I have put my watch on my right hand today, throwing my complete being out of physical, mental and emotional balance.
What prompted such a crazy switch you ask? I wore some skin off of my left wrist this weekend at a wind tunnel. Not able to wear my timepiece on the left wrist I naturally switched to the right.
It seemed simple in theory, but in practice is not. To start, it was difficult to put on. I've been putting a watch on my left wrist for, well, my entire life. I fumbled with it for a few minutes.
The human mind has some incredible compensation techniques. It has built-in understanding of itself. Most people who lose limbs typically find themselves "sensing" that the limb is still there. Lying in bed they expect to feel something on their missing limb and at the same time consciously know that it is gone. This "sense of body" is very fundamental to humanity.
It makes sense. When you're running from lions and tigers (oh my) you have to very quickly know where your arms are so that you can prevent them from being bitten... so that you can get home to pass on your genes... if you know what I mean.
So the mind puts this sense of self at a very low level, much as a computer programmer writes machine-level code like assembler for mission critical speed- intensive applications. It's below Aldous Huxley's "Doors of Perception." It's part of life that fades into the grey ether. A great survival technique that makes life understandable and survivable, albeit much less interesting.
Combining this "sense of body" with the mind's compensation techniques I find myself wondering today if my brain has added my watch to its internal "sense of body." Does my brain think that I've lost a limb?
I feel out of balance. I feel like something is missing from the left side of my body. My hand motions are clearly not as natural or fluid. The watch itself looks odd.
I would bet that everything I've done for the last 15 years since I started wearing a watch has built this compensation into it.
Running, writing, biking, skydiving... if you look into my internal equations I bet that you'd see a little "plus watch, minus arm=balance."
Interesting feeling. I can't wait for my wrist to heal so that I can put my body back together.
Sunday, February 7, 2010