Another excerpt from my first draft...

"Some of us become obsessed with controlling every aspect of ourselves as we strive for this distorted and impossible ideal of self-mastery. Adam and Eve covering their naked bodies in the parable of the Garden of Eden is a mirror of our modern sense of self-consciousness and our shame at the fact that we are, from a scientific perspective, biological organisms. Our obsession with self-control manifests itself in a sort of Freudian reaction-formation in regard to ourselves; we consume ourselves with activities and methods of distancing ourselves from whom and what we truly are. We cover our bodies with fashionable clothes, put make-up on our faces, colour and style our hair, spend hours body-building or tanning, or make sure we are seen with certain people, in certain places, and under certain circumstances to raise our esteem in the eyes of others. In essence, because we are so obsessed with controlling the ultimately uncontrollable facts about ourselves, we do everything we can that is within our control to compensate for our sense of powerlessness. And in doing so, we disregard vital aspects of our humanity and lose touch with our authentic selves."