Nate Connolly
Autotheory
I
I was sixteen when my body reminded me that it was a wild animal.
II
“I’m burning with love for myself!” cried Narcissus.
“What should I do? Should I court him
or should I let him court me? But there’s nothing to ask for.
I already have the very thing that I want,
which is why I can’t receive it; abundance makes me poor.
O, how I wish I could step outside of my own body!
(Metamorphoses 3.604-609)
III
The disease hit without warning. I was healthy, young, safe. Then, I wasn’t anymore. It began in math class: my body shook so hard I fell out of the chair and knocked over the desk. At times, I was too weak to walk. Bright lights gave me searing headaches. The spasms struck as often as ten times an hour.
The body made its presence known.
Before, I had not thought about my body. It was always there, too familiar to question. I had essentially treated my body as a tool to move my mind across a room, and to speak the words that I wanted other minds to hear. I had thought of it as an extension of my mind, not a thing in its own right.
The sickness made clear to me that I was not my body and my body was not me. It was a rabid, vengeful, angry animal that ruined the life of my mind. The disease did not tear my body apart from my mind — it revealed to me that they had always been opposites chained together.
I longed to go back to the time when I had treated my body as a subordinate vehicle that carried around my mind. I wanted the body to be once more a machine that I completely controlled, a machine that I sat inside. But I no longer felt like a pilot; I felt like something outside the flesh, something that my own body acted upon. I was not the subject, I was the object.
Narcissus exclaimed, “O, how I wish I could step outside of my own body!” I had always been outside my body. My problem was that I couldn’t step inside it.
IV
When I write “I,” the word means mind, thought, perception, emotion, memory. When I write “body,” the word means atoms, texture, color, organs.
This dichotomy between body and mind is almost certainly false. Everyone knows that hunger, sleep, and drugs shape our emotions. Many psychiatrists will tell you that trauma affects and is stored inside the entire body. (The most prominent example is Bessel van der Kolk, author of The Body Keeps Score.) The psychologist Neeta Mehta argues that mind/body dualism was a useful shorthand in the early history of science, a convenient half-truth that we have outgrown. Now, she contends, it stifles the progress of science and leaves “No space for psychosocial & spiritual aspects of human experiences.”
But mind/body dualism was my experience.
The metaphysics may or may not be true — but it was the way that I understood the world at that time, and, if I am to tell the story now, I will tell it through the language that I would have used back then.
I was sixteen when my body reminded me that it was a wild animal.
When I write “I,” the word means me. When I write “body,” the word means monster.
V
I struggled to control the movements of my own limbs. They shook without my consent. The spasms were so severe, and so unpredictable, that I couldn’t learn to drive. Even crossing the street was dangerous — what if I fell in the middle of the road? What if I couldn’t stop shaking long enough to drag myself away? The mind was chained to rebellious flesh.
I was collateral damage in the monster’s self-destruction. My body developed a disease — seriously harming itself — and, in the process, torturing the mind, the real me, the I.
The disease made me exhausted, often to the point that my thoughts were hysterical, unfocused, dreamlike. It also limited my ability to take part in a traditional high school education. This, in turn, isolated me from my peers. That loneliness was a side effect of the body’s disease.
It was shrapnel from the suicide bomber.
VI
Like Narcissus, I objectified myself (James, 18). He objectified himself erotically; I treated my body as a thing, not as a person, not as part of a person, not as the house of a person. It was an animal that poisoned my mind with its disease. I was not the animal. I was its victim. The disease was its teeth and claws.
I inverted Narcissus’ “normal state with regard to lovers — rigid within, tender of flesh” (James, 18). I was tender with the mental self and rigidly denied the body. While Narcissus was “compelled to deny his own identity to the point of absurdity” (James, 18), I managed to affirm my own identity by juxtapositing it against the Other, my mind against the flesh.
I was not sick. That thing was sick, not me.
VII
My body was a wild animal, not a mind. Therefore, I was not my body.
VIII
O, how I wish I could step outside of my own body!
What a strange thing for someone in love to wish:
I want to depart from my beloved.
