Touch

Touch is ten times stronger than verbal or emotional contact, and it affects damned near everything we do.  No other sense can arouse you like touch.  We always knew that, but we never realized it had a biological basis.  If touch did not feel good, there would be no species, parenthood, or survival.  The mother would not touch her baby in the right way unless the mother felt pleasure in doing it. If we did not like the feel of touching and patting one another, we would not have had sex.  Those animals that did more touching instinctively produced offspring which survived and had more energy, and so passed around their tendency to touch which became even stronger.  We forget that touch is not only basic to our species, but the key to it.   - Saul Schanberg

One thing I miss about Thailand is good massages.  When I was there I could get at least one per week.  Now I am lucky to get one per month.  I started getting massages way back when I lived in Birmingham.  In a way, being on that table and feeling those hands truly allowed me to drop any inhibitions I might have had.  Also, I think massage time gave me a rare quiet moment when I could learn to just be.  There was no TV, no sports, no newspapers, nothing.  Human beings definitely need touch from our cradles to our deathbeds.