Brother Jackass – Maverick Philosopher

A Quest for Transcendence Gone Wrong

We are spiritual animals in need of spiritual transcendence. It is an illusion of the age to suppose that the transcendence we need can be found by bodily means.

Distance running has repaid me richly for the hours and years I devoted to it. In my late twenties I got pretty good at it and I experienced those unbelievable highs that, wonderful as they are, are but simulacra of the flights of the spirit. I had the sense not to seek transcendence in the wrong places. And the sense not to abuse the mortal vehicle. Urinating blood after training runs and trashing my immune system by marathon training convinced me to take it easy on old fratello asino.

He who pushes too hard invites a premature exit from the wheel of samsara. This from The Wisdom of Running a 2,189 Mile Marathon:

To hear Jurek tell it, forcing himself to the limit is purifying and transformational. “Though man’s soul finds solace in natural beauty, it is forged in the fire of pain,” he writes. But listen closely, and bodily transcendence is not exactly grist for motivational posters. Jurek’s pages are haunted by comrades who didn’t make it through the fire unscathed. He was joined for part of the trail by Aron Ralston, the hiker famous for amputating his own arm to free himself from a boulder. Jurek’s friend Dean Potter, a legendary climber and base jumper, died in a wing-suit accident days before Jurek began his trek. “I had known ultrarunners to finish races as their kidneys were shutting down and they were losing control of their bowels,” Jurek reports. He recalls a runner who fought through debilitating headaches to finish a 100-mile race and then died of a brain aneurysm.

This Blog is Gluten-Free!

Food faddism is a fascinating phenomenon.

I am told that the consumption of paleolithic vittles conduces to weight loss. Maybe it does. But I say unto you: What doth it profit a man to lose weight if he suffereth the clogging of his arteries or the loss of his mortal anus to colorectal cancer? On the other hand, you are not going to take away my olive oil and nuts.

So I'm sticking with the Mediterranean diet as a via media between every Scylla and Charybdis the food faddists can fabricate. But don't make a religion of this stuff. Brother Jackass needs to be kept in shape. Well maintained, he will carry you and your worldly loads over many a pons ansinorum. Just don't expect him to convey you to the summum bonum.

Avoid fads and extremes. Where is the extremist Nathan Pritikin now? Long dead. A little butter won't kill you. Use common sense. Eat less, move more. Keep things in perspective. Just one pornographic movie can damage your soul irreparably, but one greasy double bacon cheeseburger will have no adverse effect on your body worth talking about. And fight the nanny-staters and food fascists every chance you get. A pox upon their houses of cards.

And now the anti-gluten craze is abroad in the land. Those with Celiac Disease need to avoid the stuff. But I don't see that that the rest of us need to fear it or that our well-being will be improved by abstaining from it. Be skeptical.

Paleo or Low Fat?

Neither. I am told that the consumption of paleolithic vittles conduces to weight loss. Maybe it does. But I say unto you: What doth it profit a man to lose weight if he suffereth the clogging of his arteries? On the other hand, you are not going to take away my olive oil and nuts.

So I'm sticking with the Mediterranean diet as a via media between the extremes. But don't make a religion of this stuff. Brother Jackass needs to be kept in shape. Well maintained, he will carry you and your worldly loads over many a pons ansinorum. But don't expect him to convey you to the summum bonum.

My Body and I

My body is my body and not my body's body. So I am not my body. I have a body. This having, presumably sui generis and unlike any other type of having, is yet a having and not a being. My body doesn't have a body. I know that I have a body. My body doesn't know this. So again I am not my body. 'This body is this body' is a tautology. 'I am this body' is not a tautology.

The human body is not a body in the sense of physics alone but an embodiment of subjectivity. The body of the Other is the body of the Other.

Contra Husserl: I cannot constitute Paul's body (Leib, nicht Koerper) as a lived body without first constituting him as an Other Mind. So I cannot explain the constitution of the Other as Other by starting from the constitution of the body. The Fifth of the Cartesian Meditations ends in shipwreck.

Jack LaLanne Dead at 96

An inspiration. Brother Jackass will carry you over many a pons asinorum for many a year if properly fueled and disciplined. Reform your diet and set aside two to three hours per day for vigorous exercise. Lalanne swam an hour a day and lifted weights for two. Right up until the end. And he always 'went to failure' doing his reps until he could do no more.

The Amazing Resiliency of the Human Body

Proved once again by the antics of wildman Dennis Hopper who managed to cling to the mortal coil for 74 years despite prodigious self-abuse.

Why Physical Culture?

In part it is about control. I can't control your body, but I can control mine. Control is good. Power is good. Physical culture as the gaining and maintaining of power over that part of the physical world which is one's physical self. Self-mastery, as the highest mastery, must involve mastery of the vehicle of one's subjectivity. Control of one's vehicle is a clear desideratum. So stretch, run, hike, bike, swim, put the shot, lift the weight. In short: rouse your sorry ass from the couch of sloth and attend to your vehicle. 'Ass' here refers to Frate Asino, Brother Jackass, St Francis' name for his body. Keep him in good shape and he will carry you and many a prodigious load over many a pons asinorum.

(Interesting that Ger. Arsch, when it crossed the English Channel became 'arse,' but in the trans-Atlantic trip it transmogrified into the polyvalent 'ass.' Whatever you call it, get it off the couch.)

The Body’s Graffiti

Tattoos are the graffiti of the human body. And just as the graffiti 'artist' defaces property public and private, the tattoo 'artist' defaces the human body, torturing the skin with needles and injecting it with ugly dyes. When I see yet another tattooed, pierced, tackle-box head, I wonder what this phenomenon means. Some thoughts of Theodore Dalrymple are worth pondering:

First, it [tattooing] was aesthetically worse than worthless. Tattoos were always kitsch, implying not only the absence of taste but the presence of dishonest emotion.

Second, the vogue represented a desperate (and rather sad) attempt on a mass scale to achieve individuality and character by means of mere adornment, which implied both intellectual vacuity and unhealthy self-absorption.

And third, it represented mass downward cultural and social aspiration, since everyone understood that tattooing had a traditional association with low social class and, above all, with aggression and criminality. It was, in effect, a visible symbol of the greatest, though totally ersatz, virtue of our time: an inclusive unwillingness to make judgments of morality or value.

The Use of the Body

There is such a thing as excessive concern with the body's health and excessive fear of its destruction. The body is to be used — and used up. It is your vehicle here below; it is not you. It is an experience mill, so grind away. If thinking raises blood pressure, am I going to give up thinking? If reading weakens eyesight, will I give up reading? Physical health is a means, not an ultimate end. A healthy body aids the working out of my intellectual and spiritual salvation. But the point is to work out my intellectual and spiritual salvation.

Analogy. One takes good care of one's writing implements. But the point is to write something. The pencil achieves its end — in both senses of the term — by being used and used up. Similarly with the body and its organs.

So use the body, and use it up. You can't take it with you. But don't misuse it. Use it or lose it, but don't abuse it!