Pure Pursuits

Last time I thought about this, I ended up all in questions and confusions. This does happen in most of the other topics too, but this time I had something deep up my mind, the result being, me still thinking about it, and these afterthoughts I have had had.

The last question I asked myself, in the post was should we talk about it, I have for years and years believed, no, we should not. There are things meant to be private and this topped the list. I think one of the changes I went through, changed this as well, I felt there is nothing to be ashamed in telling people what you think, I know what should be my limitation, and what I should be telling people, and this did not find a place in the list anymore.
People who visit my blog thought otherwise I guess, not many wanted to say what they feel about this, I know the mental block and I totally respect that. I would just like to remind, that if identity is the issue here, then we do allow anonymous comments, even if you don’t want to say, just think about the topic, I am sure you will surprise yourself with a thought or two.

The relationship between body and soul in intriguing, as much you think about the topic, you tend to discover newer aspects about this relationship. I started with a theory, a very idealistic one, body being a slave of the soul. I have had so many days, when I am down with a bad fever, or even a severe cold with nose blocks, still have concentrated like never before on my work, or something as silly as an episode of my favorite TV show, or even a sporting event. My will power, or my mind or the soul, whatever you want to call it it, had been such a powerful master that my body had to become its slave. There has been many a days when your body wanted something very much like rest due to tiredness and you just dismiss its request, it has to do what your mind wants it to do. I am sure you can relate the same to other bodily needs. I might be with no experience in this matter, but I can bet that there would have been days when your body was in no mood for it, but the emotions ran so strong that, your body ended being a slave for it. A great gesture by your mate, a deep moment between the two, a mere act of understanding or the ever illusionary love, anything might have slaved your body, in dire situations to respond to your mind.

Just this idealistic thought about the relationship, and my mind begins to wonder, how converse of this is as much true. There have been days when I have not be able to concentrate even a bit on what I am doing, because of a tiny prick in my feet, or a little nail that has come out, or even as simple as bad smell my nose is picking up. I would be honest to admit, cases when an attractive female who passes by has made me lose concentration, now in most cases I do have weird rules of attraction, like what she says, what she thinks and whats her opinion, but then there have been occasions where it is none of those, its just the sight, the look and body, body does find a natural attraction to the other. How cheap it might sound, but it is true and lust I think is as natural as love. So is not my mind slave of my body here?, aren’t we ignoring the logic in our mind, our principles in life, and even our thought process, for something as trivial as bodily lust?.

So I decide, they must be having a discrete relationship, totally disjoint from one another. No one is slave of the other, each work on their own. They just co exist. Like the time someone experiences acute pain in their stomach, for a second all they can think is the body and its pain, just a minute later, you tend to worry about what happened to the score in the game last night. At a point when you know that you have a body and it has its needs and problems, you just accept its existence, and get on with your life. Let the body take care of itself, and the soul take care of itself. It reminds me of a scene from the movie The Notebook, where the lead actor, as he waits for his love to come back just spends his nights with a widow, knowing purely it is his body which she is servicing not his mind. He wants the both to coexist with his love, without the two getting in way of the other. Personally I feel this is most difficult to achieve, and still I have a lot of doubt if this is indeed correct. But none the less, this still is a relationship between the two.

So If I don’t want them to be that way, the only left relationship is when both the mind and the body both are masters, both have their interests vested, they both want the same thing, body
aiding the mind, and the mind taking care of the body. This sounds so ideal right?, I mean no separate existence for any one of them. As ideal it may sound, I think it’s not. There is something missing in this too, say you are throughly depressed due to something that happened at work, or may be suffered a big loss, your mind is all over the place, may be at this point, you need something totally disconnected from your mind to give you a breather, something which gives you immense pleasure and takes your mind away from worldly matters, and makes you feel a little out of world, isn’t this where a body could help?

Moving on to the next question, do men and women think differently about this, I liked the way Jason said, he questions back, “don’t two women think differently?”. Exactly this is such a personal thought, and feelings can vary from individual. I think the myth that men are for body and women are for soul, was totally busted with the more I read. The more I know the world I feel, its just about what gives you pleasure, some find immense pleasure in following their soul, and if body becomes a part of it so be it, some on the other hand, find immense pleasure in listening to their body, and if soul does not want it, so let it be. And some find immense pleasure in challenges, so if body throws a big challenge to them, curbing the body gives them immense pleasure, on the other hand, if people are sick of the logic, and they don’t want it to dictate what they enjoy, they find immense pleasure in being rebel.

It just keeps me on and on, I cant seem to decide what my philosophy is in this regard.
Guys do let me know what you think.

You can read the rest of the series here “Body or Soul” or Pure Pursuits