There are about twenty of us lying on a deep brown wooden floor. The theatrical lamps above us are dark. Perhaps we have been encouraged to notice and isolate noises from outside: traffic in the distance, birds in the plentiful trees nearby, voices in other classes. We may have been encouraged to extend our hearing as far as possible out into the distance. We were likely steadying our breath, focusing on its journey in, around and out of our bodies; in and out, in and out, in and out. From shallow and rapid to slow and deep, especially if before, we had been moving around the theatre, looking each other in the eyes, looking away, playing with notions of status, adjusting speed, height, size and movement. We might have been running. Just moments ago, we could have been making an awful lot of noise. We may be exhausted, relieved to be told ‘find a space’, turn around slowly, ensure we’re not encroaching on someone’s area, lie down.
About twenty of us are lying on the deep brown floor in the newly formed quiet.
_______________________ RELAX!! Although our eyes are closed, or should have been, we can imagine the méchant sparkle glinting behind the Head of Drama’s tremendously thick lenses. This was a game he played regularly. But he would be genuinely cross if we didn’t respect the process. Most of us are both a little scared and in our element. Some fail to stifle hints of nervousness prompted by the command, even though we all know it is coming. Giggles escape into the sweaty darkness. The sensible ones take him at his word. We relax. We listen to our breath. We listen to the instructions. We breathe.
***
We are lying on the floor. This time, nylon carpet tiles support our bodies, rather than wood. The strip lighting is lowered. Sound is contained here. The room is split between a performance area – where we auditioned over a year ago – and a stepped area typically used as an audience space – where we will perform several months later. Today, neither is differentiated. All around the room, on steps and the flat surface, there are semi-supine drama students with their eyes closed, listening eagerly to a voice instructing them to breathe, to find their diaphragm, to bring their breath down into the body and then hold it, before performing a controlled release. “What would your parents think if they saw you lying here, lying on the floor, in the dark, learning how to breathe? A degree to learn to breathe!” teases the voice. We keep our eyes closed. We listen intently. We want very much to learn how to breathe.
***
We are lying on the floor. The ground is once again wooden, but now it is blonde and varnished. There is a row of shallow windows at the top of an outer wall, too high to see out or in, but deep enough to allow daylight to penetrate, and floor-to-ceiling mirrors typical of dance studios on an adjacent wall. The walls are all crisp white. Even without the fluorescent bars switched on, the room is invariably bright until evening.
No one yells ‘relax’. There is a seriousness in the room. Our arms are by our sides. Our legs, slightly apart, have settled into triangles, knees pointing upwards, held up by invisible string. We have ‘lengthened’ our spines, felt our heels, sacrum, shoulder blades, and occipital bones sink and even grow into the ground. The voice gently urges us to soften our muscles, our skin, our flesh. She narrates through our bodies, from the top downwards. First, our skull: let the tension go, feel it fall away, melting, slipping, dissipating. Then the forehead, ears, eye sockets, mouth, and chin. Then the jaw. Let go. Soften. Release. We are told that we will learn to inhibit long-established physical habits that have become ingrained for any number of reasons, from the way we hold our bags to how we respond to other people. Patterns will be disrupted. Blocks released. The voice continues to move through our bodies.
Feel your stomach soften.
I begin to cry. My eyelids are useless defenders. Hot liquid streams down the side of my face onto the varnished floor. Emotion shudders from my belly. I attempt to stifle these, but there is a struggle. My breath trembles, feeling finds its way out.
I had not been thinking of anything sad. I had not been remembering anything traumatising. I had not been dwelling on the past.
***
I have a recollection of sitting in the cafeteria wearing a constructed skin. I believe this must have been before the crying incident. My skin had been consciously instructed to communicate ‘cynical and arch’. My skin smoked constantly. Forty a day. My skin raised a supercilious eyebrow at most things – my skin and I had practised that for hours.
As soon as my skin was permitted to soften, it dissolved, or shattered or gave in: I burst into tears.
Later, the voice told us, we hold memories in our bodies. We think we only remember in our heads, in our minds, in our brains. Of course, our heads, our minds, our brains are also ‘the body’. But we have learned to separate the head from the body. We think of two separate entities. But the senses we feel, the memories we have – where else but the body would they be held? They are the body. How can we talk about the body without severing its head, separating it from the mind? We are systems within systems within systems, intermingling with other systems. We are not bodies and disembodied heads or immaterial minds.
Linearity and isolation are a specific and, as it turns out, peculiar way of seeing life, ourselves, the world in which we exist.
***
I am sitting at my desk. Only my hands move:
‘Isn’t it odd,’ I type to the large language model, ‘that the word sensible in English has come to mean logical and is associated with rationality? Isn’t it odd that so-called ‘common sense’ is like a sixth sense but valued more highly than the usual five? A while ago, before I had read much philosophy, I attempted a book about ‘the sensible’ and it took a moment for me to realise that the author was not discussing the most rational souls in the room, but rather he was exploring ‘affect’; the senses, how we feel things, how our humanoid systems responds in the world just like a cockroach responds to the movement and noise of a chair being dragged out of the way. Is this because, I ask the large language model, the English language has essentially disconnected ‘sense’ from the body entirely, from its five physical senses in our habitual and fantastically dualistic view?
The large language replies, too long, of course. It begins by flattering me and ends with a question which encourages me to remain engaged. But its answer, which I reproduce here, sans sycophancy and invitation, is useful:
The English word “sensible” does indeed primarily mean “reasonable” or “showing good judgment” today, rather than “perceptible by the senses” (though this older meaning still exists in some contexts). This shift reflects a kind of implicit value judgment in English-speaking culture.
The etymology reveals the connection you’re pointing to – “sensible” comes from Latin “sensibilis” meaning “perceptible by the senses.” The philosophical work you encountered was likely using “the sensible” in this more original sense, referring to that which can be sensed or experienced.
This linguistic drift might indeed reflect some dualistic tendencies in English-speaking thought traditions, particularly influenced by rationalist philosophical currents that elevated reason above sensory experience. The elevation of “common sense” to something almost superior to the physical senses suggests a cultural preference for rational judgment over embodied knowing.
French maintains a clearer distinction with “sensible” (relating to senses/feelings) versus “raisonnable” (rational/reasonable). Similarly, in German philosophical traditions, there’s often more integration between sensing and thinking.
I thank the LLM for its contribution. I type at my desk, my back to the window, daylight hidden, in any case, behind the blinds.