Physical Experience Matters

Sometimes deeper meaning is discovered by way of consequence

His simple phrase reminded me of prejudice against the masculine physical, and military service … a behind the scenes image as illustration seems cheap but it is what I have to hand and these were two good days when the physical informed art.

Concentration is exclusion. It’s a necessary element of success. And while focus eliminates distraction, it sometimes becomes a trap, a telephoto lens that prevents us resolving subjects or material outside of its narrow view. Success rewards the means of its achievement, which can quickly become habit, also a trap. I have always believed it important to balance one’s physical and intellectual capacities, and embrace the learning and knowledge particular to each.

I took this position to navigate early adulthood. My middle class family placed great weight on the upward mobility promised by purely academic, intellectual pursuits but I quit formal education after barely graduating high school. Instead I sought a holistic, worldly knowledge through self-directed physical and literary interests. It was a rebellious act, righteous, yet tempered by the sense I was betraying an expectation of filial fidelity. And until I discovered a social hierarchy different from my upbringing I felt threatened by peers who pursued education and advancement through exclusively scholastic means; they would become successful and influential and powerful according to the fable we were taught while I probably wouldn’t.

These days I don’t feel much threatened by intellectually arrogant, self-described elites. I see the house of cards upon which their certainty sits, the one-dimensionality of their life experience, and the prejudice with which they regard those who aren’t confined within the same social and economic balloon. The psycho-physical balance still matters to me.