The point of a prison is to protect society from its dangerous inmates, to rehabilitate, or simply to punish. These factors give a prison meaning in our society.
And the meaning you’ve found in your life and society may well have become your prison.
Meaning, at least the conscious search for it, doesn’t seem to bother us as children. Things just somehow are. We don’t need to find purpose in things, do things that are more purposeful, or find our purpose within the grand scheme of things when we’re young. Thank goodness. Sure, kids ask ‘why’ and ‘how’ a lot.
‘Why is the sky blue?’
‘Ask your dad.’
‘Why does the sun come up and go down.’
‘Ask your dad.’
‘Why does Tommy have more video games than we do?’
‘Ask your dad.’
‘How do babies get made?’
‘Ask your mother.’
But they don’t ask the kind of questions that we ask: ‘Why am I here?’ ‘What exactly is the point of me doing this soul-destroying work day in, day out?’ ‘Does it really matter if I’m good or bad?’ And so on. At some point, we stop asking questions about the world outside ourselves (such as the sun and the moon) and start asking questions about ourselves and our place in this world.
And faced with the occasional horrifying glimpse of the likely reality that we have no real point in this huge, uncaring universe: the flash of ‘life’ we experience (80 years in the context of the 500,000 years humans have existed, and the five billion years or so that the world has turned); as one person in seven billion, on a planet that is just a drop of water in the huge lake of our solar system, which is a lake equivalent to a drop of water in the ocean of the galaxy, which in itself is an ocean the size of a paddling pool on the back lawn of a house in a country that is the vast universal everything, of which our tiny planet called ‘Earth’ is just a part. And faced with only the tiniest of glimpses of that reality – which is only a tiny peek through a keyhole so full of dust that we don’t really see what’s in the actual room, because to see it fully and to realize it deeply would probably lead us to instantly smash our own heads in…
Yes, faced with just that tiny glimpse of realization of our utter futility, we panic. And the panic ebbs and flows, and we forget it’s panic at all; but the panic continues for much of our lives. And the panic takes the form of a relentless search for meaning in the most ridiculously meaning-less ways. Like dogs on heat, trying to shag1 the legs of human strangers, lampposts, fire hydrants, benches, and occasionally cats, we try to shag meaning out of anything that will have us. We are on-heat meaning machines, desperately trying to find meaning: in the pointless work we do; the fruitless relationships we have; the interminable stuff we accumulate (which we carry slowly from store to dump); the gods we invent; the rules of conduct we imagine and enforce; characters we dream up for ourselves; stories we tell… And on and on until we die, when we go… nowhere, and certainly not to finally see the point, because it wasn’t there in the first place.
Sorry. I had to get that out.
We are RIDICULOUS. Not just because in our lifelong-drawn-out panic there’s actually no point to ANYTHING, so we try to find meaning in EVERYTHING – which is actually quite endearing. But because the very things we attach all that meaning to then turn around and cause us pain. Because none of the things last for that long. We get attached to them. They are taken away. We feel pain. That’s the human condition.
In fact, let’s create the full chain of events of the human condition: we get a glimpse that our life is utterly futile and wonder what the point is; we try to find meaning in things out there; we get attached to those things; the things are taken away; we feel pain; we wonder what the point is; then we try to find meaning in other things out there; we get attached to those things; the things are taken away; we feel pain; we wonder what the point is; then we try to find meaning in other things out there; we get attached to those things; the things are taken away; we feel pain; we wonder what the point is…. This is the human loop. That’s why I like to use loops in my music; it reminds me of the joke that is our human loop. The loop is wired into our DNA, which is, you know, very similar to the DNA of a banana. We are, effectively, bananas.
The point?
What, you still want a frickin’ point?
Well, at this moment we’re sitting here smiling, so we’ll back off from the nihilistic blathering. We’ll even offer different ideas about what it’s all about. But it’s worth seeing that the search for meaning, which most of us are on, is a pretty potty2 affair. It’s worth seeing that many of us are actually trapped in a prison of our making; we have become attached to things that now restrict our freedom.
