"I Am Right"

There is a moment when you feel it before you think it. Your jaw goes hard. Your teeth press together. Your shoulders migrate upward, as though you were carrying something that never belonged on your shoulders. Your chest narrows. Your breath grows shallow. Your hands close into fists or grip the armrests without you noticing. And then you hear yourself say this one sentence, inwardly or aloud: "I am right."

This is not a topic of dispute — it is a bodily state. Whoever must be right is holding on to something — and the holding happens first in the tissue, the muscle, the breath, the nervous system. Long before the argument is on the tip of your tongue, your body has already taken a position. It has locked itself. It has adopted a stance it no longer wants to leave. And precisely this locking is the actual symptom.