We can look and still not see. We can listen and hear nothing. Why then are there no comparative words for smell and taste and touch? Do we value these other senses so little? Is this because visual and auditory messages are the primary methods of human communication? If we communicated more be smell like a wolf or dog, would we have a word for investigation by smell?
And what about sniff? Can we sniff, and smell nothing? Is feel the touch equivalent? Can we touch, but not feel?
Perhaps then the words exist, but we do not value them. Perhaps we have become smell and touch atrophied. Perhaps those senses have fallen out of use in a world of televisions and phones and computer screens- devices designed to serve only two senses.
There are problems, of course. I can imagine that smell-o-vision is not a good enhancement to television or movies.
Perhaps then, the problem is progress. Perhaps, once again, I must recommend that we immerse ourselves in the world to re-familiarize ourselves with the living black earth and the rich teeming world it supports. We are the emo teenager of Planet Earth. Hiding in our bedrooms listening to angsty music.
Perhaps we need somebody to kick us off the couch and tell us to play outside in the mud.
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