As I write this, I’m on day 7 of a stomach bug. One the ways that food moves is biologically, which is to say, “through us.” And food has been moving very quickly through me for the past week. I’m the type of patient who initially tries to figure out how (and from whom) I got the bug and whether it’s viral or bacterial. My family has been sick a lot in the past month. Only one of the five of us hasn’t had some form of intestinal distress. So in my head, I’m pointing fingers. On top of that, I’m cranky. It’s not a good look. I do not like this about myself, and I’m trying to change my thinking.
When I’m in this kind of mood, I try to create a web of connections that makes individual judgment seem kind of reductive and not really that significant. What is interesting about this situation isn’t the fact that kids in daycare bring home literal and figurative bugs. It’s not the fact that I can’t eat (which is my main focus). Parents of young kids are accustomed to this (even if our bodies are not). It’s not the general fact of transmission of viruses and bacteria in the world. I kind of got my fill of that kind of discussion during Covid. Even after Covid, I’m not even versed enough in science to have an informed opinion about the transmission of viruses. However, the particular transmission of this particular bug (if that is what it is) has shut me down enough to make me stop and think about all the other things that we are transmitting to one another, some of which are very interesting.
For example, In The Transmission of Affect Teresa Brennan writes about how we transmit feelings to one another not just through words, but also through hormones. She writes, “the behavior of hormones has a profile that fits with what we have learned so far about the transmission of affect; and what we have learned is that such transmissions affect the subject’s intentionality, insofar as the subject’s agency is composed of its affects or passions” (76). Pheromones can jump between individuals, influencing behavior.