These are all conditions to describe someone who is missing one of the five senses: Touch, taste, hear, see and smell. In my Photography II class, we were assigned to read this passage by Diane Ackerman that began overflowing my sensations; filling my thoughts with countless memories that I have experienced.
Each of us going about every day; breathing, tasting, observing, talking, putting on and taking off our clothes without even thinking about how we are able to do these mindless acts. Once you learn about it, it is amazing incredible our bodies can really be. Our sense connects us with our past and can help us to predict the future. We extended our sense through objects that are used by people all over the world: microscopes, stethoscopes, otoscopes, needles, glasses, robots, CT scans, MRI scans, etc. To see inside the body is something we can't do with the naked eye. Although we have such ability to see observe/experience everything the world has given us, we are still limited by the unknown.
I can remember the stark, perpetuating trail of this foul odor seeping through the cracks of my garage door. I opened up to see my dog in the dim light, leashed to a wooden shelf in my garage. The air felt musky as if someone had just smoked a cigarette inside, creating a backlash of poison to my nose hairs. I covered my mouth to mask the fumes, only for them to seep through the fabric of my clothing not long after. My dog had been sprayed by a skunk while we were coming home from a vacation. The person watching our dog had just been there but left her in the garage because we were almost home. It became such a familiar smell to me. I open up my car windows in the summertime where it simultaneously hits me, then disappears as I drive past. We constantly smell, with every breath we take.
Can you describe to me what your house smells like? What about one of your friend's houses?What about your mom or your dad? How would you even go about describing it? It's hard to describe what we smell. We describe how it makes us feel; sickening, breathtaking, gross, delightful, etc. We breathe about 23,040 times in a day and walk around approx. 438 cubic feet of air, that's a lot. To be honest, I thought we breathed more...don't we all breathe differently?
If any neuron in your brain gets destroyed, it is gone forever; unrepairable. When neurons in your eyes or ears are totaled, the organ becomes irreparably damaged (except your nose hairs that regenerate every 30 days).
When you use your touch ID to enter your iPhone, your phone has the ability to map and memorize your fingerprint pattern. It doesn't work with another person because their fingerprint is different than yours, same with your pores. Everybody has unique pore patterns so it makes sense why some people generate more acne than others. Our skin undoubtedly protecting us every single day to such a powerful extent. Even in negative degree weather, we are able to withstand extreme amounts of pressure on our skin and those with more hair follicles are more sensitive to pressure. People who suffer from MS typically can't identify what an object is by feeling it, only by seeing it. When we lose feeling of our skin; being numbed, a body part falling asleep, we feel different. We feel as if we are an alien to our own skin. After feeling so alienated, it comes back, for most of us, then we are kind of relieved to have feeling again.
Think of your FAVORITE food. The way it looks, the way it tastes; every drop of flavor hitting your taste buds, exciting your mind and your tummy for more. What if you were never able to taste that again? Has your appetite for different foods decreased or increased since you've gotten older? Known fact: as you grow older, your taste buds do not regenerate as often, then you begin to lose your taste. Savoring every bite helps you to enjoy your meals more, but did you know most humans chew up to 100 times per minute? What's the rush?! Humans have around 10,000 taste buds on their tongues. Do you know how many cows have? 25,000! All they eat is grass! I wonder if it tastes differently to them?
If you have ever been to outer space, you know how silent it is. On earth, you know how loud it is. There usually is no sense of quiet because something is always happening around you until everybody is quiet at night. In actuality, people all over the world are moving constantly. The soothing sound of a heartbeat or the spellbinding voice of someone singing your favorite song is all the working of three bones and a little fluid in our ears. Have you ever thought about why we can't hear our stomach digesting our food? Or the blood running through our veins to keep us alive? How do we know we are actually still pumping blood? Well, you would probably be dead if you weren't pumping blood properly. Some say that once your heart stops beating is when you are declared dead, but it really isn't until your mind turns off that you are officially nonexistent. I am grateful to be born with the ability to use all my senses, but some people can't. That's why there are terrific and extremely intelligent people in the world who created things such as glasses and hearing aids to help those whose senses are damaged.
I can't imagine a world where I wouldn't be able to take photos. Where I wouldn't be able to see the faces of the people and things I love the most. It is a blessing and a curse to be able to see through the inner workings of our eyes. They are genuinely the eye of the beholder, the beholder being oneself. Ackerman explains, "seeing is proof positive, we stubbornly insist". It's true. Someone can say they will do something, but we don't really believe them until prove it. She references when God says, he viewed each day's toil and "saw that it was good", then determining that we, as humans, we all able to live another day. And if it was bad? Would he come to deliver us our consequences? Some believe so, some don't.
At the end of the passage, Ackerman says something very inspiring that I will leave you with: "Both science and art have a habit of waking us up, turning on all the lights, grabbing us by the collar and saying, "WOULD YOU PLEASE PAY ATTENTION?!"
Use your senses! Explore the world and don't be afraid to take risks. You will discover something new, your senses will go crazy and you will thank yourself.
