The ancient Hebrews viewed the body as an interconnected whole. Using the body as a metaphor of deep communion, each interdependent part connects to its whole personality. Some parts of the body are viewed as honourable, we give them VIP status, whereas other parts are third-class passengers along for the ride. A subspecies of this sort, fat is considered baggage-class. The wisdom of an ancient writer maintained that all parts are equal manifestations of the whole to be treated with honour. The lower, weaker parts need the most tender care and must be seen as essential to the whole organism.

Nothing empowers a person more than to give them a say in how they are understood or treated. Wilber’s upper left quadrant, the subjective, is designed to give a voice to experience. I can think of two ways to do this. One would be to tell you how I feel about being a fat person. Another is to let my fat itself do the talking, as if it were a person. This second, more metaphorical, approach is closer to what Wilber’s subjective quadrant is about. Giving my fat a voice allows it to speak from its subjective depths:

Whether I’ve seen too many pictures of the first human figure, the fat Venus of Wildendorf (30,000 BCE), or have associated the process of eating with my mother, I see myself as a feminine substance. This clashes with the masculine body that I find myself in: no “man of steel”here! Most people with a superabundance of me are female. Most books written about me are written by women. Most support groups that deal with me speak in female images and tones. Yet I am male with a distinctively feminine concern. As a result, I don’t tend to talk about it much. After all, Susie Orbach has declared that “Fat is a Feminist Issue.” This is part of the reason my words get caught in my throat. I don’t know how to talk about myself in ways that make sense to the deepest part of me. I not only protect Art’s vital organs, I also form sheath-like armour around his personality to ward off damage to his inner being. Odd isn’t it, to hide in something as conspicuous as fat? Standing out, larger than life, I obscure the more subtle aspects of Art. Low as I am in the body’s hierarchy, I protect his sense of smallness, vulnerability, any part of him susceptible to annihilation. Art’s sadness, tears and a multitude of confused feelings of inferiority are embedded in my mass and are defended from the blows he fears. My boundaries have not maintained their fortress strength. As Art matured, he discovered that retreat into his flesh only made him stand out in the crowd. Too much protection ironically left him more vulnerable. The difference his appearance made distanced him from others. Children laughed and taunted him because of my presence. His association with me led some to think him slow, slovenly and stupid, no matter how much he achieved. The French linguist Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929) put it poignantly "The obese is... in a total delirium. For he is not only large, of a size opposed to normal morphology: he is larger than large. He no longer makes sense in some distinctive opposition, but in his excess, his redundancy." (qtd. in Boorstin) This quotation confirms Art’s suspicion that the presence of body mass doesn’t make a clear statement about boundaries, self-protection or nurturance but communicates only an extraneous “waste of space.” I have been marked as a symbol of indulgence rather than a creative, however unsuccessful, response to threat. I can no longer hide myself in myself; I am forced out. Art can’t avoid playgrounds, airports, restaurant booths and clothing stores so I will go there with him. I will literally take up my burden and try to translate the message written in my cellularity: “We all, fat or thin, need protection, compassion and understanding.” I will use my voice and my body to ask others to look past the scale, the fashion statement and the prejudice into a soul that lies not on the surface of people but within them.