I sit and rewatch David Cronenberg's The Fly for what must be the 5th time. It's a good movie: mad science, insects, hamburgers, sex. David Cronenberg's obsession with the flesh leaks through to this one too. Just like in Videodrome - long live the new flesh. Likewise, Seth Brundle makes his own mark on the flesh, by changing his - "But you only know society's straight line about the flesh. You can't penetrate beyond society's sick, gray, fear of the flesh."
Which makes me think about my own flesh. Makes me think about my own body; about how it doesn't feel like mine. Surely I live in this skin, but what makes it me? What lets the squishy lump of muscle between my eyes parse what I'm typing, feel the keyboard, move my fingers with nerve impulses? (Ignore my homework with procrastination impulses?)
"I'm saying... I'm saying I - I'm an insect who dreamt he was a man and loved it. But now the dream is over... and the insect is awake."
If all I really am is a body dreaming of its day-to-day, then why am I not in a body that would make everything easier? Being a dog would be so much easier than this. Sure; maybe I would never watch movies like this, experience the same sort of critical thinking as I am now; but wouldn't that be worth it, in some ways? I wouldn't know what I was missing, would I? Ignorance, after all, is bliss, is it not? The ignorance to live in a home with an owner, and settle down on my bed at night, sleep soundly, know no other life but the one I live in - living in the moment, the way 'humans' are supposed to. The way I am expected to.
How can I live in the moment when there are so many things to do? A dog has no homework; a bat has no idea what bedtimes are. Deer do not check their bank accounts. For all intents and purposes, this body has been assigned to me, and it is mine, for the years I have been granted to have it. I do find this...frustrating. But there is no other option but to go on, and find moments later in my life where I can put aside a human facade; tap into the more animal-like traits I posess - try to forget for just a few hours that I have to wake up for work in the morning.