There is a pleasant little mystery in the workings of physiology. So much goes on below the level of consciousness, but at times the more substantial changes become noticeable. The mechanisms are often unknown, and in any case they seem to have nothing to do with the inner experience of the transformation.

This is not to say that they are inaccessible to the understanding. The potter does not need to know the physics of clay to shape it. When the substance in question is governed by a complex web of finely balanced interactions -- when it is alive -- the supremacy of the intuition is even more evident. There are general rules, but these all contradict each other, and only become coherent to the observer who is completely immersed in the life that gave rise to them. It is a form of understanding that never destroys the sense of wonder.

I've been biking a lot this summer, ever since I moved up to North and Western, twelve miles or so from work. Not with any deep commitment -- I'll hop in the car if it's raining or if I know I need to stay late -- but enough to shave about 10 or 15 minutes off my time, and provoke my muscles into some unexpected construction. Age and experience have taught me to expect more complaining and a general tendency toward deterioriation, so the impression of there being some alien process at work in me is particularly strong.

There may be a general principle in this. Making a place for oneself in the world (which inevitably means society) is a process of setting up barriers. These are both internal to the mind, compartmentalizing the desires, and external to it, dividing the world into realms where various needs can be met. Experience creates forms and expectations, and an order emerges. But this order is static, and the internal life inevitably comes into conflict with it. Life is inherently inimical to these constructions; it accepts many contradictions, but its central unity will always find expression.