xenos phobos

I’m a picker, a poker, an itcher. I can’t leave things alone. It is the same for when I have a pimple; I will perform the operation myself. I have no problem watching myself in the mirror as I adroitly execute the act. This goo that surfaces from my pore or broken skin does not disgust me as it has already interloped with my body. I have no repulsion, repugnance for it per se. I squeeze and pop it more for obsessive-compulsive satisfaction than anything else. True, I don’t care for it’s ugly visual presence but the act of popping brings itself great delight.
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Not so with other people’s zits. Other people’s zits are filled with puss and disease. I wouldn’t want to pop or touch them. Looking at the whites of the centre of other people’s zits fill me with a fear of putrid filth and contamination. Maybe they oughta wash their face a little more often, huh? Hey and you know, go easy on the chocolate candy and chips.

I find this quite interesting. I cannot deny the fundamental love hate shift between myself and another: It is in my mind that this pimple popping illustration exemplifies undoubtedly the pure innate aversion we have to strangers. Why is it that other people’s puss seems nastier than our own? Why can we lick our fingertips after eating something delicious but recoil at the idea of licking an unknown’s? Why is it that we view other people with such disdain? Could it be that xenophobia is hard wired into our bodies?

As an example, look at someone you know. Someone you know and love. Now imagine that you are that person. Pretend that you don't exist anymore that you are in their body and that you see the world through their eyes. You think the way they do, smell the way they do, touch the way they do. Your self is gone. When I think of this I am overwhelmed with grief: Lost and forlorn, bereft of home, the universe makes so much less sense and feels so much less welcome. I reject this fantasy and want nothing to do with it.

As an exercise I would like to ask every one of you natural born pickers and itchers and pokers to squeeze someone else’s pimple. No need to terrorize someone that you do not know, just ask permission from a loved one; your child or lover or extended kin. Consider it a form of therapeutic emancipation. It will be part of your pathway to self-actualization. This will be considered a step in your liberation from the confines of small mind provincialism.

Join me in this celebration of freedom! Say No! to bigotry and Yes! to love in all its state and form.