Dear Boris,

I mentioned dancing since you mentioned it first – that you are “plodding, marching… but never dancing”. So I thought this might be something to explore. But I understand the physical limitations. I too hurt my knee and can’t really jog, hike, do yoga, and I guess dancing would be a pretty big challenge too (haven’t tried it recently 🙂 ).

But for you, I believe there are psychological limitations too, since as you said, you always felt stiff and never felt the need to move your body to music. Playing music yes, but dancing no. You say “We’re each and every one of us alone, locked inside this bony prison sitting atop our shoulders, blind and insensate, except for what’s being either piped in from our sensory apparatus, or manufactured within us“.

That’s a very mechanical and gloomy image of the body. The body can also be a source of pleasure – when we move, we feel pleasure. When we can’t move, it causes us pain. The body is our vehicle to enjoy life, to go places, to love, to embrace, to nurture, to protect… the very things that your lady friend awakened in you. Pleasure – in all its forms – isn’t possible without loving and cherishing our body.

As children, we’re free and spontaneous, we laugh, we cry, we run around, we enjoy movement tremendously. We aren’t born stiff. But something can happen during our childhood that forces us to stop the free flow of emotions, of pleasure, of spontaneity. You haven’t spoken much about your childhood, except that it all changed when your parents got divorced. But may I ask – how free and spontaneous were you as a child, even before the age of 10? Were there rules and limitations that stopped you from being too spontaneous, from expressing your unmitigated joy?