The Second Body
The idea of a body which can reach over to the other side of the world is not one we tend to speak of in everyday language right now. In normal life, a human body is rarely understood to exist outside its own skin - it is supposed to be inviolable. The language of the human animal is that of a whole and single individual. You are encouraged to be yourself and to express yourself - to be whole, to be one. Move away from this personality, self-expression, and you risk going out of your mind, being yourself, failing to be true to yourself, hearing other voices or splitting your personality: it doesn't sound good. This careful language is anxious, I think - threatening in a desperate way. You need to take care of yourself, it says. You need boundaries, you have to be either here or there. Don't be all over the place.
Climate change creates a new language, in which you have to be all over the place; you are always all over the place. It makes every animal body implicated in the whole world. Pg. 13*.
Every living thing has two bodies these days – you are flying into the atmosphere and back down to the ground right now, but you can’t feel it. You breathe something in, and what you breath out is something else. Your first body is the one belonging to “you”, the place you live in made out of your own personal skin. Your second body is the body belonging to Gina, a body which is not so solid as the other one, but much larger. This second body is your own literal and physical biological existence – it is a version of you. It is not a concept; it is your own body. The language we have at the moment is weak: we might speak vaguely of global connections; of emission and circulation of gases; of impacts. And yet, at some microscopic or intangible scale, bodies are breaking into one another. The concept of a global impact is not working for us, and in the meantime, your body has already eaten the distance…. It understandably difficult to remember that you have anything to do with this second body – your first body is the body you inhabit in your daily life. However, you are alive in both. You have two bodies.
I need to find some place where real life and this global truth – the two bodies – come into one another. I want to make the second body come into the first body. I’m not going to tell you what to do with your second body or how to use it. The purpose of this book is just to find its real life. I want to incorporate the second body with the first. Because the body exists at different scales, I need to close in on it, starting from its most expansive expression. I want to start by talking about the whole world. Pg. 25 – 26*.
(*The Second Body by Daisy Hildyard)

Part 2

Deconstructing the anatomy of the body
The external image – expectations both personal and external (physical fitness, actions, habits and standers)
The inner desire – (defines the external scale for oneself and where you want to be, this starts in the brain, the things one must do to reach or maintain these targets, this is done with effort also subconsciously.)
The struggle (The mind wanting to give itself a break from reaching these standers, the mind and body wanting to stray off the course and let go of the expected and routine. For the unexpected to happen. This is both mental and physical.)

The mind tells the body what to do, the body has muscle memory, so things become habitual, but to break the habits, whether good or bad, normal or sporadic the mind first has to detect it and instruct the body to work differently. The mind needs a clear box and void without internal and external conversation to start-over, a place where the body can shake about without restriction and limitations or pre-constructed movements.

If the body didn’t have a mouth, if we didn’t need to eat or speak what would this look like? Would the focus of our actions and movements be stronger, better or worse in the defining or undefining of what we do? Would we then only define ourselves by our movements and would this simplify the above struggle or make it more restricted? Does the mouth give us the opportunity to muddle, cover or deceive ourselves and those around us? Or is the mind still the main limiting factor?

What if the mind could be taken apart and tinkered with by your hands whenever you liked? Would the body then constantly change or be consistent? If you could physically polish the mind the way you desired, would then the desire have to be detected from the brain and be put into the hands? What if your hands exuded your desire? If it could reach out and sculpted your desires? Your hands would then have the power/capability to make whatever you want for yourself.

What are the problems or limits of this?
If the hands would not be muddled or guided by the mind would it be more impulsive? What if your hands are not good at crafting? Would it then have to connect to the mind to develop the skills and muscle memory or would this too be instilled in the hands separately; would we then still have to repeat the actions to again perfection? Or would we be satisfied with the results that come out immediately? Do our eyes play apart in our desire and standards?

Should we then remove the eyes all together or place them somewhere else? Should they too be connected to the brain or connected to the hands or somewhere else altogether? What if our eyes were on our feet? This way we only see where we have come from and where we are at and where we are headed immediately?

If we change all of this around, what function would our brain have if it doesn’t dictate our actions and our sight and we don’t have a mouth? Would we only remain internal beings and the external would become less important? Or would we only be external beings and the internal motivation be removed altogether?

What if our brains were in the space of our hearts and our hearts would in the place of our minds? The mind runs the body automatically and our hearts guides the body?

What would I like to achieve in the making of this body?
That we will not limit ourselves by what we see or is expected of ourselves, whether this is internal or external expectations? So that the desire can easily flow into the external and the internal conflict and struggle can be eliminated. In essence we can do what we want to or achieve what we desire however we want without restrictions and mental limitations and standers. The desire would be the driving force, it would come from within instead of analysed data and the results will be rawer and truer and changing fluidly according to the flow of the desire. There would be no struggle, only the outcome which can then change the desire or keep the desire stead and on the same course.

What is needed from this anatomy to achieve what you want to achieve?
Perhaps then the heart is at the top of the body. The hands are next, the eyes follow, and the brain is below with the role of keeping the body in function. The hands are longer or as long as the body this way it can reach around to change any part. Then perhaps the eyes too can move anywhere over or outside the body to get an internal and external perspective, the eyes can connect to the heart and affect the desire, the hands follow the heart’s desire and move in accordance and the rest of the body follows.

What would the heart look like or do? Does it still have other elements of the brain or is it only internally driven? What does it look like? Is the heart in reference then to our feelings and emotions? Or does it carry with it more elements, like a consciences/basic moral compass of what it means to be human or basic instincts like animals do? But with a greater capacity to change itself and the world around it? But less analytical and with less conflict? The desire is driven from instinct, senses, empathy, joy, love and jubilance. Would it then eradicate hate and strife, focusing only on the positive emotions as the driving force for desire and passion?