Have we chosen our body?

[4th Eye]

This thread actually has not so much to do (or maybe it does) with the song Parabola but I'll pick one sentence from it.

"Choosing to be here in this body."

Now, the question is: Why am I in this body? Why are you in your body? Why do we see with these particular eyes and not with some other one's eyes? Why have this spirit, or whatever is in me controlling this body, which is me, chosen this particular body.
Destiny? Coincidence? Choice?

Not that I'm unhappy of my body, and I'm actually glad that I've born into this time and into this family and place, but I'm just wondering why have I become to live in this body? There are billions of people and even more animals. Why am I not a chinese or a tiny insect?

I've been thinking this question for many years but I just come up with more questions and I think this is a too complicated and unbelievable thing that I just should leave it and live my life how it is. But my little head is bubbling with big thoughts...what can I do. And don't get me wrong, I'm not spending my whole life thinking of these kind of things...

So...let me hear your thoughts...why are you in your body?

[abefrohmn]

Originally posted by Dr. Hunter S. Thomspon
Buy the ticket, take the ride

Think that sums it up pretty well. I managed to unexpectedly wiggle my way out of daddy's hoo-hoo just two weeks shy of a vascetomy. Guess I was determined to do something or the other. Not to mention God's managed to keep me out of trouble now for 23 years and running. Figure I'm here to do something. Hell if nothing else, I'm have a fun just being.

[LearnedStudent]

I've always thought that that line was about sex. Maynard is choosing to be "in" someone, if you know what I mean.

[andal]

Originally posted by abefrohmn
Think that sums it up pretty well. I managed to unexpectedly wiggle my way out of daddy's hoo-hoo just two weeks shy of a vascetomy. Guess I was determined to do something or the other. Not to mention God's managed to keep me out of trouble now for 23 years and running. Figure I'm here to do something. Hell if nothing else, I'm have a fun just being.

i always thought the choosing to be here line reffered to living in the moment , not always being in your mind but actually in your body taking the moments in life as they come instead of , looking foward or back , contemplating , or what if ? thinking. also being born may not have been a choice but being alive is...i always thought suicide was a bad idea though, it kinda goes against nature, as does air travel.

you can't learn when your dead...if you were created by some other being then perhaps your life does not belong to you, you are perhaps but a vessal or a TOOL

[dawn]

I think that this is an expression of an awareness of free-will...

...I believe that you choose your general path...from your physique...to your parents...and so forth...

[Metalanarchist]

I will follow up andal's thought by agreeing, my impression is that choosing to be here in this body is embracing life and rejecting suicide — the path that would allow us to leave this body at a time and place of our own choosing. This line to me also signifies simply accepting the moment for what it is, grabbing life by the horns.

[dawn]

I have seen alot of opinions relating Tool's music with suicide...I can not say that I have ever percieved any of their songs as being such...


...I think they go a bit beyond this concept.

[4th Eye]

Actually, I started this thread without Tool in my mind and, now when I think about it, it has nothing to do with Parabola. (Maybe this thread should have been in socialize section.) I wasn't talking about that specific line and the first post isn't an interpretation of the song but a question of a thing beyond understanding, maybe even impossibility.

The question was: have you ever thought why you are in your body? Why you aren't an elephant or a lion? Why you are a human being? Why the soul or spirit or whatever has landed into that particular body?

I now think this might be one of those questions which has no answer, at least not scientific. Human body is a miracle, life is a miracle and some things about life just seem to be impossible and not made for a human being to understand.

And by the way, grrrl...I think that Lateralus is a bit about suicide and avoiding it though it isn't the full point of that song...but that's just me...

[gnostic enigma]

my opinion on the line would be the theory of reincarnation. we've chosen the life we live based on our decisions in the past... our karma. every moment of every day we choose to exist inside ourselves. consider suicide... the decision to abandon. life is the desicion to embrace.

every moment of your past has led up to every aspect of right Now. you have walked the path leading up to Now by your own will. you have chosen this. hold it... embrace it... love it. h.

[eyemaware]

Originally posted by gnostic enigma
my opinion on the line would be the theory of reincarnation. we've chosen the life we live based on our decisions in the past... our karma. every moment of every day we choose to exist inside ourselves. consider suicide... the decision to abandon. life is the desicion to embrace.

every moment of your past has led up to every aspect of right Now. you have walked the path leading up to Now by your own will. you have chosen this. hold it... embrace it... love it. h.

...took the words out of my mouth. An interesting idea on reincarnation... sent (or choosing, i dunno) to repent your previous lives sins as your present tense.

