Re: Sense

from the catchmydrift.blog archives

With the luck of my second marriage, I acquired a ‘Special Mom’. She has a quiet, accepting presence that I appreciate whenever I get the chance to be with her. I watch her and discover nuggets of wisdom. She has lived long enough to share many treasures, among them, common sense.

Many might agree with the notion regarding ‘common sense’ as being anything but common. It’s a sense that seems to grow as the biological senses diminish. Caution is part of this common sense as well as Patience. I feel for those who have lost one or more of the physical five: Taste, Sight, Sound, Touch, Smell. Losing one of these gems necessitates courageous adjustments. My hearing is slipping and I wear glasses. I don’t know if I’m brave enough to face anything worse, but age does create new challenges to overcome.

I remember a childhood talking game that proffered which sense you could manage without. In order to help us decide, we might playact with a blindfold, stuff Kleenex up our noses, plug up our ears, or wear thick gloves. We were young scientists and needed props to facilitate our silly investigation. I felt that being blind would create the greatest amount of trauma. I’m mildly claustrophobic and being without vision would add to that closed in feeling. In fact I remember feeling fear the first time I saw someone walking on the street with a cane.

In that way I think Emotion is a sense. It comes from the heart. When we speak of feeling something, it is beyond our physical senses. I feel that Emotion is the sixth sense that is so often stated in fiction. If it is suggested you are using your sixth sense you are likely tapping into something you can’t quite explain yet you know there is truth to what you are experiencing. You are engaging with Intuition, such a misunderstood sense. Like an Empath in some space SciFi story you are sensing something ‘out beyond’ even though others can’t detect it with their lesser senses. Spiderman would know what I’m talking about.

We link our senses to our emotions with our language choices. We might have a ‘Bad taste in our mouth’ after an uncomfortable event. We could be ‘blinded’ by love. Perhaps we feel that we are ‘out of touch’ with a current reality. Someone’s idea may illicit, “That smells fishy to me.” At the end of a tiring experience we can feel we have ‘carried the weight of the world’ on our shoulders. Western medicine is slowly becoming aware of what Eastern practitioners have know all along: our sensual experience often leads the way to understanding.

We know we are alive when our senses are engaged. Depression is often characterized as a state where senses were numbed. Depression is the closest we get to death while still breathing. I think the experience of the senses is the whole reason for living. I wonder if our soul can make sense of the world without sensual interactions.

My mother-in-law has poor vision and weak hearing yet I haven’t sensed that her reality has got her down. Maybe Willpower is a sense too. That’s a comforting thing for me to witness.