Grief saps my strength, my end is near.
Soon I will be cut off in the prime of youth.
Dying won’t bother me, for it brings an end to sorrow.
Of course, I would prefer that my beloved keep on living—
but now in death the two of us will become one!”
(Metamorphoses, 3.609-616.)
IX
Countless stories in Metamorphoses explore the psychological experience of “primary boundary anxiety,” which centers around “maintaining the integrity of the body, keeping its surface areas intact, and protecting its cavities from painful penetration” (Segal, 25). It is the fear that something will cross the boundary between me and not-me. Ovid “exults in the body’s seemingly endless subjection to physical change…” (Segal, 10), but these metamorphoses generally do not coincide with mental changes. When Acteon is transfigured into a deer, his human consciousness remains — his body mutates, but his mind is untouched. He does not realize he has “suffered a transformation” until he is already running (James, 22). Acteon is unchanged inside the deer’s body. Philomela is unchanged inside the bird. Daphne is unchanged inside the tree.
But the transfiguration of my body changed me, too. But the disease had intruded on my life. I couldn’t attend school. I couldn’t see my friends. On some days, I couldn’t even stay awake. I was different. The way that I lived my life was different.
I had sanctified the boundary between my body’s health and my mind’s life — without realizing it was even there. Before I got sick, I had expected my body to “maintain” its own “integrity” (Segal, 25) without my active participation. That’s your job, not mine. Handle it yourself.
X
Narcissus is a rare case in which the violation of the primary boundary results in eros, not anxiety. He wants to transgress the boundary. He is not divided into mind and body — he is divided into reality and reflection. Lover and beloved. The Other is a site of desire, and not of disgust. He expresses concern for the wellbeing of that lover on the boundary’s other side: “…I would prefer that my beloved keep on living…” (3.615) Narcissus is almost universally viewed as a symbol of selfishness, but he is one of the rare figures in the Metamorphoses that views the Other with compassion.
XI
I did not view my body with compassion; I had the opposite reaction when I othered my own flesh. I stopped filling my body’s needs. Why should I? If it was attacking me, what obligation did I have to bathe it, stretch it, feed it, brush its teeth, shave its beard, give it enough sleep? If it didn’t take care of me, then I wouldn’t take care of it. I stared at screens so long that my vision grew blurry at the edges, and I did not avert my gaze. I let the light into my eyes and it continued to damage the body’s sight. I woke at 4 AM and did not return to bed — why would I, when the mind found it so much more entertaining to stay awake? Watching television. Reading books. Ignoring the body as it signaled to me that it was in pain.
It was a variation on the “annihilative logic” that Narcissus followed (Dave, 290). His line of thought would sound something like this: “… if I am the cause of suffering, then I must no longer be” (Dave, 290). I thought that if the body was the cause of suffering, then it did not deserve sympathy.
Narcissus wept, “Dying won’t bother me, for it brings an end to sorrow” (3.614). I thought to myself, Physical pain won’t bother me, for the sorrow belongs to someone else.
XII
but now in death the two of us will become one!”
Maddened by love and grief, he saw his very tears
had troubled the water; ripples blurred his reflection.
“No! Where are you going? Stay, don’t leave me, please!
You cruel boy, don’t leave someone who loves you so!
Let me gaze upon the face that I can’t touch,
and feed the sight of you to my wretched frenzy!”
(Metamorphoses, 3.616-622.)
XIII
The suddenness of the disability was the hardest part. My teenage body had already gone through myriad metamorphoses: longer legs, broader shoulders, more hair. But these changes had happened over years, or, at the very least, over weeks. The disease struck in a matter of seconds. As suddenly as the ripples spread over the water, my health was blurred.
Marked forever by the spasms.
It doesn’t matter if the dichotomy between mind and body is real — that’s how it felt, that’s what I lived through. I entered into a relationship with something outside myself: furious hatred of the body. The other half of this relationship was literally always with me.
The relationship became familiar, personal, and, like all things inescapable, it became intimate.
