the so-called mind-body problem is one
of the greatest and most quietly painful
conundrums in philosophy and more
importantly in everyday life the problem
is rooted in the fact that in the eyes
of other people all of us are
automatically and stubbornly associated
with our bodies which includes of course
our faces the way we look is the
overwhelming factor that dictates how
others assess our natures and our
characters whatever lip service we might
pay - less punitive ideologies in the
practical world who we are is taken to
be how we look the sweet face is assumed
to contain a gentle benevolent owner the
large red face with narrow eyes an angry
and suspicious one we trust that
personal identity is indivisible from
bodily form yet there is one dramatic
exception from this rule our own cases
when it comes to ourselves we know
usually with considerable and ongoing
sorrow that the way we look is obviously
not who we are
we're profoundly aware of a large gulf
between our understanding of ourselves
and the suggestions emitted by our
bodies inside we may feel tender
inspired inquisitive playful and young
but the face we see in the mirror is
indelibly imprinted with an atmosphere
that might be Stern grave humorless and
ever more akin to that of an insipid
elderly uncle we may bravely push the
hair this way and that or soften the
appearance with the help of a slightly
brighter jumper or some intricate shoes
or dab some kind of cream or powder here
and there but nothing can ever overcome
the monumental injustice to which we
appear to be subject it isn't really
that we feel unattractive we feel
something bigger misrepresented as if
we've been forced to go out into the
world as an ambassador for a country we
don't actually really inhabit or
identify with the English essayist
George Orwell once remarked that at 40
everyone has the face they deserve this
is as absurd and cruel as to suggest
that everyone might have the illnesses
the income or
the life's eight they deserve no one not
even with 40 years of trying has ever
managed to change their facial
appearance by an effort of the inner
will so is better to reflect their
identity
no one who's passionately thought of
themselves as a button nosed person over
half a lifetime has ever thereby shrunk
their proboscis by even a quarter of a
millimeter in fact quite the opposite
tends to happen our characters are
liable to mold themselves to the
personalities implied by our faces as a
result of years of other people assuming
that this must be who we are and
treating us in the light of our
appearance the gentler size of someone
who looks gentle will thereby completely
be invited to the surface by the
expectations and encouragement of others
the person who is routinely assumed to
be a bit sly because of the slope of
their eyelids may end up fitting in with
the prevailing story of who they are but
a mind-body problem leads us to
understand some of what love in its most
generous imaginative guises should
really involve a commitment to remember
that the other is not how they appear
that their body was imposed and not
chosen and that there may be a very
different character trapped within their
physical envelope the writer Cyril
Connolly who struggled with his weight
all his life and felt sickened by his
round full cheeks bald head and what he
termed accountants expression once wrote
poignant ly inside every fat man is a
thin one trying to get out but the
phenomenon shouldn't be limited to the
fat thin dichotomy inside a distressing
number of us there's someone else trying
to get out perhaps a mellow 65 year old
man from the body of a 25 year old woman
or a thoughtful nerdy girl from the body
of a middle-aged irritable male the best
we can do to overcome the mind-body
problem is not to fiddle with our
clothes invest in hairdressers or
endanger our health with plastic surgery
we will never be able to properly to
a-line mind and body by outward
sculpting the solution is to recognize
that the problem is an existential part
of being human
therefore that we must always strive to
remember in spite of all the visual
evidence and in a spirit of love that
the bodies and faces of others are very
separate from the character of their
minds in the hope that others will in
time gives us a comparably generous and
kind interpretation when their gaze
turns to our faces and bodies
you