My Skin Is My Best Dress

MY SKIN IS MY BEST DRESS

_{“Whatever happens, there will be always a place inside you which no one can reach.” – From film “The Skin I Live In”}

Once long ago I happened to catch a fingerling of pike and placed it in a small round bowl; as the fish grew a bit, I settled it into bigger capacity and that had to be top for my children’s room – 200-liter rightangled aquarium rising over the floor by the wardrobe, pulling in surprised looks of guests and making them scram away without recalling why they came, as the pike jumped up blitz-like at a new-appeared finger on the surface and demonstrated (to my delight) the cutting power of young teeth (actually that was me who suggested trying the temperature of water). 😳 Being a 12-year-old teen, I greatly worried where to re-settle “my darling” after it gets too big for this home either; sometimes in my night dreams my room reacted to these concerns and was filling full of water, forcing me wake up in cold sweat what relatives will say. At that time I didn’t know yet that fish growth is directly dependent on volume for living, in other words, the picture of space a fish sees provokes sending of corresponding impulses from organs of sight to the part of its brain controlling development. The story had a happy ending: my Piky reached in length exactly the width of aquarium (40 centimeters) and simply stopped growing, Wise Mother Nature ruled good, in fact, if the finger-biter got longer, it’d have difficulties with turning round within glass walls! Then so it happened I had to leave my city for new work at the metallurgical plant and released my foster pet into a pond of local river.

Since then onward, the more I study animals’ world, the more it makes me marvel how much in common we, humans, have with them. No, wrong, we have everything they have, but in different extents and in other proportions, looks like we’re made of the same “bricks” yet include “upper floor”, consisting of intellect and self-consciousness – and this one single upper floor exalted us to the Throne of Humanity. Practically it means one very important thing: almost everything we feel has an explanation grounded on the laws of nature, even the general predominance of feelings over reasonable mind in the majority of average people has an evolutional explanation, since mind “sits” in the neocortex of our brain, which is by biological standards the youngest part of central nervous system, while the region responsible for emotions is located in the limbic system of brain, being by evolutional scale the oldest part of nervous system. 

To my mind, one of most amazing brick-constituting issues showing our kinship with animals from whom we evolved is body-to-brain relation, in particular, connection between body and eyes. A female of budgie parrot doesn’t lay eggs until sees a proper nest, in spite of living in one cage with male, ready to saddle her up any moment, no nest before eyes – no push to start nesting rituals; in the similar way, man especially deeply falls in love only when he sees mutuality of his feelings, no love seen in return – and his fire quickly stops burning. The speed of passion ceasing in man is adjusted by the same laws: it’s the fastest when he sees coldness, indifference in his girlfriend (up to a few months), and the slowest when he doesn’t see his girlfriend at all (in long-distance relations, when lovers separate due to circumstances and don’t have any physical contacts, it’s 2 years maximum). In both cases with animals and humans everything is biologically justified and pre-programmed by nature, here in reproductional aspect: no nest for laying eggs – no sense in wasting energy for breeding, no girl wanting you by your hand – no sense in spending hours in tears of missing over her photos if there’s no hope to normally marry her and have prolongation in kids. What I’m leading to, is when you try to explain something in your life from biological view (“it happens with me, because it’s needed for nature’s purposes, so for what purpose exactly I have what I have?“) and don’t find an answer, it doesn’t mean you’re so sublime and low-pitched biological doesn’t concern YOU; it means only that you simply… don’t know the answer. So far. While the answer is here beneath, in the “lower floors”.

Now I’ve arrived at last to the bending point for which I’ve boiled all this introductory soup: to CLOTHES. Clothes… What sweet sounding to my ear, this word. Any time walking along the street and gazing around, I thank God I wasn’t born, let’s say for instance, in the Middle Ages when boring rules dictated tastes for looking and restrictions for garments were as strict as in monasteries nowadays! Today, being lucky to live in the epoch of Freedom of Wear, we can buy any duds underlining identity, any fashion, any style is good if it suits your build-up. And especially this freedom touched modern women – never in the history we’ve been so free as now! Jeans, leggins, breeches, shorts, skirts, dresses, gilets, shoes of all colors and heel hights – as I open my shelves, all these treasures are endangering to drain in a tidal wave and one sunny day to bury me alive. Yeah, must confess, clothes are my weakness, I’m a sucker for classy things expressing personality – seasonal and retro, classic and extravagant – oh Lord bless the human inventiveness, my armoury could shoot any man I guess!  😛 

Well, as it turns out, no wonder so many women are crazy about variety of wrap-arounds, for clothing isn’t only a means of exhibiting taste and present mood (ye, every day we choose what to dress depending on our spirits, except the days of special occasions of course), but also… the sexual status! From zoopsychology we see, many species acquire a bright (or specific) color as a sign of mating behavior, for example, male of fish Gasterosteus Aculeatus (three-pricked stickleback), upon making a nest changes its color of belly into bright-red which attracts, by the way, only females ready to lay caviar. The clothes a woman chooses from wardrobe, whether she does it consciously or sub-consciously, reflects, first of all, her attitude to sex in general (as a rule, sex-enjoying girls tend to dress more colorfully and wear more tight clothes than those who’re modest in their intimate desires), and secondly, her level of sexual satisfaction on this given day (well “fed-up” usually looks uncomplexed, calm and self-confident, while “hungry” chooses more closed and less tight clothes, looks more impulsive and unquiet).

