Don't Let Your Body Interfere With Your Life

If you ever watch network news (an exercise I, from personal experience, most decidedly do not recommend), you will notice that almost all the ads shown during the news seem to be for some sort of drug. And the basic message of almost all of these ads is some variant of the above. The chief evil of rheutamoid arthritis, or migraines, or overactive bladder is, according to these ads, that they interfere with what you want to do; take our drug, they proclaim, and we will make your body conform so that your life can be exactly the way you choose. The happily cured patient is shown going on vacation, or golfing, or playing with their kids, or doing whatever pleasant activity their body was so rudely interrupting thirty seconds earlier.

Perhaps I'm overly sensitive, but there's something vaguely disturbing here. The message is never, "We will make you well because that is the way your body is supposed to be;" rather, "We will make you well so that you can do what you want." I wonder if there is an inevitable link between our society's obsession with choice and autonomy, and the denigration of the body. If what's most important about us as persons is our ability to choose, then the body becomes a mere accessory - a vehicle for our choices, but not essential to our being.

Everytime I hear someone refer to a young fetus or an embryo as "a blob of tissue," I think, Well, aren't we all?

Poem of the Fortnight

I know, I haven't been posting; I shall get around to it eventually. In case anyone is still checking this blog, here's a poem in the meantime.

Water, is taught by thirst.
Land - by the Oceans passed.
Transport - by throe -
Peace, by its battles told -
Love, by memorial mold -
Birds, by the snow.