conditioning program which was capable of converting my somewhat flabby structure into an iron-hard, machine-like, impeccably muscled structure like theirs, then they would be able to sell their program, like a recipe for a cake to the hungry, once they were released and let back outside again. I did not see anything amiss with their plan, and I even told them this, for if indeed they had been allowed to employ my body in this testing out of their exercise program, I was sure that in time they would have come up with a series of diets, exercises, activities and sports that would have converted my structure into the kind of organism that would have evoked deep envy and marvelling from among practically all men who do not worship the dead. Then they could have come forth with descriptions and measurements of my rapid progress to physical perfection, and their program would have been eagerly purchased by untold numbers of citizens outside. It might have made my two bulky companions into rich men.
But no, I would not allow it. The body is not the temple of the worship of the dead; it is the priestâs vestment, no more. To attend with any great part of oneâs time, energy and treasure to the care of this vestment is to leave off the proper use of it, which is merely to signify the office. For we have been granted ordination at birth, and only death can properly remove the vestment and the obligation that adheres to it. Tending to it ourselves, I told them, cultivating it, treating it as if it were some object of worship itself, is to fall into a subtle yet dangerous form of blasphemy. Said the prophet Dirk, We wear our bodies. They do not wear us. For while we can ignore them, they can never ignore us. In life, it is crucial to learn what can be ignored, and then to ignore it. For what cannot be ignored, must be worshipped. (Dirk, xxiii, 12-15.)
As it happened, then, the two who had asked it of me that I let them use my body to exemplify the bodies of the future purchasers of their program, these two had up to then been my most consistent protectors against the raids against me by the madmen and the marauding gangs of youths, who spent much of their idle time accosting the prisoners who often walked about without any clannish loyalty from among the principled violent ones. Unfortunately, my argument against my protectorsâ plan for my body was such that it smouldered them angrily against me, so that they withdrew their protection and talked bitterly against me among their brethren, until there was no other protection from any of them forthcoming.
And thus in a short time I was accosted by one of the gangs of knife boys, and to punish me for my cowardice, which let them pitch me around one to the other while they laughed at me and urged me to stand and fight any one amongst them, the leader of the group cut my skin with his knife, not deeply enough to injure me in any debilitating way, but sufficiently to indicate his capacity for killing me and his deliberate withholding of that capacity. The cuts were also deep enough to create the scars on my face which have caused so much rumor and confusion among my brethren. I hope now that there will be no more wild and exaggerated tales to soar about the countryside concerning the sufferings of my imprisonment. To be sure, there followed numerous other encounters with violence which were equally characterized by their unavoidability, now that my protection from the athletes and body builders had been withdrawn, and even though several of them indeed left me with injuries, none of the injuries have given rise to the type of rumor and outright lie as have done the scars on my face, so for that reason I will not ennumerate and describe them here.
Excepting the company I kept with those men among the prisoners who could be called the philosophic ones, I was now more alone than I had been since my arrival in prison the year before. This did not so much depress me as it frustrated
But no, I would not allow it. The body is not the temple of the worship of the dead; it is the priestâs vestment, no more. To attend with any great part of oneâs time, energy and treasure to the care of this vestment is to leave off the proper use of it, which is merely to signify the office. For we have been granted ordination at birth, and only death can properly remove the vestment and the obligation that adheres to it. Tending to it ourselves, I told them, cultivating it, treating it as if it were some object of worship itself, is to fall into a subtle yet dangerous form of blasphemy. Said the prophet Dirk, We wear our bodies. They do not wear us. For while we can ignore them, they can never ignore us. In life, it is crucial to learn what can be ignored, and then to ignore it. For what cannot be ignored, must be worshipped. (Dirk, xxiii, 12-15.)
As it happened, then, the two who had asked it of me that I let them use my body to exemplify the bodies of the future purchasers of their program, these two had up to then been my most consistent protectors against the raids against me by the madmen and the marauding gangs of youths, who spent much of their idle time accosting the prisoners who often walked about without any clannish loyalty from among the principled violent ones. Unfortunately, my argument against my protectorsâ plan for my body was such that it smouldered them angrily against me, so that they withdrew their protection and talked bitterly against me among their brethren, until there was no other protection from any of them forthcoming.
And thus in a short time I was accosted by one of the gangs of knife boys, and to punish me for my cowardice, which let them pitch me around one to the other while they laughed at me and urged me to stand and fight any one amongst them, the leader of the group cut my skin with his knife, not deeply enough to injure me in any debilitating way, but sufficiently to indicate his capacity for killing me and his deliberate withholding of that capacity. The cuts were also deep enough to create the scars on my face which have caused so much rumor and confusion among my brethren. I hope now that there will be no more wild and exaggerated tales to soar about the countryside concerning the sufferings of my imprisonment. To be sure, there followed numerous other encounters with violence which were equally characterized by their unavoidability, now that my protection from the athletes and body builders had been withdrawn, and even though several of them indeed left me with injuries, none of the injuries have given rise to the type of rumor and outright lie as have done the scars on my face, so for that reason I will not ennumerate and describe them here.
Excepting the company I kept with those men among the prisoners who could be called the philosophic ones, I was now more alone than I had been since my arrival in prison the year before. This did not so much depress me as it frustrated
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