December Daily: senses

[resonant]

mific asks: If you had to give up one of your 5 senses (you know, to save Atlantis or Benton Fraser's life, or suchlike), which would it be and why?

Oh, wow. This is a really tough one. I don't wanna!

Lose vision and I lose the ability to drive a car or read a book. I know there are lots of people who get along without their vision, but given the choice, I'm going to take an easier option.

I'm somewhat hard of hearing as it is, and it's incredibly frustrating. Give up hearing altogether and I lose music. There has to be an easier option.

I once knew a woman who had lost her sense of smell -- something about a severe disease when she was a toddler? She told me that when you lose smell, you also lose taste; she could enjoy spicy food and variations in temperature, but generally she found eating to be a chore. And think of the access to memory that you'd lose if you lost smell! This is not a loss that would interfere with work or hobbies, no, but it would take so much of the fun out of life.

Losing the sense of touch sounds dangerous. It would deprive me of everything from itching to pressure to heat and cold sensitivity to my sense of balance.

So I think we're down to taste. I'd hate to see it go -- I'd probably lose the pleasure of cooking as well as the pleasure of eating -- but it seems like the lesser of five evils.



Go here to add your own question.


1.
2.
3. mific: Do you enjoy Christmas more, or less, now the kidlet's older?
4. armadillo1976: Dec 4. From the perspective of a parent of a big(ish) kid, what do you remember most/best from the time your kid was 1-2?
(Asking as a mom of a 1.5 year old, terrified that she is going to forget all the love and beauty and mess of these times...)
5. grammarwoman: what's a go-to comfort meal for you?
6. cesperanza: What three things do you find unexpectedly sexy?
7. jesse_the_k: What's a garment that's well-loved by fandom, to the point of fanonization, that you really don't care for. Examples might be Fraser's hat; Ronon's gun; Sherlock's coat...
8. monanotlisa: What's the hardest thing to write for you, and how do you get around it and yet write it?
9. china_shop: Thoughts about writing original fic vs writing fanfic, whether it's different processes, different feelings (or the same process, and the same feelings), or whatever.
10. julad: What was publishing Exog like for you? The good, the not so good, the unexpected.
11. reginagiraffe: what was the best birthday present you ever got? (You can supply your own definition of "best".)
12. james: Is there a tv show or movie that you would pay a billion dollars to get either a re-working of an episode or a sequel to? (It might not cost that much. Millions.) Because sometimes fanfic isn't enough, you just need to see it on-screen.
13. mific: If you had to give up one of your 5 senses (you know, to save Atlantis or Benton Fraser's life, or suchlike), which would it be and why?
14. james: Which (if any) Harry Potter book is the best totally on its own, with no meta or context or fanfic to bolster it up?
15. james: Who is the most obscure composer, band, or individual musician that you adore?
16. zulu: best vacation/break you ever had?
17.
18. kass: What do you enjoy most about parenting a kidlet of this age?
19. kass: what fannish character is bringing you the most joy right now?
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27. muccamukk: Moments in canon that still emotionally resonate with you, many years later.
28.
29.
30.
31.

Comments

[out_there]

Wow, I'm surprised you went with sense of taste. For me, it would be smell as long as it came with the cavaet that I got to keep taste. Not being able to taste food would destroy so much enjoyment out of my life.

[resonant]

Given what my former co-worker told me about what happened when she lost her sense of smell, assuming I'd get to keep taste seemed like cheating.

[mific]

Yes I think I'd go for taste as well, although none of them would be at all okay.

[resonant]

It would be cool to add a sense, like whatever octopuses have that allows them to match their skin to their surroundings. Though it would drive me crazy to have sensations that the language literally had no vocabulary for at all.

[mific]

Heh. Yeah, or echo location like bats. Would be distracting to be pinging off everything all the time though!