Bits and Pieces

Meditations on Montaigne

21) La Force de L’Imagination

How often our bodies betray us. Or perhaps they never do, rather our minds have ideas, theories and steely insistences that our bodies can’t abide.

As much as we insist that we avert our eyes, keep a stiff upper lip or never let them see you sweat, the body knows who we fear, who we covet and who we love. We give everything away in our posture, and our tone of voice, and the way we fidget when a special someone is near.

We think consciousness is all in our brains, that we think and therefore are. How then do the things we see, smell and taste unlock secrets and reveries? We feel our hurts before we know why. We can sense the presence of beauty even before our eyes confirm it.