In life, we all want to do the best that we can. Many of us have quite high aspirations. But look around you. This is not the best we can do. A shift in perspective is needed and there is ample evidence that it is slowly percolating up from below.
The shift in perspective is not like a mental choice we need to make. It is not because we are too ignorant, weak or selfish.
The shift is more of an organic result of better coordination. An empowerment. This is called a phase transition in neurophysics and is the result of a new level of metastability, the organic integration of multiple systems. For us, it is biopsychosocial and environmental. I And it starts with the coordination dynamics of the human body itself.
This is a choice you can make–whether to know yourself or not. Biomechanical Enlightenment is simple and natural and is based on very simple anatomy. It is not a mental phenomenon. It has but does not require an intellectual superstructure. It is constituted by the perceptions and actions of your body. The point is whether they are meaningful to you or not.
The basic anatomy of biomechanical enlightenment, Three Bones Theory, is a very simple and useful tool. When we understand these prominent and central bones as part of a meaningful bodywide system, the bones behave like a sensory motor koan. The meanings that are formed belong entirely to you and to the world you live in. This is the beauty of it. There are endless possibilities for meaning because these are the meaning making parts of our bodies.
You need to be able to name something before you can properly pay attention to it. Each bone is like a sensitive servomechanism or lever that plays an active coordinative role in our bodywide postural structure. This is how the body organizes itself and we are meant to participate in that.
These bones are direct, concrete, and palpable. They actively welcome our attention. The names of a handful of major bones of the central structural junctures and sensory stations of our body is all you need to know. The rest is mostly just perception and movement.
The function of each bone is straightforward. They resemble handles or grips. An infinite complexity of expression can come out of the tip of a simple paintbrush or a pen, but what is important to us is the handle that we hold onto.
These bones are those handles. The complexity and beauty that emerges is a function of the body in its relationship with its inner and outer environment. In a very real sense, our job is to just hold on for the ride, to get a grip. This at least is how we do that. A handful of bones.
This new cognitive shift that I am calling biomechanical enlightenment can be as easy or as difficult as you wish to make it. This is because there is no shortage of richness and complexity inside of you. But it is up to you to make it happen inside yourself first, and this is how to get started.
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