired, to physically exert himself on a regular basis (his body was made for, and needs, such exertion), to sit and stand and move in ways that do not cause his body pain and undue stress, to be on alert for any anomalous sensations which might indicate impending but still preventable medical disorders, and so forth.
For a person who to a large extent evades their kinesthetic awareness, none of these things are possible to an appropriate degree. (Here we can see that kinesthetic unawareness is self-perpetuating: if someone, through a lack of kinesthetic awareness, fails to properly undertake these actions, the result will be various forms of physical discomfort--which, being uncomfortable, tend to promote further repression.)
The result is what we see around us: sedentarism, obesity, fatigue, enough gastrointestinal discomfort to support a thriving antacid industry, chronic body pains in much of the middle-aged population, and high rates of death from heart disease and cancer.
I do not, of course, mean to suggest that man can survive by simply heeding the urges of his body. The fact that a man is hungry will not tell him how to obtain food, much less cause food to magically appear. Still, man's survival depends in part upon the maintenance of his body, and an important basis for such maintenance is his awareness of his body. Kinesthetic percepts are just that, percepts; they are direct experiences of certain facts of reality, and are neither causeless nor meaningless. They should be acknowledged and heeded--and foremost, they should be experienced fully.
*** *** *** How, then, is kinesthetic awareness cultivated? While I may not be able to provide a fully comprehensive answer to this question, I can indicate some important fundamentals.
There already exist a number of resources dedicated specifically to the development of kinesthetic awareness: the writings of Wilhelm Reich, the Alexander Technique and the Structural Integration methods of Ida Rolf, among others. I have not studied any of these programs thoroughly, so I am not qualified to comment on or recommend them. I will say that from what I have seen, they seem as though they might be of potential value.
The bottom line in the development of kinesthetic awareness, however, is simply opening oneself to one's kinesthetic perception. As a decision to focus, this action is an irreducible primary of volition, and so there does not really seem to be anything more to say about it. It may, for some people, be more difficult than it sounds, and any number of various exercises might help along the way; but still, all that you must ultimately do is become aware of your awareness.
My own kinesthetic awareness was developed largely through bodybuilding, which still seems to me to be one of the best methods. The primary goal of the beginning bodybuilder is the attainment of perfect exercise form--which requires a focused awareness of specific muscles, and their actions, which most people have never before been experienced (or noticed). Inevitably--since a sustained focus on one's body and its movement is necessary for such a thing-- anyone who makes a thorough, conscientious effort to learn proper exercise form will learn a lot about their body, how it moves, and how it feels to live in it, how it feels to be it. (The typical leap in strength experienced by beginners, and attributed to an increased level of neuromuscular control, is a great example of "getting in touch" with one's body.)
As I have said, almost any regimen of physical exercise will be useful, to some degree, in promoting kinesthetic awareness. It should not be surprising, however, that the system which (in my opinion) best facilitates the development of kinesthetic awareness is also the best system, period: Heavy Duty.
I worked out using the traditional volume method for a number of years before discovering Heavy Duty. While even volume training helped increase my kinesthetic awareness, there was also a lot of exhaustion, soreness, and extreme hunger involved--and it was probably only an adolescent streak of "macho" masochism that kept me from repressing my awareness of these discomforts. It was usual for at least half of my body to be sore at any given time, and I always dreaded the next day's workout.
Once I began a Heavy Duty program, I spent the first few weeks in a state of heightened kinesthetic bliss. Not only were the workouts not exhausting, they were invigorating--to my volume-accustomed body, they seemed almost to be a kinesthetic "tease". Not only did I not dread my next workout, I anticipated it eagerly; and my body was full of energy and "rarin' to go" well before the next scheduled gym session. For anyone who has given up on developing a muscular physique after being turned off by the stories of grueling marathon workouts and days upon days of muscle soreness told by volume trainers, Heavy Duty is the answer.
*** *** *** I will now address the subtitle of this essay: "The Joy of Living in One's Body." How is it, exactly, that kinesthetic awareness contributes to joy?
For people who have been in an adversarial relationship with their bodies for most of their lives, the prospect of cultivating kinesthetic awareness might seem frightening. Indeed, it might seem to be nothing more than courting discomfort and pain. The reason why most people repress kinesthesia (and emotions) is to escape from unpleasant feelings; but in both cases, they end up deadening their capacity to experience pleasure as well--and, by ignoring their consciousness, they give up the only means by which they could combat the source of their pain.
For people who have neglected and abused their bodies, the price (should they choose to reverse their direction) may be a good deal of initial discomfort. But a healthy body, and a healthy awareness of that body, are not without rewards. Physical health does not merely entail freedom from pain, i.e., the absence of a negative; rather, it is concomitant with a kinesthetically discernible positive. "Happiness in the sense of metaphysical pleasure," says Leonard Peikoff in Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand, "is an enduring affective leitmotif, a positive background conditioning one's daily joys and sorrows." Similarly, the long-range result of a policy of bodily health is (again quoting Dr. Peikoff) "the sensory glow that accompanies unimpaired vitality."
As emotions are perceived in part kinesthetically, kinesthetic awareness is also important for man's emotional well-being. A person with a healthy level of kinesthetic awareness will have the capacity to be all the more intensely aware of his emotions; most importantly, of course, he will have the capacity to be more intensely happy. Then there is that greatest integrator of the spiritual and the corporeal: sex. The link between kinesthetic awareness and happiness in this context should be so obvious as to not require much discussion: a greater capacity for kinesthetic awareness equals a greater capacity for sexual enjoyment.
*** *** *** I can imagine no more fitting way to conclude this essay than to offer this simple but profound quote, uttered by Francisco D'Anconia in Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged:
"Isn't it wonderful that our bodies can give us so much pleasure?"
*** *** *** Copyright 1998 Steve Clark. This article originally appeared in the Fall 1998 issue of Heavy Duty Bulletin, now Exercise Protocol. For more info, visit www.i-a-r-t.com.
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