And to take us from the biggest possible picture back down to the prosaic detail of the everyday – hopefully without suffering from nausea, or the bends, or getting burned on re-entry – the problem for most of us is that we worry about things that, with even a little bit of perspective, REALLY DON’T MATTER and we spend so much time and energy worrying about those things that we don’t have enough time or energy for the THINGS THAT OBVIOUSLY DO (if you’re not getting big, nihilistic, and philosophical, that is, anyway). We worry about being late for a meeting, but don’t see our kids off to school. We worry about the extra pounds we’re carrying, but don’t see the fellow human being on the street in desperate need. We worry about the lines appearing on our face, but we don’t see the cracks appearing in the Earth pointing to global climate change. We search for gods and miss the miracle of life. We are burdened by the past, worry about the future, and we miss the present.
So, in this prison of meanings, we need to say F**k It to those things that really don’t matter so much, and focus on those that do (or seem to anyway). This is about getting perspective, and it’s a fundamental part of F**k It Therapy.
That’s what a prison is. And that’s why F**k It Therapy can help.
Every prison has a story: a history, incidents that have occurred there, famous inmates, a dark past, and, sometimes, inspiring stories.
And we have a story. We have our history; all the things that have happened to us: hurt us, moved us, thrilled us, inspired us, depressed us, moved us forward, pushed us back, picked us up, and thrown us down. We have things we love to remember and other things we’d prefer to forget.
And we tell ourselves (and others, if they’re prepared to listen) the story of who we are (which we believe is made up of our history and molded by all the things that have happened to us). We tell ourselves the story of our character: our good points and our bad points, our strengths and our weaknesses, what we’re proud of and what we are ashamed of in ourselves.
And we tell ourselves the story of our growth and development from one thing to another. We tell ourselves about who we used to be, who we are now, and who we’d like to become. We sometimes see our story as an ascending journey from innocence to experience, from bad to good, from naiveté to experience, learning as we go, meandering along this journey of life, but getting somewhere that will reward the learning and be worth the pain. And, sometimes, we see it as a descending journey from playfulness to seriousness, squandering our talents, throwing away our dreams, going from health to sickness, getting older and weaker, never learning our lessons, losing what we had, and slowly, tiringly, meandering into our sad, lonely ending on this miserable planet.
And we tell ourselves a story about life and the world around us: that it’s a wondrous, miraculous, ever-changing, dynamic, inspiring, mysterious place. Or it’s a tragic, misery-ridden, sinful, hopeless, unfair, doomed place. Or it’s boring. Or it’s not like it used to be. Or it’s going to hell in a handcart. Or it’s a mix. Or it’s supporting me. Or it’s against me. Or it’s indifferent to me. Or it reflects me.
We tell ourselves stories about ourselves and the world we see around us. But they’re just stories. And these stories – the good ones, the bad ones, and the indifferent ones – can all turn into prisons for us because… Stories don’t necessarily reflect reality. Stories fix everything. And ‘life’ isn’t fixable. It’s always moving. And it resists the stories we try to tell about it. By the time we think we’ve grasped our life – or our story – it’s gone, moved on, left town. And we’re stuck in the prison of the story we created.
F**k It Therapy shows us how to say F**k It to the story and get in touch with life.
A prison has the aim of protecting the population from its prisoners (and sometimes protecting prisoners from the population), and rehabilitating prisoners so that they can return to society (usually).
We have aims, too. We aim to do a certain thing by a certain age: we aim to pass our exams, buy a house, meet someone gorgeous and settle down, enjoy our lives, win the Nobel prize, get well, lose weight, shag more people, shag fewer people…
We have aims. And, if we’re organized and determined, we write them down, too. We even put deadlines on them. We work our way toward them. We overcome obstacles to achieve them. We suffer for our art, brave storms to get to land, bear our cross, climb mountains, and take the hits to achieve our aims.
But our aims can become our prisons. Life has a habit of not going the way we planned. Other people have the habit of not behaving the way we want them to behave. The economy has a habit of dipping at the wrong moment. And, because we’ve fixed this path for life in the form of ‘aims,’ we find ourselves in a prison of expectations thwarted by life doing the thing it does best: unpredictability.
Aims can be helpful, of course. Much can be achieved with aims, and much squandered without them. But if you get too attached to your aims, then they can become your prison. Hold your aims lightly. Say F**k It to the held-too-tightly aims. Let them go. And sit back and enjoy the ride more.
