"Not all historical conceptions view the body as equally “inescapable.” The Greeks viewed soul and body as inseparable except through death. Descartes, however, believed that with the right philosophical method we can transcend the epistemological limitations of the body. And contemporary culture, technologically armed, seems bent on defying aging, our various biological “clocks,” and even death itself. But what remains the constant element throughout historical variation is the “construction” of body as something apart from the true self (whether conceived as soul, mind, spirit, will, creativity, freedom …) and as undermining the best efforts of that self. That which is not-body is the highest, the best, the noblest, the closest to God; that which is body is the albatross, the heavy drag on self-realization."