sleeved.

Whether it's how tall we are, how wide we are, the colour of our hair, the colour of our eyes, the size of our boobs, the size of our dick, the shape of our knees, that little one-inch birthmark on our shoulder, the way we snort when we laugh, every single one of us has a physical insecurity that plagues us on a daily basis. Those that say they don't? Well, they hold a vanity so grandiose it is likely shrouding much deeper problems. We are born into these sacks of meat and water and electricity which come to define us on a visceral and visual level, dominating social media and reality TV shows and fashion and branding, yet it is our mind and our personality and the way we choose to use those bodies that will be remembered. What if it didn't have to be that way though? Imagine a world where everything about you was untouchable, unseeable, shapeless, formless, entirely a consciousness whose meat sack was simply there as protection and a conduit of action.

In the hit dystopian cyberpunk series Altered Carbon humans live in a world where their entire consciousness is housed within a little piece of metal that can be inserted into any body (sleeve) that they can hire/purchase/find and thus a person instead goes from being what you see to only what they do. With the possibilities at hand would we simply accept the body we were born into, that may look like our parents, that our family have loved, that causes you great suffering from the parts of you you hate? Or do we change it: to be taller, to fitter, to be a different skin colour, to be a different gender entirely. Does consciousness even have a gender in a world where it can be placed in any body type? Does consciousness even have a gender in our current world? I suppose not and this fluidity I imagine would be freeing to a great deal.

Possibly this day will never come, at least not to us, but given the choice now would you accept who and what you are, quirks and scars and marks and all, or would you simply give up your unique, imperfect self for a body you could find peace with? At what point do we need to remind ourselves that it is much more than simply how we look that defines us as a human being.