Mental Exercise
Imagine that we have a person before us, any person-
the kind you might stand in line behind at the pharmacy,
for instance- male or female, old or young- doesn't matter.
It would be best for our purposes that he or she not be
someone with whom you are familiar. Better if they be someone
anonymous, if slightly annoying. Someone you would have
questions about, or who you might talk about later.
Let's start with the clothes they are wearing. It's possible
they selected them this morning based on hundreds of considerations-
the weather, their wealth, their faith or sense of style-
but let's not assume. Instead, let's just strip the clothing away.
In fact, let's do the same for jewelry, makeup, tattoos.
Just a body undefined. Except we know that's not true.
Your person might have a certain haircut or really long fingernails.
Mine might be too short to reach the top shelf or be missing an eye.
Skin color, scars, a third nipple, green eyes, facial symmetry
all distinguish our people from one another.
Lives lived in those bodies are influenced by those bodies
in strange and subtle ways. I burn. You tan.
And we see the prospect of a pool party differently.
So we will need to peel back the bodies if we are to make progress.
Remove the skin that contains, the musculature that enables
the actions we choose to perform- putting on sunscreen,
holding someone in our arms, digging in the dirt, or pulling a trigger.
Remove the architecture of the bones as well,
and the pipes and tanks and filters and pumps of the organs.
Pause for a moment though and leave just the eyes, tongue, ear drums
sinuses, the tips of the fingers, the nervous system and the brain.
Lay out the parts of our subjects that connect it to the world,
give it a sense of other- a kiss on the cheek, the smell of lavender,
a scream in the distance. It's obvious in this state
that the specimens we are studying still diverge- the electric
impulses in their brains still routing and rerouting
in uniquely personal ways. We will have to carve away more,
isolate a single strand of DNA, place it under the microscope.
Is this the common denominator? That which makes us
make sense to one another? The helix that is not-dog, not-bird,
not monkey, fern, kangaroo, mushroom, or velociraptor?
A code not shaped by one person's experiences,
but by all people's experiences over and beyond
the entire span of human history- the map of our urges,
our preferences, adaptations, defenses, and taboos?
The universal and incremental squirming of nucleotides.
Is this the basis of our understood we?
Or are there even deeper definitions- atomic, subatomic-
that could reveal the most essential, common self?
Suppose we go further, releasing every atom attached
to the thing before us. Suppose we achieve a transcendent state
that our own senses aren't equipped to provide.
Imagine a point of energy alone in a void until we open
our metaphysical doorway. Imagine opening the door
and discovering something so pure it can only be loved.
Imagine you could hold it in your hands. Feel your heart
race as you delight in its pulsing potential. Imagine
its light is un-corruptible. It cannot be destroyed.
It can only change like the grain of sand at the center of a pearl.
Imagine that since you opened the door, the pure object
has changed every moment- it cannot be otherwise-
by your touch or by the absence of your touch,
by the form it takes as it gathers the pieces of the universe
to itself, by the spaces it begins to inhabit beyond the door,
by the resources it manages to find and the danger it encounters,
by its successes and its mistakes, by what it gains and loses.
Imagine this perfect heart amassing self like layers of dirt, like walls.
Remember its unburdened original state and wonder at its patina.
That is your mother busy at the sink, your child sneaking her first kiss.
That is the man who weeps in anger and the woman who rises to her feet.
This is each student in your class, separately, differently, each one,
every soldier marching on every side of every battlefield,
and all the celestial reshufflings we will become.
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