I went to the gynecologist for my annual exam, yet another post-vax appointment for adulting that I so loathed. The thing is, this year, it wasn’t really an annual exam — I had skipped 2020, fearing covid, so now I suppose it was I bi-annual exam. Breast exam was fine, check. But during the pelvic exam the doctor found something “atypical” on my cervix and collected cells for a biopsy.

I got home and, naturally, started stressing. I stressed that I had cervical cancer. What is more is that I stressed because I felt that if I did have cervical cancer, it was my fault; I was a failure for skipping my 2020 exam. Mind you, my general practioner had said missing the 2020 pap smear was no big deal: The Association of Genecology had changed guidelines for women my age, recommending pap exams only once every three years. Still, though, I was weighed by the thought that any cancer cells lurking on my cervix could have been avoided if I hadn’t been such a pussy and just gone to the doctor when I believed I was supposed to (to hell with what the American Association of Genecology said).

Of course, the ridiculousness of my mental rabbit hole did hit me pretty quickly and I started to consider the deeper wrong view: I believe that this body is supposed to be under my control, at least if I follow the rules, uphold my end of the bargain,  do everything “right’ — like going to the doctor in a timely and consistent manner — I will be able to force my will upon my body and keep it healthy. But is that really how it is supposed to be?

My preference for my body is a health state, it is a state I identify with, a state I have more or less enjoyed for some time, so I tend to view that state as normative. When it is ‘off’, there must be a personal failure that led to a deviation from the normative state. But, for starters, my view of normative is wrong. What is actually normal is for everything to change and decay and sicken. Why should I believe this body reflects me, my standards of normal and acceptable, when quite clearly the evidence it does not is sitting right there on my cervix.

Why should I believe that if I upkeep my end on an imaginary agreement, I diligently go to doctors appointments, this body is bound to stay healthy? Stay in a state of health that is utterly against its shifting, changing, degrading nature to stay in. This is just a mental construct to scaffold the illusion of control –if I do A body must do B. I didn’t do A so it must be my fault body didn’t do B. But this arrangement, this logical tautology, exists in my mind alone. This is not reality. There is no bargain with my body.

 At the deepest level, I have a belief I can game this world and win. Like if I make up some set of ‘right’  actions, and then diligently do them, I have earned the title of right, of just, of deserving; I have become an identity that enables me, ENTITLES ME, to become some great master of the universe. Or at least master of my belongings. Or at least master of my body…Master of something damn it!

But the truth is, no evidence in the world proves that this crazy equation I made up is how things really are. In fact, all around, my body, my belongings are there to give ready testimony to my lack of mastery. To my lack of  entitlement of control. My diligently attending annual physicals not withstanding. And so, perhaps its time to go back again to exploring the evidence my body and belongings have been whispering (actually totally screaming) all along…stay tuned dear reader for a return to Anatta-lakkhana sutra.