Unnecessary to say that especially sexy for men are girls with sex-enjoyng and sexually fed-up appearance, and the strong gender instinctively reads this information from clothes plus expression of woman’s face – the brighter her eyes flash shining when she sees him, evidently the more he’ll like her. There’s even an anecdote on this topic: Old grannies are sitting on a bench near the porch and, having nothing to do, are spreading gossips about everyone entering or leaving the house. As a young lady hurries out and sits into the car, one granny whispers enviously: “Ahhh gosh, how lucky she is! She has a husband, has a son, has a lover, what a fortune, while my poor daughter has none!!!” Yes, this nice anecdote is more than just an anecdote, it shows the link of nature’s gravity: “full cup” attracts more desirers to drink from it than “empty vessel”, a woman having no problems with sexual life (by dressing and looking correspondingly – showing she has no such problems) is far more attractive for men than a lonely one, because Nature always offers easier ways to the target, in this case, Lazy Teacher Nature prompts to men: “You want a hot active mistress, knowing what to do with you in bed and outside of bed? If yes – get the one who is already experienced, sexually opened and developed, you’ll see her by clothes, smile and eyes. Otherwise… mmm… well, if you do have some choice, don’t recommend you the opposite variant… Why? He-he dude don’t be silly, I’ll tell you why, for you’ll have to apply too much energy on her opening and developing until she becomes the first READY type…” 

That’s why next time, walking along the street, hold down to cast withering looks of stricture at wearers of short skirts, tight dresses and shoes on high heels. They are not teasing the public by exhibiting self-admiration and narcissism, as you might think before, now you know the truth – they are following the ancient nature’s calling, pushing them to take exactly these garments, exactly of this color, exactly on this day. The text on Hermes’ emerald tablet “Quod est inferius est sicut id quod est superius” (from Latin “What is below shows what’s above”) could be paraphrazed into “What is outside shows what’s inside”. However, not on the contrary. The main idea of dramatic film “The Skin I Live In” rotates around this iron law: owing to new technologies in surgery, we can change outer appearance, but it won’t change (and nothing can change) our inner world, it’s beyond any reach. Women’s instinct to express essence through clothing is the same deeply-rooted, strong and natural, as men’s instinct to stare at pretty ladies turning heads behind in the streets. And no matter if both have beloved spouse present, the nature is stronger and conquers the mind.    

What’s in my opinion no less amazing it’s the recent observations over direct influence of clothes on… body shape. It has been noticed that women wearing on a daily basis clothes fitting them tightly and demonstrating all bends of figure are highly likely to preserve a slim stature for long-long, by contrast to those who prefer loose figure-hiding clothing, covering whole shooting match. The explanation of this interesting phenomenon isn’t yet known, just guessings, thought its existence is undoubtedly seen through the prism of comparing European and Arabian countries – by statistics, in the former, a lot remain shapely even after childbirth, what can’t be said about Arabian women hidden by traditional robes from head to feet. Here again my dear Piky fish from my childhood is recalled: no sense to grow big in a limited aquarium – no growth as a result, no sense to stay well-shaped for you wear loose clothes and no one sees your figure anyway – no good figure in the end, Mummy Nature has a defined purpose for everything! Hey, the hint understood, young ladies? Then don’t refuse from pleasure to dress brightly! Not in Arabian countries, of course.  

As a conclusion let me sum up it’s surely your personal choice – to accept you’re part of nature or live in illusions you’re a special king. But, if you accept you’re mostly driven by programs, in-built into genes tons of time before your coming to life, you’ll get a super-bonus for sure – the ability to ask yourself suchlike questions: It’s happening with me – for what nature’s purposes? How could I use nature’s laws to improve my life? Yes, you didn’t mishear, you can apply this knowledge for various benefits. Let’s take, for instance, a marital couple. Imagine they’ve lived for long enough together, imagine they have a child and wife doesn’t want second… If she says this to him as it is, I guarantee his male power will shallow, not because he loves less or wants second baby so much. It will shallow, because Lazy Egoistic Prompter Nature will steadily whisper, somewhere in the depths of his sub-consciousness: “Hey, dude, what’s the sense in spending too much energy on her, if she won’t fulfil MY TASK of having as many babies as possible? Damn, she doesn’t want even second, uff, what a shame! What’s the use out of her then FOR ME?” Now you know the truth, dear wives, it’s not your husbands who become lazy with time, it the F….cken B…tch Nature that makes them so pragmatically distribute energy…     The way-out? Simpler than you thought! If you want to enjoy your husband’s long physical adoration, inspire him for illusion you’d wish a second child once in the future, not now, not now, later on… Who cares when this “later on”‘s gonna come? And whether it’ll come or will not come at all? 

And one more, additional bonus. Just look into their eyes, eyes of animals around you. As soon as you believe with all your heart they’re your brothers and sisters, living on the lower floors under you, you’ll treat them quite differently, with true understanding and respect. And this will lead to the reward, very noticeable: as you treat them, animals, God will equally treat you, you’ll feel it by increasing level of luckiness. Don’t believe? Simply check and you’ll see.