Everything starts with a thought. God may well have started on day one by creating Heaven and Earth, then switching the light on. But what the Bible misses out is that God would have started with a thought. Before He CREATED Heaven and Earth, He must have had the bright idea of getting down to some creative work. Before his six days of hard work started, He must have had his feet up contemplating what to have for tea3, when he got his bright idea:
Brilliant. A planet and some space. I am brilliant. Absolutely bloomin’ brilliant. Even if I say it Myself.
He sat back and realized His thought was Good. Then another thought struck Him, and He stroked His beard as the thought took form:
Even… if… I say it Myself’ (even God uses capitals in His own sentences), ‘Why the fluckety chuck4 don’t I create other, er… beings, that can tell Me how brilliant I am, then I wouldn’t have to just say so Myself?
Nice one, God.
I will create them in My own image.
I foresee a problem there, God. You’ll give Yourself competition.
Ah, but I don’t want any competition as God and Supreme Being, do I?
More beard scratching.
I will set them a ridiculous test. I’ll create a couple of these mini-Mes, then tell them there’s… I don’t know… um… a tree that makes them wise (so they’ll think they can become as wise as Me, even though, and they don’t know this, they already are). I’ll lure them into this cunning trap via a walking snake thing. They’ll, naturally, eat from this tree of knowledge and BANG, I cast them out forever more..
God slapped his leg in congratulation at such a flawless mini-God creation plan…
That way, they’ll spend the rest of their existence worshiping Me, arguing over Me, and believing they’re nothing like Me, when they actually are.
Back to that first thought. The difficult bit for God – and the Bible neglects to mention this – was the actual thought. Imagine what it was like summoning up the whole plan for the Earth and space and animals and humans and, like, EVERYTHING from, like, NOTHING. There was NOTHING before; just God sitting there, not in space, but in NOTHING. He had nothing to go on. He didn’t have any magazines to flick through to get ideas, no books to read. He wasn’t popping down the local salon (i.e., salon for ideas not for a beard trim) to chat with fellow deity intellectuals. He wasn’t brainstorming. He wasn’t standing on the shoulders of giants. He wasn’t in competition with another god to see who could come up with the best creation scheme. It came from nothing. NOTHING.
After that, the whole creation thing was a piece of cake. Project-management and construction work, that’s all. Sure, they did a good job. They even came in on time (six days) and on budget. But God was the ARCHITECT. He was the ideas Man… er… God… ideas God.
Everything starts with a thought. Everything you see around you started as a thought. Everything you do starts as a thought. You started as a thought. Even if you go into territory apparently unaffected by human thought (like areas of wilderness), we’re trying to get involved there, too, with the effects of our manmade global warming. And if that doesn’t get the Earth, then our manmade nuclear weapons will. Nice thought, Einstein.
Funny that, of all the clever clogs5 civilization has ever known, Einstein has become our token clever clogs – with his funny face and mad hair. Ah, what a genius. It’s ironic that his discoveries could lead to our final destruction. Started by a thought (of God). Ended by a thought from the cleverest mother yet (Einstein), with probably the dumbest mother getting to press the button (imagine a grinning Dubya-like character).
Everything we do starts with a thought. We can create wonders with thoughts. We can invent amazing things. Our lives are made easier by the products of thoughts. We’re healthier because of hardworking scientific thinkers. We idolize the inventors, the scientists, and the thinkers. We hang on to every word of the scientist just as we used to hang on to every word of the priest (clearly, many people still do, but science has been the new religion for many of us for some time). We educate our children’s brains and encourage them to make their way in the world by using their heads. We rely on rational decisions to guide our lives.
What else is there, though? You have to ask that. There is the heart. And there’s the gut, or instinct, and intuition. And there’s other information, too (does inspiration come from the brain, from within the body, or outside)… What about ‘spiritual information’?
When we rely just on thoughts, we create a prison for ourselves. We are still, in many respects, a Cartesian society. ‘I think, therefore I am.’ But what if we’re not just our thoughts?
Saying F**k It to an entirely thought-based approach to life can open you to amazing things. It also means that when the thoughts get too much, you know that you’re not just that. For example, in depression or after a trauma, our thoughts (self-doubt, over-analyzing, self-blame, etc.,) can drive us mad. Sometimes, literally.
One quick way to realize that you’re not JUST your thoughts is to try your hand/brain at meditation. But when thoughts have become your prison, when they’re getting you down, when they’re leading you by the nose, you can realize that you’re not just your thoughts… you can say F**k It to a thought-led life, without leading a thought-less life.
