failure to thrive

When infants or children show signs of not growing according to standard projections, "failure to thrive" might be the diagnosis. The cause or causes might be a host of medical, nutritional, biological, genetic, psychosocial, or environmental factors. Sometimes the cause is undetermined. 

In some cases, failure to thrive, or FTT, is attributed to abuse or neglect. 

Some researchers have focused on maternal touch as a contributing factor to FTT. These studies examine mother-infant tactile interactions: their frequency and type (unintentional, intentional, during play, during feeding). In some cases, the mother or child may exhibit an aversion to physical contact.

Failure to thrive.

The term has poetic gravitas, a resonant summons for us to reflect.

In the Age of Coronavirus, will infants, children, adults, including the ill and the elderly, experience failure to thrive? Will our necessary, imposed self-isolations, self-quarantines, add the unintended affliction of FTT? At a minimum, will our severely restricted social interactions, our social distancing, cause human thriving deficit, or HTD?

We are social animals.

I know I am.

I already have a burgeoning case of HTD.

How about you?

And in the bigger picture, from a global standpoint, from a species perspective, how much FTT or HTD can the human race sustain? And for how long?

Oh, the longing for touch, our ardor for human texture, pining for skin and pulse, hungering for hugs and human scent, blood, sweat, and tears, tactile tension and tangible tenderness.

fear the beard?

Is there a difference between growing a beard and simply not shaving?

A look in the mirror presents the unkempt appearance of an unshaven social misfit, though that sounds unduly harsh. (Can you be harsh, but not unduly harsh?)

Unkempt. The second syllable sounds so German, and it is by way of Old English, we are told by etymologists (not entomologists; stop bugging me!).

Uncombed.

Can you comb a beard, when you come right down to it?

So, you can be kept kempt, Kokonuts.

Carry on.

Laugh, or else.

Bar Codes

Speaking of bar codes, here are some to ponder:

• It is not cool to say in a bar, "Right now, I find you attractive, but what happens when I sober up?"
• Ever notice that when people relate morning-after horror stories of alcohol-based liaisons, no one ever admits to being the less-attractive one (to put it politely) on the other side of the bed?
• Bar codes dictate certain modes of behavior: loudness, repetition, false originality, flights of fancy, belligerence, pseudo-romance, and loudness. And repetition.
  
• It is utterly uncouth to spill a drink onto someone's lap as a means of introduction and a cheap way to sample mutual responses to physical contact.

The Litany of Social Contagion

War and peace
Talk and silence
Addiction and recovery
Driving vs. walking
Being rather than doing
And vice versa.

Work and idleness
Innovation and lethargy
Blogging vs. reading
Punctuation and anarchy
Kierkegaard and Kant
Voting rather than complaining
Blogrolling vs. not
Love or hate or apathy.

Faith and fear
Acceptance and control
Will and surrender
Community and solitude
Commenting and commuting.

Peace.