Diane Ackerman talks about a very interesting subject - touch - and the feelings and emotions behind it. Touch, according to Ackerman, is essential to life. There was a study done that showed that premature babies developed much slower when left alone untouched. This for me was an incredibly interesting fact. Who know that it was essential for babies to be touched, swaddled, and cuddled. It is essential to life and it amazes me. I never imagined that that almost basic want to be "cuddled" (even as an adult) was so necessary to life. She says, " If touch didn't feel good, there'd be no species, parenthood, or survival. A mother wouldn't touch her baby in the right way unless the mother felt pleasure doing it. If we didn't like the feel of touching and patting one another, we wouldn't have had sex." I had never thought about this before but all of it is so incredibly true and makes me think more about touch.
Touch also helps us identify our world as three dimensional. It helps us to picture ourselves which is a really cool thought. We are constantly fiddling with ourselves to understand and to "see" ourselves better.
Not only this but one of the most stand out phrases in Akerman's writing is "Touch is so important in emotional situations that were driven to touch ourselves in the way we'd like someone else to comfort us. Hands are messengers of emotion." This stands out so prominently for me because I know that when I was younger I would get upset and curl up in my bed, wrap my blankets around me and would gain comfort from that. We figure out ways to self-soothe because at the time we don't have someone there to do it for us, but to continue with life we want/need that comfort.
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