When we asked just now: ‘What else is there other than your thoughts?’ Possibly, there was a momentary blank for many men reading this. But the answer would have come quicker to most women: the heart and our emotional life.
We split nicely down the usual gender mind/heart divide. Gaia is very heart-focused. I’m very in my head. She’s love. I’m ideas and laughter. She’s all warmth and intuition. I’m all dreams and reflection.
Most people who come to F**k It Retreats are stuck in their heads (i.e., in a prison of thought), so they often benefit hugely by working with their heart: opening up more, feeling their emotions more, and expressing more. Gaia then, in particular, is able to help them feel freer very quickly, while I relax them and make them laugh. Gaia then opens their hearts and the deep healing begins. We’re not good cop, bad cop, we’re head cop, heart cop.
So getting trapped in the prison of emotion is less common. But it’s possible and we do see it. What is it? It’s when your life is dictated entirely by emotions. It’s when you feel everything deeply; you take everything personally. You probably cry a lot and sometimes for no reason. As an aside, this is something that I’ve only seen women do, and it baffles us blokes6. Well, I’m no longer baffled. If Gaia cries and, when I ask her why, she says ‘nothing,’ she’s not saying ‘nothing’ in a way that actually means ‘yeah, of course, it’s something really BIG, otherwise why would I be crying, but I’m not going to tell you because, even if it’s not about you this time, it usually is, and you’ll keep asking me, which makes me feel wanted and cared for, so I’ll give you one more “nothing” then, on the third request, I’ll actually tell you, okay?’… Gaia is saying ‘nothing’ because she actually means nothing. Somehow, for no obvious reason, she sometimes just feels upset, so she cries. Well, she’s now telling me that sometimes she doesn’t even feel upset, she just feels like crying, so she does.
Women, please skip this paragraph. Message to men: is it just me or is that BONKERS? There are things we’ll just never get, aren’t there? Do you fancy a beer? I need to get out of this teary environment and head for a watering hole, pronto.
Hello again, women and men. We’re back. Women, get a grip. ‘Ouch, Gaia, that hurt.’ No, emoting is good. We men bottle it up far too much. And so do some women. But don’t splash the bottle all over the place indiscriminately. Use rational thought OCCASIONALLY. And learn how to use an Excel spreadsheet, too. They’re great for developing that side of your brain. That’s my advice, when you feel very emotional, even if you’re not sure what about, open up a new Excel spreadsheet and have a play. You’ll brighten up in a minute.
The point: it is possible to be too heart-focused. The brain and its rational thinking has its place. Use it occasionally. Otherwise you’re trapped in the prison of the emotions. And that, like everything else, takes a nice F**k It to get out of.
By ‘materialistic’ we don’t mean those who like shopping, and for whom what they own is more important than anything else, though it’s self-evidently a pretty barren and restrictive prison to live in.
No, materialism here is the idea that everything is matter or energy (in the traditional Newtonian idea of ‘energy,’ not the Eastern one). We are separate, solid human beings working within Newtonian physical laws, on a planet that is (largely) explained by the sciences. And most people live their lives with this perception (even if they say that they ‘believe’ in God, their day-to-day interaction with reality is materialistic).
A materialist has explained practically all phenomena scientifically. We understand how just about everything works in a way we didn’t 100 years ago. In a very obvious way, materialism replaced spiritualism for many people. In times past, everything was a vast mystery, from what we saw in the sky at night to why it rained, to how our bodies worked, to how life was created. Unable to explain these mysteries scientifically, as we can now, humans explained them spiritually. There were gods for the elements, gods for love and war. Then someone had the bright idea that there was just one God. Anyway, the gods or God helped explain everything, because we’re not very comfortable with NOT KNOWING. We want to know. Even when we watch a ‘mystery’ on TV, we’re only happy with not knowing for a while and want to know who did it before we go to bed.
So most people now know. We know most of what could have bothered us in terms of the big questions of how things around us work, thanks to science. And the rest has simply yet to be worked out by the scientists. And, man, do they work hard to figure it out – just look at CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research). Though many people still use God to explain the things that we don’t get. In fact, some people use God to contradict the bits that we do seem to get.
