Daniel Pennac - Diary of a Body

Mar 10, 2016

Translated from Korean

Reading

BODY

From now on, we will write a total of four posts. Since we've read a literary work (not an academic paper), I don't want to think about things like 'form' or 'restrictions'. Please write very, very freely about your own thoughts and feelings. Let's get started! :)

[1] We have read a piece of literature. Closing the book, you likely felt many things. Before those feelings fade, let's record them all here. Simply put, let's write a book report. There is no set format. You can write about the plot or the main character, you can write about the book's form, or you can write about what you felt while reading it. Anything is fine. If you felt and thought about many different things, you can write about all of them. Just include everything you felt and thought. There is no length limit.

Throughout my reading, I found myself wanting to record my own body, just like that nameless man in the book. On March 11, 2016, my body had lived for 21 years, 4 months, and 14 days. Writing it out like this makes it feel like such a short time. I thought I had aged over the years, but my body has only endured twenty-one years. I wonder if this disconnect between my body and mind is one factor causing me pain. After finishing the book, I jotted down the passages that stuck with me, and truly, they were all about the 'body'! Of course, this is a 'diary of the body'. But why was I surprised that all these passages were a 'diary of the body'? Perhaps, while reading this book, my interest was more focused on peering into the thoughts of the fictional man than on the element of 'body'. Or maybe it's because I still feel unfamiliar with the idea of talking only about the body. For him, the body was himself, and himself was his body itself. At least in this diary. In fact, only after finishing the book did I realize his name never appeared once. What mattered in this diary was not the few letters of his name, but his own biceps and bladder. I found myself wondering what kind of life someone who lives by looking into their body leads.
Thoughts are blocked by something, unable to spread out freely. It's a pity. I lack the strength to contain all the stories in my head. After peering into one person's long life, I feel powerless to tell my own story. A pointless fear arises about the days I must live. Living in cohabitation with the body like that—can such thoughts only begin to be grasped, even slightly, when one is nearing eighty? Is it utterly impossible before then?

[2] Above, we've captured everything we felt and thought while reading this book. So now, how about we try writing our own diaries about our bodies? This book contains a vast number of keywords related to the body: voice, vomiting, masturbation, palm lines, poop, tears, sex, presbyopia, glasses, illness, and so on. Keywords from this book are fine, and new keywords are fine too. Choose one keyword and write a diary entry about it. It would be even better if you could specify the date you wrote the diary. Remember: this is not an inner diary!

21 years, 4 months, 14 days March 11, 2016
My eyes hurt. They throb, blur, and sometimes lose focus. I often find myself staring into space, my mind drifting. I started wearing contact lenses when I became a university student, and this seems to happen more often since then. Actually, it doesn't seem to happen when I wear glasses. Even when I close and open my eyes, that throbbing remains. How much longer can I keep wearing these lenses? Would that surgery to reshape the cornea really make things easier? Someone said they'd only get it done if Lee Jae-yong's son had it first. Do I really have to wait that long? When will that day come? Then again, in an era where AlphaGo has beaten Lee Sedol twice in a row, maybe it's okay to hope for the near future.
Why do my hairs keep tangling themselves up, even when I leave them alone? How many hairs are actually attached to my head? Every time I untangle them, a huge amount falls out, yet my hair is still thick and black. It feels like as time passes, all the tangled hair will fall out, leaving me bald.
My favorite song has these lyrics: 'What if it burns? It'll all crumble away anyway.' It's saying that since the body will crumble anyway, it's fine to be consumed by a fiery glow. Was that said by someone who values the inner self more than the body?
My arms and legs, eyes, nose, mouth, face, fingers—I use them so naturally. Lately, I've kept asking myself what is truly natural, if anything is truly natural at all. I began wanting to understand people who lack the body I take so for granted. It might be arrogant, and my curiosity and questions could offend them. But with that mindset, I volunteered to help students with disabilities. I've only exchanged greetings with that friend who still can't use their legs, but I wonder if spending more time with them—a short semester or a long two years—will help me understand my own legs and body better.
21 years, 4 months, 15 days March 12, 2016
Today my period cramps are especially bad. It hurts like hell. Oh, I have to go to the meeting. It's been so long since I attended one, I really had to go. I even prepared the presentation materials to discuss at the meeting. I guess I have to give up. But what should I say? Why do I have to say I can't go? I realized I've never once uttered the words "I can't make it because of menstrual cramps" in a mixed-gender gathering. Why was that? After that, I remembered how shocked I was when I saw a senior post on our club bulletin board saying "I can't make it today because of menstrual cramps." How could she say something like that so easily? I thought three years ago. But thinking about it now, what was wrong with that statement? It wasn't a lie or an excuse. She probably genuinely wanted to come and had prepared a lot, but suddenly her period cramps got so bad she couldn't move. So why was I shocked by that statement? And why have I still struggled to easily say I can't go because of menstrual cramps? Still, I said it to this group because they understand women's issues. I said I couldn't move a single step because of menstrual cramps. For the first time, I said it out loud. I feel it again. Living in a woman's body might be happy, but living as a woman in society is incredibly hard. To overturn this, it's not about a discussion where you guys constantly talk about how tough it is after serving in the military, then tell a woman she's not proper for bringing up menstrual cramps. It's about realizing that I myself deeply held the belief that 'the word menstruation shouldn't be spoken aloud'. And I must be the first to say that's wrong. Why is there a taboo on talking about women's bodies? We must collectively recognize that we've lived in a deeply male-centered society. This isn't just about me being a woman or having my period. It's about understanding each other's bodies deeply. It's that kind of process.

