Body and Brain

I’m reading a wonderful book called, “Proust Was A Neuroscientist” by Jonah Leher. He’s describing how artists—in different fields—anticipated and sometimes better explored what we have come to know now from neuroscience.

He writes about what Walt Whitman “discovered”—that our bodies have or are our brains—feelings generated by the body not just the brain, “the mind is embodied.” What came to be though of as Whitman’s bawdiness was in fact his discovery and delight that our body thinks and our minds feel.

Whitman’s discovery and celebration was so important because it followed years of Descartian thinking—really thinking. Descartes had divided being into two distinct substances: a holy soul and a mortal carcass. The soul or mind was reason and thinking, the body just carried that soul around. Descartes thinking led then—here’s where it gets weird—to Phrenology—studying the skull. The worship of the brain became study of the bone around it. It’s amazing now to realize how much medical attention, study, research and, yes, medical treatment was based on phrenology.

Yes, we laugh and roll our eyes. But wait. We think that study of the skull makes no sense but someday we’ll look back and have the same embarrassed look when we think about PET scans and CAT scans, “Look, they thought the physical structure of the brain was evidence and prescriptive..how odd and dumb they (we) were.”

Mind and body, brain and soul. Back and forth we go, trying to understand these beings that we are. Spiritual beings trying to live human lives. Human beings carrying around and caring for our souls.

Tomorrow I’m taking brain and body, mind and soul on vacation. I need rest for them all. And John too. Off we go to Florida, sunlight and the dearest god of respite I know: the ocean and the beach.

We’ll be back in seven days.

This story of love in the time of cancer will continue then.