Your Body is not Your own!

And so it came to pass that all men would unite and become one in the eternal struggle against their own limitations!

The following is a satirical article written in 2008 regarding the threat posed to bodily integrity.

Put aside the arrogance of the sociopathic belief that you may allow your body to bend and twist in the ceaselessly flowing waters of time! No longer shall it be acceptable for a man’s skin to wrinkle and temples grey, just as an oak’s trunk twists and knots, and its leaves wither and die with each autumn. Repent those among ye who believe your bodies to be your own! Like a rented vehicle on a lost weekend, you dare to call damage to your body irrelevant as long as the present is a time which brings meaning and joy to your life. You are sick for thinking this and shall not be forgiven; not by your god, not by your employer, not by society and not by your government!

You have been lent a tool for the benefit of others. Whether or not you wanted this gift is irrelevant. It is yours and you must carry it to a death that is no more yours than life. To prolong the usefulness of this implement is the means by which you may earn praise from your masters. The maintenance of these tools is an extremely costly and tiresome affair. The NHS saves the weak and the selfish with the credit earned by the sweat and blood of all those that have preceded you and those with whom you coexist. Give thanks to your superiors for they are merciful to spare you the uncertainty of death in favour of a guarantee of unnecessarily prolonged suffering, and increased productivity. For the harder you work, the more the suffering of your existence will become apparent and the more grateful you will be that you exist. You prolong the lives of countless others who would sooner be dead, had they the means to comprehend the futility of their efforts. If they were selfish enough not to see the glory of the communal will, they would merely exist as individuals with the concerns, hopes, fears and convictions that an isolated mind must suffer instead of choosing to shut out those negative thought processes and acknowledge one's existence as a part of a whole, a whole whose movements and intentions are beyond the simplistic understanding of individual thought.

It is these selfish thinkers who are draining our society of its momentum. They disrupt the productivity of the hive by refusing to acknowledge it as a greater form of good. Any work done against the will of the whole is counter productive and a naïve waste of precious life resources. Any communication made to gods outside designated centres of worship, is not worship but insanity. It is the mind of the individual turned in on itself and against the rest of us. It is time these types were rooted out and made to pay for their arrogance!

You see, whenever a man chooses to stay home with his family, he abandons his responsibility to the whole. Whenever a man takes a drink, he vandalises the vehicle which is a part of the whole and in his ungracious arrogance insults those who have nurtured his life to this stage! It is time that all men in our land are made to eat, drink and lead lifestyles which ensure their body projects an image that is pleasing to the eye of those that perceive it, particularly the all seeing eye of your master. Ageing has been accepted as an unstoppable force by those weak willed fools who would bow before death as inevitability. Those who bow to death turn their heads on our great society! Decay is to be hidden, so as not to offend those, who, upon beholding the grim spectre of age are reminded of their own mortality and thus may be fooled into believing their contribution to the whole is futile!

When your teeth fall out you must wear dentures,

When your hair greys you must dye it to feign youth and deny death!

When your interests become outdated, speak not of them to the young, lest you remind them of how easily ideals and cultures are trodden under foot as the stampede of modernity presses on ever harder, crushing those who can’t keep up, just as those who push in the opposite direction shall be crushed also.

When your face becomes wrinkled you will buy the appropriate creams, balms and lotions to defy time itself. So too must you follow the command of your superiors made clear for you in bold print on glossy paper, you will buy exactly what you are told to;

what berry from foreign land,

what teas,

what chemical supplements and new-age dietary requirements are dictated to you.

You are responsible for maintaining your body, because it is not yours, it is ours and if you fail to look after it sufficiently, you will have to answer not to a God, but to us, and the We. The whole is what really matters!

If you should fail to heed the relentless warnings from your masters, from magazines and TV screens, then you should feel the shame that the whole will bestow upon you for your arrogance. It is sociopathic in this day and age to expect your comrades to endure the sight of unconventional aesthetics. Your face, your body, or even your character shall be surgically restored so as to be comparable to a model of youth, subservience and functionality.

Technology must be used to make up for the mistakes of nature!

Not only shall time be our enemy, so too shall space!

Your thoughts must be made public as mine are now; your visage must be broadcasted to all who wish to see it. Your movements must be recorded and monitored, for your safety and for the safety of society; to remain in a small community is to accept inferiority, to be an object of ridicule for all. How dare you think you have the right to restrict the potential contribution your body could make to society by serving those only in the immediate area of your origin. You will not be able to stay anywhere for long now, as movement is to be a necessity, and all movement shall be monitored by your masters, as every movement is a drip of water added to the information ocean that is assembled for our protection. Do not avoid the watchful gaze of your electronic guardians, perched atop schools, banks, post offices and churches, these cybernetic gargoyles are our new angels, informing our lords of all our activities, punishing those who oppose the will of the masses.

Do not participate in public protest, know only what you need to. You need not identify your enemy, nor ask yourself moral questions, for the limitations of acceptable ethical boundaries will be made clear to you by the media. Your enemies may be your neighbours or they may be of a strange alien culture, in any case, you need not know of their beliefs, nor their motives, only their intent to disrupt the stability of the whole. You will ostracise and victimise those who attempt to distribute information that makes people feel uncomfortable. For the discomfort of the listener is surely evidence that the words falling from the speakers' lips are poison, and that they are intended to cloud your judgement and undermine the integrity of a united society. The discomfort felt when you hear people speak of difference is evidence of your loyalty and obedience. Be proud of this and hate those who would challenge our belief system. They are demons and disorder is their only desire. Suspect them everywhere, seek them everywhere, and when you find them, show them no mercy. You need not pity those who turn their backs on the stability of united society; they have polluted their minds with hatred and their bodies with toxins.

For your own sake, be pure of mind, think of yourself only in the pluralistic sense, be pure of body, accept only the toxins authorised for consumption by your superiors. For your body and your mind are not your own and are needed for the pursuit of higher things than you could possibly comprehend. Above all remain useful.

Rowsell 18/02/2008