Body Metaphors

Sorting through old files, I found this:

Heart pumping sixy three times per minutes.  Pupils dialating a certain percentage inversely proportional to the light index.  Through the years, science has expanded into studying space to oceans to genetics.  Science has even extended itself into the human body, comparing it to a "machine."  I see it another way.

People who call the human body a machine see arms and legs as appendages with wide motions of range used for grasping and grabbing.  However, I see arms and legs as extensions of the body itself, allowing one to expand experiences through touch and movement. To them, eyes are the sensors that interpret visual data from the outside world.  But the eyes aren't sensors, they're windows.  They allow us to experience color, darkness and light!  The heart is the pump of the cardiovascular system, which circulates the body's fuel.  If the pump breaks down, sterile metal can cut and tighten the organ back to functioning properly.  The heart isn't an organ to me, it's an area in the chest where one feels pain if rejected, or warmth if welcomed.

If I could use a metaphor, I would say the human body is not a machine, but a sculpted ornamental vase.  Life experiences are the rain, shimmering down from above, certain drops getting caught in different vases.  The vase holds the waters of our experiences, the waters of memory.  When one shares memories with other people, it is as if the vase is pouring the waters of memory into other vases.  A vase can also be chipped by acid rain, the horrors of life.  However, vases can be pieced back together with the glue of hope and love.  They can even be arranged in a complementary design, just as the right group of people can harmonize and work together.

Both metaphors are valid, one being technical and the other aesthetic.  And modern science has many wonderful impacts.  But when the brass and steel cogs of a machine are placed next to the silver and porcelain of a vase, which would you choose?

A college essay I wrote when I was 17.  It's sobering and emotional for this chipped vase to look back on the writings of a relatively undamaged young vase, unweathered by the acid rain of life.