Benjamin Saltzman

We do it when we feel disgusted.

We do it when we feel shame.

We do it when we grieve.

We do it when we think or when we feel embarrassed or when we're confronting something sort of awful or even in some cases when we're playing.

And the more that I've realized the range and thought about the range of meaning in this gesture, the more I've come to think of it as kind of a –

something important actually, right?

To do away with it entirely, to avoid turning away entirely is not only impossible, but it leaves out an opportunity to process, to reflect, to think, to grieve, to feel, right?

And yeah, I don't want to get rid of those things because I think they're important to how we relate to the world.

Yeah.

No, that's the dilemma.

And there are two things I guess I'd say about that.

One is you've probably noticed that if you encounter someone or something that provokes you to turn away, you may –

Notice that you still kind of retain the memory of not only the thing you turned away from, but also the act of turning away.

So it stays with you in some ways more powerfully than if you sort of go about kind of constantly paying attention, constantly attending to and looking at everything one after the one after the other.

Right.

So it stays with you, if that makes sense.

And it causes you in some ways to become a question to yourself, to question why you turned away.

And I think that's really valuable.

I don't know.

I think they're related.