XIV
I, the mind. I, the first numeral. I, homonym of the organ I exposed to unbearable light. I, the first half of the duality. I, the mind that conceived of the duality. I, the narrator. I, the character in the essay.
I, the watcher. I, the one who is watched.
XV
It is not clear to me what Narcissus means when he shouts, “… now in death the two of us will become one!” (3.616). The story ends with Narcissus transformed into a flower. His shade and his reflection both find their way to Hades. Does that count as unification with the boy in the water? Or was Narcissus wrong? What would it even mean to be united “in death” (3.616)? Does it simply mean that they will be the same because they will both be dead?
If so, why is it not enough that they are both alive?
XVI
I do not feel united with my body. Not in death, not in life. Perhaps I never will.
But I have accepted that even without unity, I can support my own wellbeing by maintaining that of my flesh. The mind relies on the body, just as the phantasmal reflection of Narcissus relies on the water.
XVII
One of the simplest rules in the world saved me: treat others how you want to be treated. A kindergarten cliche. Normally, that rule does not apply to your own body, but I had spent months thinking about the world through the framework of mind-body dualism. I had managed what Narcissus could not: I “became other” (James, 19) to myself. It was second-nature to think of the body as another thing. Gradually, I began to think of it as an object that I acted upon.
As I said, when the disease began, I turned into an object that the body acts upon. But my habit of denying its needs — water, sleep, breaks from screentime — forced me to realize that our relationship was mutualistic. It cut both ways. The disease harmed me, but I harmed my body just as much.
I wanted to be better than my body. If I had an active role in shaping our relationship, if I had power, then I didn’t want to victimize something else. I wanted to show compassion.
XVIII
I objectified my body (James, 18), and that drove me to neglect it.
I personified my body, and that drove me to nurture it.
XIX
I washed the dishes. I brushed my teeth. Mostly, I felt bored. But the work got done.
As my emotions cooled, I saw the obvious: my body hadn’t chosen to be diseased. It couldn’t make choices at all. This sounds like it should not have been a revelation, but I was a scared, angry child. I knew all along that my body wasn’t intentionally sick, but I hadn’t felt it.
The moment that illusion broke — the moment that I lived “with reflection” (James, 18) — I discovered that the body was not my warden, it was my fellow prisoner. My neighbor.
My companion.
XX
One day, my spasms will end and I will drive to Arizona and witness the saguaros, the mesas, the sunsets, the adobe. I will lay my body down to rest in the sand. The desert will be rust-red all around me and I will drink the daylight. My body will be free. I will be free.
That fantasy seethes in my head at all times. Right now, it is impossible. I cannot drive if I still have the spasms. I could fly to Arizona, but that would defeat the point. What I want is independence. I want to drive off into the wild and take my healthy body with me.
But even if the spasms end, the fantasy cannot happen unless I care for my body here and now. There can’t be a road trip in the future (driving long hours, sleeping in a car) without a healthy back. Without eyes that see clearly. Without a good gut. Without the mind’s partnership. I need to care for my body so that it is ready for me if the disease ever relents.
I have stretched it, fed it, cleaned it, and made peace with it for almost half a decade now. The disease is still here. Sometimes better, sometimes worse. But I no longer blame my body for being sick. We’re in this together. Like anything that stays by your side for five years, my body became a partner.
And any partnership that lasts this long is a form of love.
XXI
“No!” Narcissus cries when ripples distort his reflection, “Where are you going?” (3.619)
Here, Narcissus returns to the word “you.” Ever since Narcissus realized that he was his own beloved, Narcissus had spoken in first and third person. But now — knowing full well that the boy is his own reflection — Narcissus says “you” again.
At this point, the myth becomes more than a case of mistaken identity. When Narcissus says “you,” he is aware that there is nobody else on the other side of the mirror. “You” is a synonym for “I.” Narcissus consciously, “willfully” (James, 18), romantically continues to treat his reflection as another being in spite of the truth. He allows “reason and order [to] decompose” so that he can knowingly dive into the delusion (Segal, 10).
