My six year old approached me this morning with what seemed by her facial expression to be an important and serious question. Why couldn’t she tickle herself, she asked. Her fingers danced without effect around her neck as her little eyebrows remained perplexed and crooked.
I don’t know, I answered. I honestly didn’t. But I told her I had an idea but I could only whisper it to her as this was the most secretest secret ever. As she slowly approached (smelling a rat and smirking suspiciously) I seized her onto my lap and tickled her neck mercilessly until she screamed with laughter. When she was completely out of breath, repeating after me that I was the greatest Dad in the whole world, and begging for mercy I finally relented and sat her up.
“I think you can’t tickle yourself because God wants me to tickle you,” I said. “And maybe just maybe God knew that if we could tickle ourselves we’d never do anything else. And you’d miss out on all the fun of tickling your brother and sisters.”
Her eyes lit up and she launched herself from my lap and ran off into the play room from where shortly after emanated insane and breathless laughter from her little brother.
It seems to me that so much of this world calls us out of ourselves and points us away from ourselves and in the direction of others. The world calls us quite simply to love. And to tickle.
July 16, 2008 at 4:09 pm
That is a brilliant story.
Nota bene – it’s been a long time since I’ve been ticklish at all… but somehow my wife can tickle me. I think it’s due to her being stuffed with awesome.
July 16, 2008 at 5:56 pm
Okay, seriously though, why can’t we tickle ourselves?
July 16, 2008 at 6:49 pm
you’re gonna’ have to talk with someone with a lot more IQ points than me to figure that one out.
July 16, 2008 at 10:04 pm
I don’t know if this is an adequate explanation or not, but responding to tickling the way we do (laughing, “feeling ticklish”) is a learned behavior (one of the few things i retained from my psych major). It’s a learned social response. Thus you have the infant who responds to the stimulus — with annoyance, maybe, certainly discomfort, but doesn’t laugh until he/she develops the social skills and LEARNS that laughter is the “appropriate response”. Thus we cannot tickle ourselves, because the response is only triggered when the stimulus is external, e.g., another person applies the stimulus. someone correct me if i’m wrong please 🙂
July 17, 2008 at 12:56 am
Great story… added it to my journal. Thank you!
July 17, 2008 at 1:44 am
Awesome!
July 17, 2008 at 2:19 pm
Excellent story. And I think the above explanation is mostly correct, if I remember my intro bio and psych classes.
July 17, 2008 at 2:44 pm
Stef & Jimmy V: Do you even have children? Have you ever tickled a baby? They do, too, laugh! I would be pretty concerned about a baby that showed annoyance or discomfort…OK, maybe not in the first week of life, but soon thereafter. I'd be willing to bet that the same experts would argue that tickle-able babies, in every other realm, do not have social skills.
And the tickle-er often does not laugh at the beginning of tickling–it's watching the tickle victim that makes one laugh…
Kate
July 17, 2008 at 3:08 pm
I thought I just laughed when something was funny.
July 17, 2008 at 4:11 pm
Kate,
I agree with you. I think Psych 101classes are perhaps the most dangerous thing which exists in our society.
Gives us just enough knowledge, untethered to common sense, to be dangerous.
July 19, 2008 at 4:28 am
The boring answer…
http://health.howstuffworks.com/question511.htm
July 20, 2008 at 1:02 am
I love your blog… hilarious, sensitive, faithful. Who knew tickling was an example of Christ’s commandment to love one another?! Great stuff!
January 22, 2009 at 5:56 pm
Stef,
There are lots of reasons it may be, but as a grad student in psyc, laughing is a pretty automatic and universal behavior which is innate or quickly learned. Its evolutionarily beneficial because it encourages bonding and attachment between infant and parent. We probably can’t tickle ourselves because our own actions are fully anticipated, thus eliminating the “surprise” of a tickle. Even if you know where you will be tickled by another, its not the same as your brain knowing exactly where you will be tickled (in other words, the nerves in your hand as well as the area being tickled send signals to the brain. When tickled by another, you only have neuronal signals from the area tickled.)
And to Matthew: Gen psyc is only dangerous when taught irresponsibly, and I really do think that abnormal psychology classes are more detrimental!