But let’s assume that most people are, in a practical sense, materialists. They look to science for their answers. And the answers are usually good (even if they aren’t as palatable as the spiritual answers). It’s not that they’re cold, dry rationalists, as a spiritual person might imagine. The beauty, diversity, and complexity of such phenomena can still overwhelm someone who has a materialistic explanation for the manifest phenomena that surround them. The materialist might understand the process of reproduction, fetus growth based on DNA blueprints, and birth. But does the explanation of the process kill wonder at the manifestation of these processes? For most people, no. Most people are no less astonished by birth, by the beauty and magnificence of nature now they understand the materialistic derivation of such phenomena than they were when it was all a mystery and they decided it was all the work of gods/God.
Gaia and I prefer to stay open. To stay in the question, rather than try to settle on an answer: to be okay with NOT KNOWING. It doesn’t mean we’re not curious. We’re philosophers in that we love the unending questioning. But we don’t settle on any answer, we keep asking questions. We stay curious. We enjoy the wonder and mystery of life unfolding before us in every moment.
We use the word ‘sense’ a lot. It tends to indicate that ours is a continuous questioning, that we haven’t fixed on any answers, and that we’re humble enough not even to use the word ‘know.’ We have worked with energy or qi for many years. Our sense is that this energy underlies everything, and it is the conduit for the astonishing non-materialistic phenomena, as well as the essence of the equally astonishing materialistic phenomena, that we observe.
Do you see how that word ‘sense’ helps? We don’t say ‘we know,’ as either a materialist or a religious person would, and not with any false humility but because the assertion of such ‘knowledge’ fixes it. And if we know anything about energy and the phenomena it seems to manifest, it is that it’s ever-changing, impossible to fix, and very difficult even to name. (The Taoists, for example, assert that if you can describe the Tao – the force that pervades everything/is everything/creates everything – then you haven’t got it). And, for the record, we aren’t Taoists.
We aren’t anything. We question and experience and live in wonder, and share what we sense with you.
So, yes, we have more sympathy with the materialist than the fundamentalist. But a rigorously materialistic approach to reality, without any questioning about non-materialistic (spiritual/energetic/magic) explanations or phenomena can create a prison of experience. The limited range of explanations for the complex and diverse phenomena bombarding your senses traps you.
We say F**k It to fixing anything into set theories and explanations.
It’s probably obvious to you why the fundamentalist approach to spirituality creates its own prison. It is also dangerous to others. I’ve never understood anyone who can say ‘I’m right. You’re wrong. And you’re going to hell.’ I do get that, if you really think you’ve found the answer to life, the universe, and everything, and you sincerely believe this message can help everyone, then you’d want to go around and talk about it. But don’t tell everyone they’re wrong. Don’t deny others the right to believe stuff other than what you believe. And certainly don’t kill anyone if they believe something else, or say anything about what you believe.
But that’s all probably obvious to you.
And there probably aren’t many fundamentalists reading this anyway.
But there are probably many of you who regard yourselves as ‘spiritual’ people. I love the diversity of spirituality in today’s Western society. There’s a huge openness to spiritual ideas and an immense range of spiritual ideas on offer, and everything is easily accessible (it has not always been like that).
Many of us now have a ‘pick ‘n’ mix’ approach to spirituality. Now, ‘pick ‘n’ mix’ is when you serve yourself from a range of candies, such as jelly babies, chocolate buttons, cola bottles, flying saucers, chocolate-covered raisins, pineapple chunks, gobstoppers (jaw breakers), licorice torpedoes, cola cubes, white chocolate mice, etc. You peruse the large selection of delicious, E-numbered sugar concoctions in their plastic containers, your paper bag in hand, then use the plastic scoops to create your mix.
The spiritual candies we scoop into our spiritual bag aren’t as delicious, but they’re better for your figure. Here are just a few samples from the range: Reiki, astrology, Buddhism, Shamanism, NLP, EFT, crystal healing, distance healing, Taoism, Hinduism, angel therapy, hot stone therapy, yoga, Tai Chi, energy arts, dark arts, healing arts… and so on. Some we add to our bag, others we leave because we don’t fancy them. There’s little set ‘dogma’ for the ‘New-Age’ spiritual seeker to subscribe to – either we say that we are ‘spiritual’ or have a ‘spiritual side,’ or that we get in touch with our ‘higher self’ or ‘soul.’ They cover as much to do with the mind as the soul, as the genres leak into each other. And they include as much to do with the body as with the mind and the soul. Some integrate the three (that’s often the point of ‘holism,’ another ‘ism,’ to recognize the interconnectedness of all these elements).