The story is more than a “failure of self-knowledge” (McMahon, 66). Narcissus achieves self-knowledge, but it doesn’t matter: enlightenment can’t save him.
Narcissus knows, and he loves anyways.
XXII
and feed the sight of you to my wretched frenzy!”
While he wept, Narcissus ripped his tunic
and beat his naked chest with hands as hard as marble.
His skin turned pinkish red like a sour grape.
When the water cleared, he saw what he had done
to his reflection, and he could not endure it.
Just as wax melts in flames, or morning snow melts under the sun,
so too did Narcissus dissolve, consumed by the fire of his yearning.
(Metamorphoses, 3.622-2)
XXIII
Narcissus died because he viewed his own flesh as a lover.
I survived for the same reason.
Acknowledgments
My translation would not have been possible without the advice and support of Maurice O. Martin. As always, my writing relies on Heath, who held the original Moonboy.
Appendix: The Monologue
“I’m burning with love for myself!” cried Narcissus.
“What should I do? Should I court him
or should I let him court me? But there’s nothing to ask for.
I already have the very thing that I want,
which is why I can’t receive it; abundance makes me poor.
O, how I wish I could step outside of my own body!
What a strange thing for someone in love to wish:
I want to depart from my beloved.
Grief saps my strength, my end is near.
Soon I will be cut off in the prime of youth.
Dying won’t bother me, for it brings an end to sorrow.
Of course, I would prefer that my beloved keep on living—
but now in death the two of us will become one!”
Maddened by love and grief, he saw his very tears
had troubled the water; ripples blurred his reflection.
“No! Where are you going? Stay, don’t leave me, please!
You cruel boy, don’t leave someone who loves you so!
Let me gaze upon the face that I can’t touch,
and feed the sight of you to my wretched frenzy!”
While he wept, Narcissus ripped his tunic
and beat his naked chest with hands as hard as marble.
His skin turned pinkish red like a sour grape.
When the water cleared, he saw what he had done
to his reflection, and he could not endure it.
Just as wax melts in flames, or morning snow melts under the sun,
so too did Narcissus dissolve, consumed by the fire of his yearning.
Metamorphoses, 3.604-29
Bibliography
Dave, Naisargi . “Narcissus.” In Anthropocene Unseen, edited by Cymene Howe and Anand Pandian. Punctum Books, 2020. https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv11hptbw.49.
James, Paula. “Crises of Identity in Ovid’s Metamorphoses.” Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies, no. 33 (1986).
McMahon, Robert. “Christian Scripture of Ovid’s Narcissus in the ‘Commedia’ .” Pacific Coast Philology 20, no. 1/2 (1985).
Mehta, Neeta. “Mind-Body Dualism: A Critique from a Health Perspective.” Mens Sana Monographs 9, no. 1 (2011): 202. https://doi.org/10.4103/0973-1229.77436.
Ovid. Metamorphoses. Translated by Nate Connolly. Submitted for publication, 2024.
Segal, Charles. “Ovid’s Metamorphic Bodies: Art, Gender, and Violence in the ‘Metamorphoses.’” Arion: A Journal of Humanities and the Classics 5, no. 3 (1998).
Nate Connolly hosts the Spotify podcast Confounded Sanctity and runs a YouTube channel for video essays and visual poetry. He posts analysis and original fiction on a Substack blog also called Confounded Sanctity. His Tumblr is @nateconnolly.
Photo Credit: Coriander Focus is a full time creator, working most in the mediums of multimedia photography and written word. Coriander creates between four and eight thousand photos per year and shares her art with her community alongside poetry, short stories, and other creative exploration. Coriander spent her youth deep in the mountains of rural Appalachia where her love of wild places was cultivated. She has since captured that love through her creative endeavors for more than a decade. She has worked as an artist and has had her work displayed nationally across galleries, shows and publications since 2010. Notable highlights of Coriander Focus’ recent career have been Her Voice, Her Vision – Chesapeake Arts Center (2024) Windows to the Inside, Woman Made Gallery (2023) and Sarasvati Creative Space Residency (2022)
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