Touching Reasons

John Says:

The first thing I thought about when I read your blog, Tyler is INTENT. People are always wondering what another person's INTENT is in touching them. Of course, it seems, the most basic of INTENTS is CONNECTION. And possibilities of various sorts of connection are:

the desire to be taken care of -- like a child reaching out to mommy to be held.

Protection is another one -- touching because you are seeking to be defended.

Also, maybe a feeling of emptiness -- I want love so I'm reaching out to you to fill me.

And, of course, the ever-present possibilitiy of SEXUAL OVETURE.

I don't even know where I'm going with all this, other than to say touch is COMPLICATED, and our world is very into repression, and when you want to be repressed, it seems that editing out touch is a MUST. And then when the repression builds up enough pressure you found you're touching someone with a gun or an atomic bomb, which is really nothing more than an elaboration of a FIST. So touch can be hostile also.

But what Tyler and I are advocating -- and Tyler, if I'm speaking wrongly for you, please correct me -- is touch as direct expression of pure healthy feeling that comes from your core, which always carries the energy of self-expression, love, and support.

One of the things I love most about touch is that it gets beyond the logical mind -- it goes beyond the limits and boundaries of reason. Touch coming from the center feels like it carries for me layers and layers of meaning -- only some of which I am conscious of but many of which I can feel to a greater or lesser degree, and has all sorts of harmonizing and positively stimulating effects on my being.

And I realize that all this stuff I'm saying about how complicated touch can be implies that maybe we need to be careful with it and about it. But if your care and caution is just going to support your repression you're better off to go ahead and reach out without thinking and do some awkward groping and see what happens rather than repress your urge to touch and just go sit in front of the TV.

I strongly believe that if positive touching were to proliferate enough it could have such a great impact on the world that we wouldn't even really know how powerful that impact would be until we did it.