[3] I wrote a book review and also tried writing a diary about my own body. How did you feel writing a body diary? For me, discovering through this book that I could write a diary about my body, not just my inner self, felt incredibly fresh. It naturally led me to reflect on the value of both inner and body diaries. I'm curious about your thoughts on inner and body diaries. Just as we freely described the book in [1], let's freely describe what a diary means to us this time.
I was surprised to realize I had never once thought about my own body. Even though I look at myself in the mirror every day, what I care about isn't the me I see, but the body I shape to match the me others see. My body wasn't there for my existence, for my living, but simply for meeting others. I'm certain that if there were no others (whether female or male, just others), I wouldn't even wear clothes or put anything on my face. It was a thought I'd quietly held since starting Pilates months ago, but reading this book made it more concrete. What allows me to be more certain of my existence is my body, not my mind. My body. I don't keep a diary. Well, maybe you could call it a diary, but I do write when something comes to mind that connects to something else. Mostly it's about my thoughts, my inner self. Sometimes, when I look back at diaries written in complete focus on my inner self, I find myself tilting my head in confusion. Are these words truly mine? Isn't language something we acquire from others? Could these words have been pulled from somewhere else? Thoughts like these. Thoughts about what is truly mine. Then, recently, I had this thought: The most important thing is me, this body sitting here. So it's not Descartes' Cogito ergo sum, I think, therefore I am. Instead, it might be closer to the truth of that high school girl named Sonya who lived next door to Korean philosopher Kim Sang-bong during his studies in China, who supposedly said, I conceive, therefore I exist.

[4] Finally, please write your own piece on the relationship between body, mind, thought, environment, and action. You may write about the relationships between these five keywords, select a few specific keywords and describe their relationships, or even write about relationships with other keywords. However, the keyword 'body' must be included (since we read 'The Body Diary'). The type of writing doesn't matter—it could be a novel, a poem, or an essay. And again, there is no word limit.

[Body and Thought, Mind.] > I must live with a lofty heart / Even if trapped in a lowly body / If this daily life crushed by ordinariness / Is truly my entire existence / I'll gaze upon it with bright eyes / The darker the shadows grow / If everything I cannot accept / Is actually the way of the world (9 and the Numbers, Lofty Heart) > So what if it burns? It'll all crumble away anyway. I won't return. Leave me here. (Black Skirt, Hollywood)
These are the two songs I've listened to most these past few weeks.
Quitting my job last year made me doubt the value of having a 'high spirit'. Trapped in this lowly body, what thoughts—what ideals, what aspirations—could I possibly hold? So what I threw myself into most then was the endless part-time work of washing dishes, carrying drinks, and serving food, and an hour of Pilates where I couldn't think about anything. That is, my body. I distanced myself from thoughts, distanced myself from ideals and desires, and fixated on my body. And I fixated on 'TOEIC studying' – something I didn't have to think about. I memorized words daily, did reading and listening practice. When I wasn't studying English, working part-time, or exercising, I'd sprawl on the sofa or the floor, staring at the ceiling. I didn't listen to music. During that time, I read a lot of books too, but I was just reading them. I didn't have the energy left to think. Then, one morning. After exercising, I went to the library to study English. While studying, I got hungry and went down to the underground cafeteria to order ramen. Had I bought kimbap that morning? I don't remember clearly, but I ate the ramen and kimbap. What was plugged into my ears then was the radio. It was the only radio show I listened to, even though I didn't listen to music: Midnight Diner. It must have been around Christmas time, and the radio was playing a Blue Note version of a carol album. Blue Note carols and a basement cafeteria in a public library. And there I was, eating it all—a woman in her early twenties, wearing black horn-rimmed glasses, messy hair, and a green puffer jacket. Everything in that space felt like a clash. Yet, in that moment, I started laughing. And I felt peaceful. Why did I feel peaceful? Why could I feel peace in that moment, when I had no thoughts, no ideals, no dreams, not even a shred of a plan? I wasn't part of any group, I had no dreams or plans, but I was sitting here, alive and breathing. This body of mine was here. Ah, peaceful. I think I had that thought too. It felt too grand to say I loved myself, but the experience of recognizing myself not as some dream, unattained future, or ideal, but as this body sitting here eating ramen was very new to me. It wasn't clear at the time, but seeing that I left a long, long account of my feelings about this experience, I suppose even I vaguely sensed it back then. After that period passed, as I prepared to go to school, I started thinking about things again, began making plans, and things got hectic. During that time, the songs I listened to a lot were the two mentioned above: 'High Mind' and 'Hollywood'. In my opinion, both are songs that prioritize the mind over the body. This heart I now deem important is the heart that recognizes the body's existence. It's not some thing floating aimlessly in the void, but my heart emanating from within this body. Whether my name is Kim Min-seok, Theora, or Spoo, it's simply the heart of this person typing away at this text. What meaning will this realization, this discovery of difference, hold for me?