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If I could have a body upgrade …
Tuesday, October 20th, 2015 01:33 pmAfter I saw this post, I got to thinking: what would I do if I could get a body upgrade? What would I do with my current, ill-fitting, constantly dysphoria-inducing bio body? I mean, if I could have a new (nanotechnological) robot body that looked like the real me and supported me to act the way I would act if I had a choice (e.g.: in everything from schooling, to work, to friendship, to family interactions and other social relationships), I would probably never want to spend another minute in this body if I could possibly help it. It's miserable.
But I'd hate the idea of killing it, and anyway it'd be so much better just knowing that spending time in this body while it were awake would only be a *part* of my day-to-day life.
I would imagine it would be a matter of living in the two bodies simultaneously: each an appendage of the whole. So, in my robot body I'd take care of the household chores, food preparation, and other tasks this bio body can't do (or can't do well), while in the bio body eat, sleep, exercise, meditate, and spend time with my partner silking and ealying in ealy lovable soft comfy 💜silk💖.
Effectively, this would mean this body would have its ideal care-giver in the form of me-in-my-robot body, and when this body were sleeping, I'd get a several hour break from the dysphoria and be able to do things like study, write, dance, do music, arts and crafts, and activism — all things I pretty much can't do in this body — and of course spend time with friends as *me*.
Naturally, part of my day in my robot body would also involve robot maintenance — stuff that amounts to the robot-equivalent of sleep, eating, exercising, and hygiene — and that stuff could be managed while my bio body were awake doing things like exercise, meditation, and other body-self-care, too.
And I'd probably go to the Zen center in both bodies, since meditation is good for robot brains as well as for bio brains. It would probably be a little hard for people to get used to the idea of a person who has two bodies, but I would imagine people would eventually get used to seeing the two bodies doing zazen next to each other. At the gym, it'd just look like “some pale blond lady getting coached by a guy with long black curly hair and a dark tan”, but in actuality, it would be the robot body spotting the bio body through each exercise, so the bio body wouldn't have to use up too many spoons on the cognitive aspects of working out.
And there would be times where I'd want to hang out with friends when the bio body wouldn't happen to be sleeping, so I'd probably end up communicating mostly through my robot body while my bio body would sit there quietly as if just listening to the conversation. Naturally, this wouldn't be ideal, since all the while the bio body would be awake, it would constantly be fielding sensory overload, physical pain, and other things that would be distracting to me as a whole, even if my robot brain were able to deal with the influx of discomfort coming from the bio brain, and this would make socializing less than ideal.
Also, there'd be the distraction of having my bio body sitting there and — especially if the social occasion involved spending time with family — having people look at the bio body instead of the robot body when addressing me. It would feel like a bit of a rejection of the real me (that is best represented by my robot body), and that would suck. I have a feeling my parents and sister would never accept the real me. And there'd be some people who, having known me for many years, would also be very reluctant to accept the robot body as really being me and my bio body as never having been a good fit for me.
But I'm sure most of my current close friends would accept the change — the acquisition of a robot body that fits the real me way better than my bio body does — without much difficulty at all, and I could finally start relating to people and to the rest of the world (to nature, to my spirituality, to my vocation, etc.) in a way I haven't been able to in all the decades of living in this bio body. And that would be awesome, in the original meaning of that word. 😊
But I'd hate the idea of killing it, and anyway it'd be so much better just knowing that spending time in this body while it were awake would only be a *part* of my day-to-day life.
I would imagine it would be a matter of living in the two bodies simultaneously: each an appendage of the whole. So, in my robot body I'd take care of the household chores, food preparation, and other tasks this bio body can't do (or can't do well), while in the bio body eat, sleep, exercise, meditate, and spend time with my partner silking and ealying in ealy lovable soft comfy 💜silk💖.
Effectively, this would mean this body would have its ideal care-giver in the form of me-in-my-robot body, and when this body were sleeping, I'd get a several hour break from the dysphoria and be able to do things like study, write, dance, do music, arts and crafts, and activism — all things I pretty much can't do in this body — and of course spend time with friends as *me*.
Naturally, part of my day in my robot body would also involve robot maintenance — stuff that amounts to the robot-equivalent of sleep, eating, exercising, and hygiene — and that stuff could be managed while my bio body were awake doing things like exercise, meditation, and other body-self-care, too.
And I'd probably go to the Zen center in both bodies, since meditation is good for robot brains as well as for bio brains. It would probably be a little hard for people to get used to the idea of a person who has two bodies, but I would imagine people would eventually get used to seeing the two bodies doing zazen next to each other. At the gym, it'd just look like “some pale blond lady getting coached by a guy with long black curly hair and a dark tan”, but in actuality, it would be the robot body spotting the bio body through each exercise, so the bio body wouldn't have to use up too many spoons on the cognitive aspects of working out.
And there would be times where I'd want to hang out with friends when the bio body wouldn't happen to be sleeping, so I'd probably end up communicating mostly through my robot body while my bio body would sit there quietly as if just listening to the conversation. Naturally, this wouldn't be ideal, since all the while the bio body would be awake, it would constantly be fielding sensory overload, physical pain, and other things that would be distracting to me as a whole, even if my robot brain were able to deal with the influx of discomfort coming from the bio brain, and this would make socializing less than ideal.
Also, there'd be the distraction of having my bio body sitting there and — especially if the social occasion involved spending time with family — having people look at the bio body instead of the robot body when addressing me. It would feel like a bit of a rejection of the real me (that is best represented by my robot body), and that would suck. I have a feeling my parents and sister would never accept the real me. And there'd be some people who, having known me for many years, would also be very reluctant to accept the robot body as really being me and my bio body as never having been a good fit for me.
But I'm sure most of my current close friends would accept the change — the acquisition of a robot body that fits the real me way better than my bio body does — without much difficulty at all, and I could finally start relating to people and to the rest of the world (to nature, to my spirituality, to my vocation, etc.) in a way I haven't been able to in all the decades of living in this bio body. And that would be awesome, in the original meaning of that word. 😊
