The mutability of body image fascinates me. I love the feeling of extending my body through a tool that I know as well as my own bones, joints and muscles. I love feeling the road with my tires and frame, feeling the grain and fibers of ginger I slice with my edge. Or extending my body into a virtual world that I experience only through a screen, keyboard and mouse. Or even that I only experience in my mind. The experience of changing my form like that is delightful to me. One moment I have a hand and the next I have a blade. Magic.

I often think about how a person can be born with seven fingers on one hand or a missing limb, and the brain in that body just figures it out the same way I assume it figures out a “normal” body. It’s like there is no particular body plan the brain is expecting to find, which is really weird but also really powerful.

We can see with touch, by feeling with our hands. But also, a dot matrix video image can be impressed on our skin and we can learn to “see” this image; the entire sense of sight can be mapped onto touch. Given simple magnetic implants, we can develop an electromagnetic sense. We can learn to echolocate despite having none of the helpful physical traits for it.

It’s like our brain wasn’t necessarily designed to be human at all. We are a member of something much, much broader than humanity.

I compulsively take stock of my mind, trying to find its problem. I know by now that I cannot see it no matter how plain it might be, but I feel like I must be able to find its shadow or something. In the process of searching I think I do learn a lot about myself. I am blessed that my body sense functions very well. I can use tools very well. I feel no conflict between my body sense and my objective observations of my body. I believe I have a hint of how horrifying it would be to exist in that kind of conflict with oneself. I am often appalled by the state of my body but that’s an entirely different matter…