How to Build a Human

If you were to build a model human, like a robot or a working doll, where would you start? Traditionally, you might start with a stick figure. You might start with the bones. Long sticks for the arm and leg bones; oblong, oval or round chunks for the pelvis, ribcage and head. The spine is a lot of little bones, it is flexible, something like a chain. 

You might string the bones together at the ends. Linking them like hinges on a door. You might find some squishy bits of sponge to stuff in the middle for organs. Muscles might be strips of clay holding the organs in, or bits of string linking the bones together across a joint. You might sew up a piece of cloth and stuff the whole thing in and call it skin. 

If you really want to be fancy you can wire the whole thing up to a battery and rig a nervous system to make it dance. 

But when you take it off of the work table and try to stand it up, it collapses. The center of the earth pulls on the center of the doll and like an accordion, the joints fall in on themselves. This model has no shape of its own, so under the drag of gravity, we end up with a pile of bones on the floor. 

Ok, so it needs to be stiffer in order to stand up. Like a building if gravity is constantly pulling down we have to stack the materials so it can't pull us down any further. We make the muscles shorter and keep them clenching so the joints don't give way. We screw down the hinges on the joints themselves so they can’t collapse. Eventually, we get to a sufficient tightness that the joints hold and the model stands up. 

But a working model now needs to move. The doll needs to dance. Those same joints and muscles that are stiff enough to keep it standing, are now so stiff it can't move. The joints can't bend. The muscles working so hard to keep it upright, have no power left to open and close the joints. Building up against the earth’s center of gravity, we have created a model that is rigid but unable to move. 

Let’s call this the “building” model because like a building, this model is dependent on the ground for its ability to remain upright. It has simply fallen as far as the (now stiff) joints, bones and materials have let it. Like a building, if we change the ground it stands on, our model falls down.

Now, imagine, if you will, that before we put the skin on, we add rubber bands. The rubber bands run over the whole figure, head to toe and back again. Like a rubber band ball but with the stick-bones still pushing out, holding the elastic bands apart. Bands squeeze in, bones push the bands apart, together they create the shape. The pulling in of the bands pulls the whole structure together toward a common center. Now, if you stand it up, the joints don't collapse in on themselves. 

The elastic bands also lace between the joints, leaving the option for the joints to open and close. The whole model is still being pulled in by the overall bands to a center, the stick-bones are still maintaining a basic shape pushing outward. But with individual bands lacing between the joints now we can stiffen one limb and move a different one. We can choose. We can create more tension in one area and less in another. We can balance the tension to use the least possible effort and remain upright. In this band model, we have achieved sufficient tension and yet kept the ability to move.

Most importantly, since the bands are all pulling inward we have created a point of reference separate from the center of the earth. Instead of bracing ourselves up against the earth, like a building or a tree, we are being pulled into our own center. We are lifted off of the earth. Gravity still pulls us to the center of the earth, but our own tension also pulls us to our own center. An independent center of gravity means we are free to move within the greater gravity of the earth. Now, if the surface of the earth changed underneath us, we don't have to fall with it. We can adapt. We can move. 

Rigidity is fixed. Being rigid may let us stand up and stay up, but tension allows us to move.