Claudia Tomassetti / we are environments
PRACTICALLY SHIT!?
Minimalist spaces, constant need to disinfect, reorder, sanitize. Everything must be a clean neat surface. Flat, SMOOTH .
Photoshop HELP US FORGET of our PORES, our FOLDS and WRINKLES! OUR HOLES AND DEEPS!! We see ourselves minimally. Superficially. If the mirrors augments our pores we must quickly hide it, CEMENT THE HOLE OR GET RID OF THE MIRROR!!!
As if any reminder of our complexity is a sin…
We have spent years of our lives, our childhood, enriching and enlarging our microbial communities inside and outside of our guts, our skin, our surroundings. And as we became adults we started a blind fight, swallowing antibiotics for every cough, disinfecting every single surface, every inch of our body, taking out our fears against every direction in a compulsive spasmodic sightless motion.
Failing to see the harm we were doing to ourselves.
Thinking of a clean body we think of smooth surfaces, toothpaste-ads-like white lights hovering over, the shape of each body part well-defined and finite, smooth hair, even smoother skin, no freckles, no redness, no hair out-of-place. Order! Everything smooth, in place, with a matt finish over it.
An idea as artificial as a Barbie doll. No matter what you are going to do, YOUR SKIN WILL NEVER BE SMOOTH, NOR EMPTY, OR STERILE. YOU WILL NEVER BE ALONE!!!
TONS OF MICROBES ARE ALL-OVER, IN AND OUT OF YOU
YOU ARE NOT ALOOOOONE!!!!
DROP THIS FEARS YOU GOT AND COME SEE THE BEAUTY OF ALL THIS!!
My friends….WE ARE ENVIRONMENTS!!!!
Not separated alone sterile individuals in a constant fight. We are ENVIRONMENTS. We permeate nature! And is not some made up metaphor. We literally host and coexist with millions of other organisms that live grow and prosper all over our pores, our guts, inside and outside of us. In a constant flow and growth. Organisms we could never do without and that could never do without us!!!
You should rejoice!! YOU ARE NOT ALONE! That’s some good news!
Your gut microbial communities have been there for you since the very first day, as a matter of fact they are possibly the only ones on the planet that never ever stopped for a single moment to communicate with you, check out on you and be by your side!
As every relation you guys had up and downs, but still, always there!!!!
Protecting you… feeding you precious nutrients… maybe making you sick at times… maybe even upset…(but maybe)…. or making you hooked to some nasty food you would rather not eat but you crave for. You thought it was always just you, and how YOU reacted to external events? Well, turns out “you” are unique in a far more complex sense… The combination of ‘you-cells’ and your-microbial-selfs are inseparable! As a matter of fact “you” are outnumbered, and you should not be scared about that!
Your mind is telling you to be alone? To thicken your boundaries and get rid of every single thing you are not “familiar” with? Sit down my friend. You’ve got a trauma to deal with. But that’s ok. We all do. Take your time but you must deal with it. Open your eyes and see how complex it is…… and how much BEAUTY LIVES IN COMPLEXITY!!!
IS THAT DIRT? DISGUSTING? DO YOU NEED TO SHOWER ONCE AGAIN? BACTERIA FROM YOUR GUTS FLOATING AROUND YOU…IS THAT SHIT?
You are going to turn out paranoid…. Calm down… forget what you know about shit and dirt and open you eyes, focus and follow this new perspective! Is just going to enrich you!
Knowledge is wisdom, while fears are just going to make you blind and incapable to see and envision realities and possibilities.
Scientists are all excited about the new possibility to learn about our bodies, our health and the way we function and communicate thanks to the increasing research in this field. Of course is not all sunshine and rainbows, but that’s how everything in life works, doesn’t mean we have to dismiss everything just because you haven’t learned how to process complicated relations, contradictions and grey areas.
Your microbial communities are much more communicative and social than you… This thought might hurt though, this I can understand… While you keep minding your own damn business sitting somewhere in public, silently hating your “neighbour”, your microbes gather and interact with ALL the other people’s bacterial clouds, bringing in new friends and foes, to come enrich not only your microbiota but your overall genetic material of you and yourself (meaning you and your trillions of microbes living inside and outside of you, with you, in you, for you, and thanks to you….as you).
my favourite sources so far: