The Skeleton Within Us

Skeletons are an interesting image.  The skull especially is used to symbolize death and danger.  Bones are often the last thing remaining of a body after death, sometimes even after we want to hurry them on their way to leave the physical world.  Even if they represent the loss or absence of life, their endurance can also represent the continuation of existence, the idea that remains in the minds of the living.  There is also the idea that we all have a skeleton; what is inside us is less distinguishable from others than what is outside.  While there are certainly differences, one skeleton is much harder to tell from another than a body with flesh is.  It takes experts, people who can observe the smallest details, to separate them.  We also have the idea of the skeleton in the closet, or something that is hidden.  It can be our most private thoughts or awful secrets, but our metaphorical skeleton is something that is known only to us, and sometimes we are not even aware of it ourselves.

The Source of the topic is one of those people who like to analyze everything, but frame it in poetry at the same time.  He was inspired by the BBC series "Inside the Human Body", which made him consider the marvel that is the body, the engineering wonder that is the human hand, for example.  He pondered the difficulty of knowing the objects we have around us, saying faraway objects are hard to examine in detail, while those close by are taken for granted.  He mentioned his feeling that he personally might rely too much on analysis to understand his world.  He believes that there should be a balance between the mental processes and the emotional when it comes to taking in information about our surroundings.  Later on, he mulled over the emotions tied to the body itself.  Most people have feelings they might call "intuition", ideas that have appeared without any apparent logical process.  There is also the shame we are trained to feel over our bodies, due mainly to religion in the Source's opinion, and the demonizing of our natural sensations and desires.  Life should be celebrated and enjoyed, not rejected and bound in mistrust.  He finds a risk in ignoring the body and the pleasures of life.  The Skeleton represents the most physical part of ourselves, and also the part that we are told to pay little mind to, although I think we are told to pay even less mind to intuition in most cases.

Our Doctor began by saying he lived as a contrarian, always against whatever he finds.  So, he does not believe in analysis.  His specialization is the brain rather than the skeleton, but he noted that information can certainly be extracted from bones if one knows how to look for it.  He also warned, however, that observation changes behavior, something known from psychology as well as quantum science.  The information we get from analysis should be tempered with intuition.  Putting himself in the position of the observer of the group, he reminded us of his opinion that philosophy is biography, and while we speak from our own experiences, the way we speak may not be our own.  He thought he saw influences of both Paul Éluard and Paul Watson in the proposition of the Source.  We should not put too much faith in our own perspective.  As a doctor, he is well aware of the effects disease has on development, of our physical bones and mental state as well.  He extended this idea to humanity as a body, mentioning tragedies and atrocities as "germs" that affect us.  In his point of view, they make us better, they help us learn to be better people.  Then again, he also repeats that philosophers, and actors, are professional liars, so perhaps his opinions should be taken with a grain of salt always.  Finally, he proposed that ideas not be written or told, as much as played or performed, or painted.  Ideas always have more to them than simple words, and by incorporating other senses into their presentation we understand them more fully.

The True Philosopher reminded us that philosophy does not deal with objects, but with the ideas of objects.  In his preparatory writing, he focused on the meaning of the skeleton, or support, to our health and well being, it mainly being something ever present, but largely ignored.  Aristotle, he said, marked the difference between philosophy and science, where ideas and practice separate.  He also introduced a word worthy of the Source: anthropoetics; he used the term to emphasize how important symbolism is to humans, certainly something the Source would seem to agree with, as well as many other participants.

The Seeker of Happiness pointed out that being aware that we have a skeleton is one of the distinguishing characteristics of the human being as compared to other animals.  We have the basic need to be healthy, but once that is established, we want more.  Then, in order to reach loftier goals, we have to study the things that are not immediately visible to us, both physically and psychologically.  At the end, he fell into his pet topic, repeating that "love is all we need" and empathy is what makes the human being successful, which seems to be a deviation from the focus of the meeting to me, but maybe that is the internal support of the human being for him.

The Organizer had just a small bit of an idea for us beforehand, but did elaborate in the meeting itself.  The skeleton is not, of course, the physical bone structure, but the metaphor for a framework or outline.  When it comes to self-examination, we cannot trust that we will find an accurate image of ourselves, and in fact, others do have access to our internal information, which can give outsiders a better, more accurate view than we ourselves have.  Knowledge resides in the brain, and has an actual physical format, even when we discuss abstract ideas.  The physical skeleton may be the hardest, most durable part of the body, but as an idea it is highly changeable.  Fortunately for us, that means that ideas that turn out to be wrong should not be too difficult to change.  For the Organizer, rather than meditation or attention to gut feelings, the way to know ourselves is to learn more about statistics.

The Prodigal Participant contrasted the importance of external appearance with the interest in the internal self.  We put a lot of weight on the superficial, on the outside, and feel an uneasiness or even fear of examining the inside.  For this Participant, the reason is probably that we are afraid to find out how different we are from the others.  While there might be more similarities than differences, it is the differences that stand out and we do our best to hide and ignore them to fit more seamlessly into our groups or society.

The Writer also mentioned the religious notion that the body is not to be given importance, saying it was only in the 18th century that those ideas started to change, and they have not completely changed yet.  Life is full of suffering and the way to avoid it is to focus on the brain rather than the body.  She also acknowledged the possibility of distorted ideas about ourselves, saying that the physical skeleton is a very different thing from our body image, not to mention our ideas about our person and self.  She recommended yoga as a way to reconcile the awareness of body and mind and reach some balance.

A Newcomer focused on the literary images of skeletons as death over history, mentioning Hamlet holding Yorick's skull as an example.  She also thought the source of many of our problems and stress is the attempt to separate the body from the mind, attaching negative feelings to the body by using the skeleton, when the two should always be considered two parts of a whole.  She wondered whether the body or the mind has more control, but then seemed to answer herself saying that everything is in fact a state of mind, even when the body shows more effects.  The Organizer took exception to the idea of "mind", one of his pet topics, and after her turn stated that only the brain, and therefore only the physical, exists, which means that although the Newcomer is right to say it is a mistake to separate physical and mental processes, it is also a mistake to consider ourselves a combination of two things rather than one thing with interdependent components.

It is fitting, I suppose, that little light was shed in the end, with more questions and doubts being left around than answers.