Making sense of it all...

I would say for the majority of the people I know, they all have their senses.  Well, some of us lack common sense.  Like all the time.  I have moments of complete and utter ridiculousness, but for the most part I think I have a healthy dose of common sense and book smarts.  I find it rather interesting that people, who have a strong presence of one, typically lack the other.  Like really, really intelligent people sometimes can’t figure out how to do simple daily tasks.

The senses I am really talking about are the 5 major senses we associate with life.  Smell, taste, touch, sight and sound.  Some people are born blind or deaf, or without the ability to smell…sometimes a major life event or trauma occurs when you least expect it and one of those senses is taken away, whether we like it or not.  I posed the question, if you had to get rid of one and had the choice, which would you choose.  And it was pretty much a tie between smell and taste.  Interestingly 90% of what we actually believe to be taste is really due to smell.  What I mean is that the two together are required for one or the other to actually work.  Without the two you would not be able to grasp complex flavors but rather be limited to the basic sensations the tongue can define (salty, sweet, bitter, sour and umami.)  CLICK HERE for some really good reading material on how the two really work together and why.  It is fascinating stuff really, but I am not an expert in this kind of thing, so I will let other people handle that explanation. 

Personally, I absolutely adore eating too much to lose my sense of taste or smell.  And smell, as you will see in the article above, is also connected to memory.  I can smell something and it will make me remember certain things from my childhood.  Smell is also associated with illness, especially of the neurological kind. 

Do that experiment sometime.  Eat something flavored and plug your nose.  You should notice a huge difference.

Anyway, I am also such a visual person, so I could not lose my sight…nor could anyone who answered my question.  I am such a touchy person too.  I can’t imagine not being able to feel a hug or when I gave one.  This is a tough call for me.  Having said all that, all that is left is sound.  I don’t want to ever imagine a world without my hearing…children laughing, songs playing…however; I can still communicate without my hearing.  An entire language is dedicated to it, that I think all grade school children should be taught.  My friend Heidi taught both of her children sign language when they were infants, I thought that was amazing.   Anyway, we all know that communication is vital to me as well, so the fact that I can still communicate without my hearing would be my saving grace in having to lose that sense.

I know for a fact that we take them all for granted.  So the next time you are doing something, really pay attention to what it sounds like, or smells like, or tastes like, looks like and most importantly, what it felt like…what did you feel?