We Like Sheep - Wandering Astray

This was a comment I made to someone else on their profile. I think my mind went some interesting places. [ed: extended for the blog a bit]

That your description of being embodied: "I like to feel my body move with purpose. Walking somewhere, dancing, building/creating something, running, shooting, even driving seems an extension of my body's will (which is an embodiment of my mental will). I love the fact that I have a body to direct; I see the body almost as a machine . I am working on improving/strengthening my personal machine, as apparently my genes aren't going to cut it forever. "

Was striking and deserved some comment. A friend of mine describes the feeling of using tools as an extension of the para-personal space. The idea that when you are eating with a fork, you don't consider how to angle the fork or move your fingers to grip it, you think about picking up the food, as if the fork were part of your hand. When I drive its a similar feeling, my car becomes an extension of my person.

My friend the dancer suggested that anything our bodies come in contact with can take on this mental conceit. In her mind dancing with a partner at its best, is about discovering a space where both of you experience the body of the other as part of your para-personal space.

Yet that also makes one have to ask if I understand your body as part of my para-personal space, have I lost any sense of you being other at all? It leads me to this essay: http://www.igreens.org.uk/bodys_grace.htm

Which has a very different take.