We bring our ontological commitments with us into any situation. Built into Cartesianism, which is how most of us were raised and how most of the systems we are immersed in are organized, is the idea that things are logical if they make sense to us. But if something doesn't make sense to us, it is not logical or rational and, therefore, must not be right or true. The knowledge created through the Cartesian lens, therefore, perpetuates itself. We pile on experiences that reinforce the previous experience because of this aspect of how the body and mind work. (I explore this process in the Transformation of the Time-Drenched Body class.)
So, it is very difficult to bring the ontological commitments of Cartesianism into a framework that recognizes movement as more fundamental to experience than logic or thought. (Cartesianism sees thought above all else and leaves the body and movement out.) It's like having the ingredients to make tacos when you are trying to make cookies. It is a complete mismatch. Not only is it difficult, but it might feel frustrating and even scary. Depending on the issue or reason you are interested in seeking a different understanding of movement and its importance in your daily life, you may not be able to tolerate how dysregulating it can be to let go of the certainty of the comfort of so-called logic and rationality.
Understanding how (and why) to change our movement patterns requires us to bring different ingredients into play. It means turning our old ways of thinking almost upside down. Because our reality is directly shaped by the spatial and temporal contours of our bodily movements, which gets me to the name of this blog post: the symptom is not the fix.
In our Western minds, especially Western medicine, we operate in an allopathic system. In this system, the fix matches the symptom. We try to fix the problem as it presents itself, and that's the end of it. But problems as they present themselves are usually not (almost never) the source. Because our bodies are a nexus of intra-articulating systems of actions and possibilities, a change in one part is a change in all parts. So if we feel pain or notice dysfunction somewhere quite specific, through the allopathic lens, we would expect a fix to directly address that spot or that function. But that is not logical when it comes to our bodies. Working with an issue, whether it is one we perceive as "emotional" or "physical," requires working with the entire framework of the self. On the thinking side, this means deconstructing the framework of ontological commitments we bring with us into every situation. On the movement side, this means exploring and opening up the framework we can access through moving. And this is not abstract. Thought is abstract; movement is the real reality.
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