I Feel Therefore I Am

Like every mammal, this body arrived through another body. There was no mind that day, or for many days after. The mind came later—a chemical orchestra of electricity and matter.

Before thought, was feeling.

Present and without thought I knew how to breathe. I knew touch. And the absence of touch.

I had needs.

I knew comfort and discomfort.
I knew the heartbeat and breath of other bodies.
And the absence of them.

I cried, babbled, yelled, laughed.

I knew hunger and thirst and satiation.
I slept and woke.

All without conscious thought.

With conscious thought came an eventual dislocation. Instead of being taught that my mind was part of my body—that what I feel and what I think are integral to each other—I was taught my first lesson in supremacy: the mind shall rule over the body, the rational is more trustworthy than the emotional. 

Stolen was my birthright to experience my body as a site of pleasure, power, and knowledge.