Machine called Man
In that falsely cossetted realm, to be confronted by the vulnerability of our being is an epiphany that shakes us to the core. Nature, as we are wont to forget, does not only exist outside of ourselves – observing all constituents of the greater external world, our bodies, analogous in every way to the macrocosm, are its manifestation and extension. They construct a little world (a shell, a container) where we reside. Our bodies, the beautiful machinery granted to humanity, encapsulate, propel and shape the intangible elements of our being – the spirit, mind and heart. We sit inside our shells, inhabit those temporary residencies for years, barely aware of the mysterious operations that constantly, continually and consistently sustain our existence. When this machine fails, it silently cries for help in the form of physical pain. Language withers in the face of any attempt to express a body in pain. In her essay ‘On Being Ill’ (1926), Virginia Woolf asks desperately, why it is that:
“Why is it that the mere school- girl when she falls in love has Shakespeare or Keats to speak her mind for her, but let a sufferer try to describe a pain in his head to a doctor and language at once runs dry.” (1926)
The walls pulsate; the sharp and dissonant tune of machinery interrupts sporadically, monitoring every physical symptom it progressively syncs into a rhythm so despairingly, oppressively, innocuously present that it is inseparable from the thrum of our heartbeats. Faces steadily change around you; doctors, nurses, janitors, the aging grandmother, the girl with the dark brown hair always in a bun who you fathom could've been a teacher, the husband, the cousin, the mentor; many labels that fix relationships, stories, and an infinite carousel of lives not quite finished.
"Oh the nerves, the nerves; the mysteries of this machine called Man! Oh, the little that unhinges it: poor creatures that we are!"
- Charles Dickens, The Chimes.
The Body Keeps the Score Catalog is available for pick-up at Tashkeel, Nad El Sheba.
