Sensory Selection

I was recently asked, "If you had to give up one of your five senses, which would you choose?" Here is my answer. (Please feel free to use the comment feature to share your answer.)

I found it pretty easy to narrow this down from five, but harder to decide on one.

Sight is out. Not an option. Not beeing able to see changes life so dramatically, so quickly - the way you interact with people, with the world, with stumbling blocks, with dogs, etc.

Hearing wasn't far behind. Being deaf isn't as bad for your shins as being blind, but it has to be worse for relationships. I like hearing (certain) people's voices too much, I like hearing music too much, I like to hear jokes too much, I need to hear my alarm clock too much.

Actually, that last one makes me want to be deaf a little. But just a very little.

Touch got eliminated next. Dangerous! I'd hate to think that I was hurting myself or someone else and couldn't tell. Also, there are, well, certain things that I like to feel. That's for another conversation, though!

So it's down to Smell and Taste. Which has to go? Hmmm....

On one hand, I do enjoy food and certain things taste very good. Also, certain things taste very bad and that could let me know I shouldn't be eating those things (e.g. bleach, acid, sardine-flavored Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans, etc.). And there are lots of smells that aren't really all that enjoyable. For every comment I've made or thought I've had about how nice something smells, there have surely been two about how undesirable another thing smells. And rarely (not never, but rarely) do I get the same enjoyment from smelling anything as I get from tasting certain things. Smell seemed to be losing the battle.

HOWEVER...

Like I said, I do enjoy food and certain things taste very good. Perhaps if I could not taste, I would be able to truly eat for sustenance rather than for entertainment. I could probably be much healthier if broccoli tasted like milk chocolate, and bell peppers like Cheetos. Also, how often do I really eat bleach, acid, and sardine-flavored Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans? Especially with my keen sight that would help me read pertinent labels and my tactile acuity that would make my fingers burn at the touch of acid, my olfactory brilliance that would alert me to the presence of bleach in or near my mouth, and my hearing that would enable me to hear those who care calling out to me, saying "Michael Ziggy Danziger, don't eat that sardine-flavored Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Bean! You probably won't like it."

Just like that, the dangers of being without taste seemed to melt away. At the same time, I remembered how closely the sense of smell is tied to taste and how giving up smell might mean substantially giving up both. I also remembered how closely smell is tied to memory and how smells constantly remind me of another place or time. I also remembered that there are a lot of smells that aren't that enjoyable and I realized that I would certainly want to know if any of them was emanating from me. How could I know that if I could not smell?

And so the answer became clear. If I should be called upon (for whatever reason - it's hard to imagine such a scenario) to choose a sense to lose, I would choose taste. And from then on, it would be said about me, "He has really poor taste." Like I haven't heard that before!