Today we speak to @carlosboeri, professional Tango Dancer & Teacher.
What does this quote mean to you?
It is said of the human being that one is the triple dimension of body, soul and spirit. These elements are essential and necessary parts of the person, so it is not reasonable that some of the elements may have more value than the rest.
Starting from the necessary unity of the elements that make up the person, I don’t think the body can be loved without falling into some kind of narcissism. The body is one of the parts that make up the person — it would really be self-love for the person himself, so although the body is the most precious asset we have, it should not be the object of love, but simply of good care.
I remember some time ago Eduardo Galeano giving his opinion about intellectuals and his rejection of the notion of people having turned into disembodied intellectuals and the danger that the disembodiment of ideas implied.
On the other hand, one can think of the imbalance of he or she who loves their own body over the other elements that make up their being.
I do not believe the idea of creating a shield with love and entrenching myself there from the judging eye is a good idea. If I believe in the integral and balanced development of the person, who elevates and expands us not to protect us but to understand that neither he who judges nor who values his judgment, because in this way we can understand that the human body is beautiful as it is and is thus imperfect by the hegemonically imposed standards of beauty.
We must not seek or receive approval from others, we need to interact with adult respect with the surrounding world.
The approval of the other other is flattery of the fools that can only generate admiration or rejection. Instead, love, that feeling that leads us back to ourselves, communicates to us on another plane, that of union of body and soul.
When we love, we can only love one person, bodies can be admired for their beauty or dexterity or desire sexually but never love. Bodies are not loved, they are accepted.
What does your body mean to you?
The body is the part that drives my being since all human activities are corporeal, therefore I take care of it from aggressions, that everything works and well, I feed it healthily, I take care of stressors; in short I take care of it especially every day with awareness of it but not as an object of worship but as a fundamental part of myself.
My body is a source of pleasure, not to admire, but from the use according to its nature, all the sensations that I receive through the body enrich my soul.
What do you understand by the word body?
The body is that externality of being, what I am is my body.
How do you think that society and modern life affects our bodies & health?
Modern life has made a cult of the body and the image, social networks morbidly expose bodies and images, everything is image and from that place the body is thought of as the service of the image, but well, it is not difficult to conclude that as Society is not going through a great time, and if we have seen live broadcast images of a war for television and that horror attracts us to watch, it is easy to conclude the effects that the image produces in our brain, and thus the morbid use and abusive of the beautiful, the obscene and the ridiculous are exacerbated in the service of consumption.
We think in terms of image, not of social justice, or the common good, environmental terms, transcendence or any other spiritual nature. It is the spirituality of the image and the success that dominates us.
Art, also thought in terms of image and consumption, follows the same rules as those of the market, so the artist produces an artistic object that is attractive for its beauty, morbid, obscene or ridiculous to be converted into an object of consumption. Pure art without those attachments today is bland.
What does the word awareness mean to you?
Consciousness is that reasonable alertness that allows us to correctly evaluate and decide against the pleasures, risks and even current and potential dangers and thus decide correctly.
Regarding the body, that would be that state of self-knowledge of the imperfections of the human body and the recognition of the need for care, for the correct functioning not to show it as an object of worship, but to have the life we want.
This work of maintaining the body is what generates the state of trust with myself; it is that secret and constant work.
How you define nutrition? Is it just food or maybe more?
Also on the point there are many fashions, theories, doctors, great thinkers saying opposite opinions and all with their reasoning. I strongly believe that food and sex can be performed for the satisfaction of a physiological need, or it can be conceived with spiritual connections. The point is influenced by fashions, lobbies -meat, vegetables, canned goods, etc.- with their advertisements and reports that strongly suggest how to live. The body is a very sophisticated system and the even very best of care with food can be highly harmful if the person lives with stress.
Breathing, calm, elegance, chewing, are essential as well as the quality of food.
Art by @_dinka_kartinka