Are there some scents that you prefer over any others? For instance, many people love the smell of roses, or flowers in general. I adore the smell of the wax I use to protect my swords--yeah, I'm weird--the scent of rain in the air, and I love snuggling with my wife and smelling her hair. Smells run wild through our lives, and provide huge signposts for our memories. