Transcript
A (0:00)
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B (1:01)
Let's say your small business has a problem. Like maybe one of your doggie daycare customers had an accident. You might say something like, doggone it.
C (1:12)
Hi Chihuahua. Holy schnauzers.
B (1:14)
But if you need someone who can actually help, just say, like a good.
C (1:18)
Neighbor, State Farm is there.
B (1:20)
And get help filing a claim from your local State Farm agent for your small business insurance needs. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.
C (1:36)
I'm Maggie Smith and this is the Slowdown. I think a lot about the human body and what it makes possible, the experiences I'm able to have because of my physical form. I wasn't an athlete growing up. I was in my own head a lot instead. So I've always felt like the real me isn't my body, but my mind, my thoughts, my feelings, my perceptions, my memories. But without my body, what thoughts, feelings, perceptions or memories would I have? I feel joyful walking on a warm day because I can feel the sunlight on my skin and see the trees and the sky and hear the birds and the cicadas. I'm having those sensory experiences thanks to my body and my brain. I know we often think of our intelligence as being related to our brains. Smart people are called brainy. Wise approaches to problem solving are called mindful. But the body has its own intelligence. Some things we know because we intuit them, as we say we feel them in our gut. I sense when I'm in danger or when someone is lying to me. I might get a prickle on the back of my neck or a speeding up of my pulse or an uneasy feeling in my stomach. I sense when I can trust someone, too. My nervous system relaxes around them. Our bodies sometimes know things first, and it is our brains that need to catch up. One of the things I'm most wary about when it comes to technology, and to AI Specifically, is this lack of embodiment. What is a brain without a body, without sensory experience, without pleasure and pain, both psychic and physical, without sense memory or grief or romance or deep longing? We need bodies for all of that. The kind of wisdom we can access as full human beings with brains and bodies is the kind of wisdom I'm interested in. Anything less is just partial. It feels flimsy. Today's poem reminds me to be grateful for my body and my mind, because both are temporary. Aging teaches us this again and again. My body knows its limits. By Paige Hill Starzinger My vista is not a line of pine trees aging in front of me. It is the infinity of the Internet. A blue jays cry shatters the landscape like an opera singer. Then silence, or what has come to mean silence. The forest recombines as if time, yours and mine, could be splintered and sutured back with blue feathers, as if we could revisit the past whenever we wanted. And now Studies show brain cells live beyond death, revert to an embryonic state, spike in activity after the heart stops, as if we are able to circle to the end, beginning and future simultaneously. Leave it to bacterial microbes to show up like clockwork. Scientists estimate organ failure to the day, hour depending. I say to myself, I know what to do. As if there's anything to do. I mean, who leaves the house without taking their body? The Slowdown is a production of American Public Media in partnership with the Poetry Foundation. To get a poem delivered to you daily, go to slowdownshow.org and sign up for our newsletter and find us on Instagram @downdownshow and blueskylowdownshow.org Maggie here, host of the Slowdown Listening to and reading poetry helps us find our footing in an uncertain world, especially during challenging times. You can help keep these moments of poetry and reflection going by making a gift today. Visit slowdownshow.org donate.