- Date added
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April 30, 2023, 4:30 p.m.
- Description
- If our eyes are our window on the world, in other words, then our flesh and bones are the vehicle that allows us to act on that information in ways that tip the odds of survival in our favor. At the risk of getting my metaphors in a twist, this is not a passive vehicle, driven by an all-knowing mind, but a chatty one, like KITT, the talking car in the classic 1980s TV show (and soon-to-be film) Knight Rider, who constantly witters on about the odds of mission success. It’s not surprising, then, that the way we feel has a lot to do with whether our particular vehicle is creaking and rusty or primed and ready to turbo-boost over the next roadblock.
If we let our bodies become weak, the message coming from the musculoskeletal division of the self will read: stiff, feeble, could definitely do better. And if, as psychologist Louise Barrett puts it, this read-out feeds directly into our perception of “what that body can achieve in the world,” then it’s hardly surprising that sedentary lifestyles have been linked to anxiety and low self-esteem.
