Making sense of 5 senses

Today my son was asking me to give him examples of things we can know using all 5 senses. I had to think for a while. Something I can hear, taste, touch, smell and see. To satisfy all 5 senses it had to be an animal that we pet first and then eat maybe 😬

As I walked to pick up my daughter from ice skating, I saw a restaurant, next to a massage place. That made me think which of the 5 senses they are targeting. Inside the ice skating area, there is an arcade; like the one with flashing lights and shaky chairs, water squirting hoses, 3D glasses. To attract humans, like butterflies being attracted to flowers, they are using things that alert the 5 senses as a trap! 

How can the music be aesthetically pleasing to a level that gives satisfaction? How can then deaf people enjoy the deaf concerts and gather for such events? How come ASMR is a thing now? What do we get by listening to soap being cut? Aha, what about the opposite like the chalk scraping against the chalkboard? What is happening behind the scene?

Why do we spent so much dollars to smell good, plant fragrant trees, bushes, and add aromatic spices to our food? We could also add the other end of the spectrum, for example why the biggest worry for a middle schooler apparently is to smell bad at school?

Maybe one big reason we wake up in a day is to cook and eat foods we enjoy. My mother in law spends 20 min to perfect a salad of boiled eggs and chopped greens. My daughters watch YouTuber chefs redo famous recipes and spend a great deal of time explaining the taste with facial expressions, detailed words and scores. 

Next to the massage place, there is a laser salon and a nail salon. The essential need to feel and look smooth, pretty, free of imperfections drags bodies from store to store. When picking pajamas, you might find yourself questioning how does it feel to the touch, is it soft enough? Why do we yearn the hug of a loved one and not a random stranger? Feeling the cold wind on her face, falling and getting back up, what is my daughter chasing on the ice rink?

Maybe none of these were real worries for human beings in earlier centuries or in other parts of the world now. When the goal is to survive a war, a pandemic or poverty, how much could you be concerned about a chipped nail? If you had to spend your day in the field harvesting vegetables, likely you cared less that you might be needing a shower. 

As the world evolved, so did our needs for satisfaction. If we had a portal to do time travel neither community could thrive in the future or in the back. To adopt a life with no farming, we had to fill our schedules with piano lessons, waxing appointments and coffee meet ups. 

The connections we make using 5 senses in our brain is amazing. How about 6th sense then? The feeling of the unknown, seeing into future, reading people’s minds or emotions. When we connect with a person using 6 senses does that mean a deeper friendship? 

Are there more senses beyond the ones we could name? Islamic scholar Nursi mentions heart, soul, brain and letaif as additional sensors. Latife is like a receptor that can sense if available and functional, but could die off and become dysfunctional if exposed to specific toxins for that latife. These senses need to be babied and nurtured to remain capable. Well, I guess one would notice those additional senses if they can use it.

Eventually, the big question is with the unique collection of all senses within us how do they all help us with our experience in this life? Let me know your thoughts below 🙏