Reading this I thought of Van Gogh's empty chair, one representing a self-portrait, the other a study of Gauguin. The absence of the protagonists, the presence of their "props" are so eloquent.
Peter, this speaks to something I’ve come to understand through my own journey—how absence isn’t just felt but lived in the body. My Canyon Model is built on this very premise: a void, a negative space that once held my absent Self. Not just memories I couldn’t access, but needs I couldn’t even perceive, distances and boundaries I had no way to gauge, let alone set.
For years, I navigated the world as if that absence wasn’t there, but my body knew otherwise. It adapted, shaped itself around the missing pieces, carrying their weight even when my mind couldn’t grasp what was gone. The paradox of presence and absence, how they exist within each other—yes, this is something I know intimately.
Your words capture the physics of it all—the way the body refuses to let absence be purely theoretical. It holds, it remembers, it reshapes. And maybe, in time, it also reclaims.
“Research shows our nervous system responds to absence with the same intensity as it does to presence - a phenomenon that challenges our understanding of embodied cognition.” This is only the case if we make embodied cognition something separate from the rest of us and something purely mechanical. Embodied cognition is as complex as we are. It isn’t the body that is dissociated, we are—when we live so thoroughly in our little mental turrets.
Reading this I thought of Van Gogh's empty chair, one representing a self-portrait, the other a study of Gauguin. The absence of the protagonists, the presence of their "props" are so eloquent.
YES!
Your connection to the artists captures the essence. Mike, thank you
..”particles remain intrinsically linked regardless of distance, our bodies seem to maintain invisible bonds with those absent.”
This describes a mother’s longing even if her child is a healthy and happy adult.
Most of what you’ve written, I know all too well. I’ve always been fascinated with quantum physics, chaos theory, fractals, etc.
Longing transcends all distance
Thank you George
Most definitely
I read this three times. Each time, I noticed my body responding differently to the words. That's quite meta, given the subject matter.
absence has a way of shifting its presence within us each time
The physics of missing - this shifted something profound in me today
It’s moving how absence can articulate what words cannot—it seems to have found its voice in you today
Peter, this speaks to something I’ve come to understand through my own journey—how absence isn’t just felt but lived in the body. My Canyon Model is built on this very premise: a void, a negative space that once held my absent Self. Not just memories I couldn’t access, but needs I couldn’t even perceive, distances and boundaries I had no way to gauge, let alone set.
For years, I navigated the world as if that absence wasn’t there, but my body knew otherwise. It adapted, shaped itself around the missing pieces, carrying their weight even when my mind couldn’t grasp what was gone. The paradox of presence and absence, how they exist within each other—yes, this is something I know intimately.
Your words capture the physics of it all—the way the body refuses to let absence be purely theoretical. It holds, it remembers, it reshapes. And maybe, in time, it also reclaims.
“Research shows our nervous system responds to absence with the same intensity as it does to presence - a phenomenon that challenges our understanding of embodied cognition.” This is only the case if we make embodied cognition something separate from the rest of us and something purely mechanical. Embodied cognition is as complex as we are. It isn’t the body that is dissociated, we are—when we live so thoroughly in our little mental turrets.