3 November

Learning to ride a bike is my favourite metaphor for life. When we learn to ride a bike, we don’t try to control things too much, we just get on and wobble away, until we get it. Suddenly we’re riding. I see the trend of ageing to be going in the opposite direction, towards personal improvement, focusing on the body as a body. When you’re younger you rarely think about having a ‘body’, you’re just doing stuff. Trying to shape our bodies and appearance as if they existed in isolation from our activities in the world. It’s a form of subjection, rarely noticed, to become fascinated with your own appearance. That’s where the word ‘subject’ comes from. Peasants were subjects to their kings. Are we becoming subjected to ourselves, our appearance?