Take yoga, for example, which has a spiritual aim (to create ‘union’ between the material and the spiritual), and uses the physical asanas only as one means to achieve this union. Many people, however, practice yoga solely as a physical discipline, like a twenty-first-century aerobics class. Having run a yoga retreat for seven years, we know something about this. I read countless feedback sheets filled out by the metropolitan new yogis with sentiments such as: ‘The yoga was way too spiritual,’ ‘The yoga was great, just less of the spiritual stuff next time, please.’ ‘Loved the yoga, great teacher, but enough with the spiritual messages.’
‘Dear Priest, loved the service… the hymns were excellent, really enjoyed that kneeling position, and the bread and wine were delicious… but enough with that God thing, way too spiritual for this day and age.’
We have ‘spiritual’ ideas in our spiritual paper bag, too: we believe that everything has a reason; that everything’s perfect; we try to live in the now; we talk a lot about ‘trust;’ we ‘go with the flow;’ we recognize that thoughts create reality; we know we can spiritually manifest anything in our lives; we think everything has an energy; we like other people’s energy (or not); we try to accept things as they are; we love what is; we try not to judge; we’re on our ‘journey’ (a spiritual one at that) and everything is part of that journey; we don’t believe in traditional moral notions of right and wrong, but we believe in love; we believe in free love (nice), and we believe in peace; and we want to cleanse negative energy and spread peace…
We put actual stuff in our spiritual bags to help us on our spiritual journeys: Tarot cards, angel cards, crystals, essential oils, prayer flags, incense sticks, smudge sticks, talking sticks, drum sticks…
We eat well on our spiritual journey, too: meat-free, dairy-free, gluten-free, cruelty-free, pesticide-free, humor-free, and certainly never ‘free.’
And, though Gaia and I find it funny, we also use and subscribe to a lot of that stuff, too. But always in a pick ‘n’ mix way. And what we pick ‘n’ mix changes. We never get stuck on anything. And we always take it all with a pinch of salt (which doesn’t quite work with the ‘confectionary’ metaphor, as it would make all the candies taste DISGUSTING), because the pinch of salt makes it fun and fascinating.
So, where’s the prison in this type of pick ‘n’ mix spirituality? Taking it too seriously; fixing on anything; believing any one thing is the ultimate answer (and even worse, if you then think that everything else is wrong). Also, it’s easy to create new hierarchies of ‘good’ and ‘bad.’ We may no longer think sex before marriage is ‘bad,’ but we might see anger as bad, or materialism as bad, or selfishness as bad… or we might detect bad energy (in people and places), bad vibes. We are relentlessly dualistic beings, we always want to differentiate and separate things. We often separate out our ‘spiritual side,’ we separate the good from the bad, we separate our ideas from other people’s, and we separate ourselves from others. (Or, rather, perceiving and believing we’re separate from others and worried that others are ‘better’ than we are, we find ways to feel we’re better. That’s religion, actually. It’s also the source of much of our pain, our fighting, and our wars. Believing we’re separate, worrying we’re not good enough, we amplify our separation by distancing ourselves from others and even fighting them.)
Say F**k It to fixing any ideas. Hold it all lightly. And get a ‘sense’ of one possible ‘spiritual’ truth: that we’re not separate at all, that we’re all connected, maybe even all one. Our perception of separation is just an illusion – an illusion that creates all suffering. But don’t make a jump and ‘believe’ that, because you might well be jumping into another prison.
My, we do like our prisons, don’t we?
1 Act of abandoned copulation.
2 Eccentric and a bit crazy (in an endearing sort of way).
3 Idiom, in certain parts of the UK, for dinner and not to be confused with afternoon tea, which involves small sandwiches, cake, and the odd pot of tea – nice.
4 Revelatory exclamation not found in any worldly lexicon.
5 Usually derogatory: meaning a bit too brainy for his or her own (and usually others’) good, and a bit of a smart-ass.
6 Meaning ‘men,’ and implying ‘proper’ men at that, with ‘proper’ manly interests such as drinking beer, sports, and traits such as crotch scratching.