Charles Olson

Proprioception

 

Physiology:                    the surface (senses—the 'skin': of 'Human

                                      Universe') the body itself—proper—one's own

                                      'corpus': PROPRIOCEPTION the cavity of the body,

                                      in which the organs are slung: the viscera, or

                                      interoceptive, the old 'psychology' of feeling,

                                      the heart; of desire, the liver; of sympathy, the

                                      'bowels'; of courage—the kidney etc—gall,

                                      (Stasis—or as in Chaucer only, spoofed)             

 

                         Today:  movement, at any cost. Kinesthesia: beat (nik)

                                      the sense whose end organs lie in the muscles,

                                      tendons, joints, and are stimulated by bodily

                                      tensions (—or relaxations of same). Violence:

                                      knives/anything, to get the body in.

 

To which

PROPRIOCEPTION:     the data of depth sensibility/the 'body' of us as

                                      object which spontaneously or of its own order

                                      produces experience of, 'depth' Viz

                                      SENSIBILITY WITHIN THE ORGANISM

      BY MOVEMENT OF ITS OWN TISSUES

 

'Psychology':                 the surface: consciousness as ego and thus no flow

                                      because the 'senses' of same are all that sd contact

                                      area is valuable for, to report in to central. In-

THE WORKING            spection, followed hard on heels by, judgment

     'OUT' OF                  (judicium, dotha: cry, if you must/all feeling may

'PROJECTION'             flow, is all which can count, at sd point. Direction

                                      outward is sorrow, or joy. Or participation: active

                                      social life, like, for no other reason than that—

                                      social life, in the present. Wash the ego out, in its

                                      own 'bath' (os)

 

                                      The 'cavity'/cave: probably the 'Unconscious'? That

                                      is, the interior empty place filled with 'organs'? for

                                      'functions'?

 

                                      The advantage is to 'place' the thing, instead of

                                      it wallowing around sort of outside, in the

THE 'PLACE'                universe, like, when the experience of it is intero-

      OF THE                  ceptive: it is inside us/& at the same time does

'UNCONSCIOUS'         not feel literally identical with our own physical or

                                      mortal self (the part that can die). In this sense

                                      likewise the heart, etc, the small intestine etc, are

                                      or can be felt as—and literally they can be—

                                      transferred. Or substituted for. Etc. The organs.—

                                      Probably also why the old psychology was chiefly

                                      visceral; neither dream, nor the unconscious, was

                                      then known as such. Or allowably inside, like.

 

'ACTION'—OR, AGAIN, 'MOVEMENT'

 

                                      This 'demonstration' then leads to the same third,

                                      or corpus, thing or 'place,' the

 

                                                 proprious-ception

                                                 'one's own'-ception

 

                                      the 'body' itself as, by movement of its own tis-

                                      sues, giving the data of, depth. Here, then, wld be

    the soul is                  what is left out? Or what is psysiologically even

proprioceptive               the 'hard' (solid, palpable), that one's life is

                                      informed from and by one's owl literal body—

                                      as well, that is, as the whole inner mechanism,

                                      which keeps us so damn busy (like eating, sleeping,

                                      urinating, dying there, by deterioration of sd

                                      'functions' of sd 'organs')—that this mid-thing

                                      between, which is what gets 'buried,' like, the

                                      flesh? bones, muscles, ligaments, etc., what one

                                      uses, literally, to get about etc

                                                                       that this is 'central,' that is—in

                                      this 1/2 of the picture—what they call the SOUL,

                                      the intermediary, the intervening thing, the inter-

                                      ruptor, the resistor. The self.

 

    The gain:                   to have a third term, so that movement or action

                                      is 'home.' Neither the Unconscious nor Projection

                                      (here used to remove the false opposition of

                                      'Conscious'; 'consciousness' is self) have a home

                                      unless the DEPTH implicit in physical being—

                                      built-in space-time specifics, and moving (by

                                      movement of 'its own')    —is asserted, or found-

                                      out as such. Thus the advantage of the value

                                      'proprioception.' As such.

 

                                      The 'soul' then is equally 'physical.' Is the self.

    its own                       Is such, 'corpus.' Or—to levy the gain psychology          

  perception                   from 1900, or 1885, did supply until it didn't

                                      (date? 1948?)—the three terms wld be:

 

                                      surface (senses) projection

                                      cavity (organs—here read 'archtypes')

                                      unconscious the body itself—consciousness:

                                      implicit accuracy, from its own energy as a state of

                                      implicit motion.

 

                 identity,         therefore (the universe is one) is supplied; and the

                                      abstract-primitive character of the real (asserted)

                                      is 'placed': projection is discrimination (of the

                                      object from the subject) and the unconscious is the

                                      universe flowing-in, inside.