For the first time in many, many months, I’m sick (sinus, pollen). This particular sickness removes the ability to think clearly and act decisively, which together form the mechanisms that heal. In circumstances where inertia threatens a kind of mental asphyxiation, an existential crisis caused by bedridden inaction, “being kind to oneself” is nigh-inconceivable.
The discovery that one can affect one’s own physicality dramatically at will— say, gaining muscle, or losing weight— leads to an almost delirious feeling of power, and the methods thereby quickly become communions as secret as they are dear. One begins to believe one can stop time, possess the past in the present, and become a creature of pure will. One has earned back the attention that was once diverted, yet is now heaped upon oneself, and doubles down control on that narrow locus. Yet in this effort one cannot be thought of as an autonomous actor, as any independence of one’s self or spirit must be artificially constrained to continue to fit inside the unit (community, job, family) in an acceptable manner. A paradox: changed body is an attempt to reverse time, to fit back in, to use one’s agency to thrust aside one’s independence.
Sickness, by forcibly absenting one from the shared life of obligation and relationship outside-oneself, moves one’s fingers to different places on these self-controls. One cannot will oneself to be better, one must sink into passivity, rest, and, eventually, sleep.