[poet]

do we have a choice about what lives we lead? im not sure. i don't know whether i fully believe in reincarnation but what i feel inside smacks of a dozen other life times of losing the same battles. for someone that isnt even sure if she believes in it all, i seem to spend alot of the time with the very specific question "will i figure it out this time?" going round and round my little head. its kind of like a frustration that eats away at the very basis of whatever it is that i am. and part of that frustration is that i feel trapped, glued to these characteristics, this questioning of the world and what feels like eternal turmoil.
on the other hand i have always found it very difficult to identify with people (and i know alot) who claim to hate themselves. obviously we all have elements of ourselves that we dislike. but surely our actions and the way we live our lives are based on the things that we believe in/value. therefore should we not understand our own behaviours/reasons better than anyone else? i know that what i am saying has flaws in it but equally i think that it is evident that at least to some extent we chose how we live our lives.
but then do we? bringing my rant back to what i was originally expressing very badly; can a person/soul be seperated from their fundimental beliefs? i mean could i wake up tomorrow as a chineese dictator or a holywood actor? i hope that makes at least some sense.

[Jimmy Pop]

Originally posted by 4th Eye
This thread actually has not so much to do (or maybe it does) with the song Parabola but I'll pick one sentence from it.

"Choosing to be here in this body."

So...let me hear your thoughts...why are you in your body?
Because I haven't commited suicide. Until I do that, I will remain in this body.

Recognize this as a holy gift and celebrate this
chance to be alive and breathing.
This body holding me reminds me of my own mortality.

[soberwithapenis]

Originally posted by abefrohmn
Guess I was determined to do something or the other. Not to mention God's managed to keep me out of trouble now for 23 years and running. Figure I'm here to do something. Hell if nothing else, I'm have a fun just being.

we are all meant to do something. however it is not predetermined what that something is. We make it what we want to. There is no destiny or fate...havent you guys seen the matrix yet? Its all about choices. If you chose not to read this right now would it change your life? no probably not, but it might. Im not saying im right...no one knows what is right.
And letting 'god' take credit for keeping you out of trouble is exacly why i hate the concept of god. he/she/it didnt do shit, you made a choice. If you did something bad, remember Jerk-off "Consequences dictate our course of action and it doesn't matter what's right. It's only wrong if you get caught.
If consequences dictate my course of action I should play god..."

just read the quote on the Opinion Homepage

[soberwithapenis]

Originally posted by grrrl
I think that this is an expression of an awareness of free-will...

...I believe that you choose your general path...from your physique...to your parents...and so forth...

You most definitely do not choose your parents. They choose you. You choose whether to embrace them or not.

Just read the quote on the Opinion Homepage

[supersonic2006]

4th Eye, I myself have actually asked the same question many times, though I never made any connection between the song and the thought.

"the choosing to be here in this body"

when i had only heard the song a few times i thought it may have been about being possessed. (this being do to the fact that back then Tool kind of disturbed me, and I thought that perhaps they were Satanic or something)

I had at a time thought that the song was about a demon possessing somebody. If you listen to the song with this mindset you might see what I'm talking about. "not alone in this body" "choosing to be here in this body" "we are eternal all this pain is an illusion" it all actually matches up quite well. and i figured that it was like the demon or whatever was like: "oh, this is what it's like to be alive"

by this point i have gone COMPLETELY off subject and most likely made a fool of myself. but, hell.

I'm just rambling. but yeah, good question 4th eye.

[nomanirvana]

This thread actually has not so much to do (or maybe it does) with the song Parabola but I'll pick one sentence from it.

"Choosing to be here in this body."

Now, the question is: Why am I in this body? Why are you in your body? Why do we see with these particular eyes and not with some other one's eyes? Why have this spirit, or whatever is in me controlling this body, which is me, chosen this particular body.
Destiny? Coincidence? Choice?

Not that I'm unhappy of my body, and I'm actually glad that I've born into this time and into this family and place, but I'm just wondering why have I become to live in this body? There are billions of people and even more animals. Why am I not a chinese or a tiny insect?

I've been thinking this question for many years but I just come up with more questions and I think this is a too complicated and unbelievable thing that I just should leave it and live my life how it is. But my little head is bubbling with big thoughts...what can I do. And don't get me wrong, I'm not spending my whole life thinking of these kind of things...

So...let me hear your thoughts...why are you in your body?

If "you were an insect", what makes you think that would be you?

It wouldnt. You are you and will always be you and thats it isnt it?

What is a spirit?

[Chris H]

I was interested in what Learned Student posted; perhaps the song is about being inside another person/sexual intercourse etc. "This body (someone else's body) holding me, reminding me that I am not alone" etc. Is this perhaps reflecting on the human yearning to embrace someone, the underlying drive for both sexual and emotional pleasure. After all, it is difficult- perhaps impossible- for somebody to live totally ascetically without the need or desire for sex/sexual stimulation etc. It is a normal and necessary, albeit curious, part of the human experience to seek this out. When he moves on to talk about "this precious moment " is he referring to orgasm inside someone? Surely climaxing with someone is a kind of nirvana that is a temporal experience, the actual sensation of orgasm vanishing rather quickly (anyone who practices tantric sex might argue against that) I'm interested in Maynard's references to sex, as in the APC song The Hollow, but that is another story. ( I'm starting to sound like a psychologist and I hate psychologists!) Any thoughts ?