Listen to your body, it knows you best

  Patil Armenian Armenian was the photo
editor from 1999-2000. She hopes to be like Jared Diamond one
day.

About every three months, I visit the Blood and Platelet Center
to donate blood. I always give blood from my left arm and take
photos by holding my camera with my right hand. It is the only time
when my camera is on auto-focus, since I can’t focus very
well with my left hand strapped down.

Most of the nurses at the Blood and Platelet Center recognize me
after three years, but there are always new faces, shocked by this
odd practice. A lot of people are disgusted by what I do, but
I’m comfortable with my body and the blood rushing through
it.

People are afraid of their bodies. Most don’t listen to
what their bodies are saying, shutting them up with various
pills.

Too much noise. Swallow.

Too much stress. Swallow.

Too much confusion. Swallow.

Many of us continually suppress our bodies, preventing them from
working until they forget how. Then once a catastrophic disease
strikes, we adopt medicines in a warfare approach. Healing should
not be a war, but a holistic process. To cure such a system, we
need to understand the body as a whole, not as a detached set of
organs and symptoms.

How can a body combat an illness when it has forgotten how to
function? It cannot.

Our bodies have developed a collective amnesia due to the
Western drug culture. They have become disjointed from nature,
forgetting that they were once a part of it. And we have forgotten
that the human body is not a machine.

It is an intricate network of strings and cells and thoughts and
tissues. It is both easy and difficult to break. It occasionally
talks back when you ignore it. It is real, and reality is a
difficult concept for most of us to grasp.

We would all be better off if we saw our own blood once in a
while. To remember what it looks and feels like. It is red, more
viscous than water and salty-sweet.

Take a photo of it. It might help. It is a single moment in life
to remind us that we are a part of nature.

I would like to thank my parents for supporting all of my ideas,
and Garin for maintaining my sanity with her insanity. I would also
like to thank everyone at the Daily Bruin, eye lab, excavation and
FBQ for making my time at UCLA awesome.