38. I Am A Brain

Synopsis - When Ceri Braum had her deteriorating body disposed of and her brain kept alive, linked to a mike, speaker and camera, she wasn't quite as happy as she thought she would be. Was being all brain good enough to represent her a person?

I remember an episode of the Twilight Zone where a doctor disassembled the body of a man and hooked him up to an array of sensors so that he could live without his body. It all went well with the brain resting in a jar of fluid in a lab and taking in all the sanitized cleanliness around it. The man's wife then appeared, taunted the brain with vile words and then kissed the doctor full on. The brain felt anger and betrayal but could not do anything but sit there helpless.

It's a fact that the brain controls most of what the body does. Our thoughts and memories start and are stored in the brain. These help us learn and solve problems. The brain controls the body to a great degree. If we are defined ny our actions and the actions themselves are usually the result of our thoughts, it's easy to accept the brain as the definition of who we are. This logic is perhaps individualistic.

From a other person point of view, speech, touch and even facial expressions define who a person is. Human-human interaction goes beyond the brain. We look into people's eyes, react to a smile, ask about a frown, nudge shoulders, and connect through in so many ways. Though these actions may start in the brain as thoughts but it is the physical execution of these thoughts through our bodies that define us from a social standpoint. Connections are made from the heart. Perhaps after a while with the brain.

A brain can't climb a mountain. A brain can't make curry chicken. A brain can't drive a car. The brain can develop ideas and envision outcomes but it needs the body to take up and fulfill the challenge. Actions speak louder than thoughts and words.

I believe that yes a brain is our control center but we are little, hollow, even purposeless without the body.