In praise of the hand! I do so much with mine and have very much take them for granted especially now that I realize they may not always be as pliable a elastic as they once were.
Would I be an artist without my hands - maybe but in very different ways. Would I have developed differently without hands, that is for sure. How I don't know. Would it have effected my ability to think and perceive and survive? Likely but, perhaps I would have adapted other ways of knowing.
What I am leaning as I read Frank R. Wilson's book The Hand (1998, Vintage) is that the development of the early hominid brains (think Lucy the first known human) and the human brain were and are dependent upon hand brain interaction and tool usage.
Lucy - Australopithicus anamemsis 3.9 to 4.2 million years ago
Without hand manipulation there would have been no brain growth. Without brain growth there would have been no experimentation and invention through manipulation. The hand and the brain are inseparable.
As the phenomenologists, Husserl and Merleau-Ponty said we come into being through our sense of touch of the body (Paterson, 2007). We sense ourselves by means of our hands touching each other - touching and being touched in dual awareness.
So much more to say and think about, but for now I am going to rest these weary hands for which I am so grateful.
What are you grateful for today?
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Please tell me what good thing you encountered today.