A MANIFESTO FOR ACTUAL REALITY
by David Lauterstein, co-founder, The Lauterstein-Conway Massage School
Inside the body there is an intracellular matrix and, we know, from the movie, there is a “extra-cellular Matrix” also known as virtual reality. Remember virtual means “not real”, just as artificial intelligence means, by definition, not natural.
In a world dominated by virtual reality there are two competing hungers. One is for more and more virtual reality - ultimately an unfulfilling inner momentum for escape. The other is the hunger for more and more actual reality. As a massage therapist, everyday I see and help fulfill the hunger for actual reality. For there is nothing more real, more actual than our bodies themselves. The body is the only direct experience we have of the natural world!
How things taste, the sounds around and within us, the things we see, smell, touch, how we move – these are the miracles we have perhaps grown too accustomed to. Beyond a doubt though, these realms of real action and sensation are the very ground of our being.
When people come for a massage, most often their stated reason is because some areas in their body hurt. But at the end of most sessions, the relief they relate is not just the lessening of pain and tension, it is the amplification of comfort in their body, every movement, the ease of emotion, and peace of mind. These are things that can only be affected by a therapy that is quintessentially actual.
Not only individually is this critically important. Touch – being the foremost sense of actual reality – is the sense through which we can connect with other people and the nature around us. Most every handshake reminds us, every petting of our favorite animals, that we all share, can and do connect in this real life.
To a therapist this is common sense. Touch is the medium of actual reality – it is the only sense which bridges worlds with structure and energy. But to someone whose psyche has been high-jacked by the world of virtual reality, this is news. And it is maybe the most important news of all.
To be a massage therapist is to be a purveyor of bodymind sanity in a world overly dominated by the insanity of people “controlled” by artificial reality.
The good news is, with a new awareness, fostered by massage therapy and other embodying modalities, we all stand a chance, a chance we all need, to live our actual lives with actual pleasure in which real dreams can come true.
This is why we think massage therapy is the best thing professionally that one can do. When we get paid, this is a real livelihood - to make this world, a better, saner and healthier place, we ourselves fulfill the best dreams we have – for actual life, real liberty of body, mind and spirit, real happiness of living an actual life, the kind of enduring happiness that doesn’t issue from computer or imaginary games.
This is, frankly, why Lauterstein-Conway exists and why after nearly 35 years we are still committed to touch, to enlightened education, and to putting the word and fact of kind-ness out through actual, compassionate and skillful touch.
