Knowing's Not Enough

Choir boys and angels, so you loosen your halo in your reckless life… -10,000 Maniacs

Where your body is. So accustomed to this environment and we think we know ourselves oh so well. It’s only because the air in familiar, but don’t mistake that for knowing.

Don’t look. Where’s your hand? Right now, without looking. Where’s your hand? You know and you don’t even have to look. You just know, have consciousness about how you move through this environment. But in the water, when you’re swimming or paddling about, the knowing isn’t there. Where’s your hand? I used to ask the people I was teaching to swim. They’d stop and think, often look, and had no consciousness about their flesh in relation to itself when the environment had changed. Just one little thing changed, the air to the water, and suddenly they were strangers to themselves. But only one little thing changed. Suddenly everything was new and the learning had to begin again.

Yes, we’re adaptive.

I put a 9 mm Glock in my mouth with the barrel at the back of my throat pointing up toward the back of my scull and pull the trigger. See. The learning starts all over again. Where’s my hand? Just one little thing changed. See?

Sometimes it comes from the outside, those subtle differences that make us strangers to ourselves. Sometimes it comes from the inside. Like the first time I truly understood what it meant to forgive or to be forgiven. Like the first time I realized what it meant to be part of a community. Like the first time I felt empathy, compassion or courage. Just one little thing changed and suddenly I had to get to know myself all over again. The environment was new. See?

Where your body is. Knowing isn’t enough.