We cannot live without the wet

All the important moments in human life are wet. From the breaking waters of birth, to the liquid putrefaction of death; from spitting anger to tearful grief; from the genital leaking of lust to the orgasmic flood; from wet kiss to bloody murder; from homely cooking to the masterful expression of the arts - the events which mark a human life are wet. As they should be on a planet whose surface is predominantly water.

Societies avoid and control the wet world, keeping it at bay, out of sight and secreted from the ordered, dry world. Diseases live in the water. The choleras, colds and contaminations of our bodies, both our individual and our social bodies, as well as the proof of our our individual and our social bodies, as well as the proof of our desires and lusts, our fears and angers, our rebellions and wars, are all wet. In our cities and suburbs the wet is removed to toilets, baths, drains, sewerage, sinks, stoves, handkerchiefs, tissues and, of course, our beds and condoms, a huge and rambling, underground structure of defense and control, representing a kind of public neurosis on which our survival depends.

There is thus a limited space in the public world in which the wet event of the individual life can actually take place. Yet every day of our lives we must, as children of liquid life, find our way to water, in the bath, under the shower, at beaches, rivers, ponds and pools. It is there we find our most simple joys, waiting close to our oldest fears. We cannot live without the wet - or laugh, or cry, or even love.

Seamus Wilson, from “A Place To Go”

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