From: Amara Graps (amara@amara.com)
Date: Wed Mar 19 2003 - 02:44:07 MST
In response to Lee Crocker Daniel's comments.
I think that there might be some confusion about how I use
'acceptance'. I said that the acceptance of 'what is' must be there
before change. Perhaps a better word is 'acknowledgement'.
For example, imagine that you have a conflict with your spouse, but
you can't get your fingers around what is the difficulty precisely,
so the two of you make an appointment with a counselor/psychologist
to help you figure it out. Hopefully the psychologist can provide a
pointer, and the two of you can say 'aha, that's it, and then begins
the hard work to change oneself. You can't begin to change until you
know what is there.
Similarly with bodies. Look at the people you know who spend hours
in front of the computer without breaks, eating, bathroom, and so
on. Suddenly they realize that their body is screaming for attention
to take care of something. Unfortunately this simple phenomenon
where people forget that they are living 'inside' of something
precious that requires care and attention is pretty common. (Many
don't take good care of themselves until something goes wrong- the
body breaks, they get sick, a heart attack, or something else.)
Now the acknowledgement that we have bodies is a different subject
than what that body looks like. Acknowledge of what is there in my
perspective is part of the necessity to know oneself, learn, and
change. I probably sound like a tape recorder by now when I say that
'I believe that the universe within is as vast as the universe
without'. Learning to 'be', including to be without the myriad of
trappings of society is part of knowing yourself. For transhumans,
to change, requires first what you acknowledge what is there and if
it is valuable or not to you.
The drive towards a particular body appearance has it's own set of
wonders and complications and psychology, but I consider that a
little bit of a different topic.
Amara
-- ******************************************************************** Amara Graps, PhD email: amara@amara.com Computational Physics vita: ftp://ftp.amara.com/pub/resume.txt Multiplex Answers URL: http://www.amara.com/ ******************************************************************** "That would be a good idea." -- Gandhi [when asked what he thought of western civilisation]
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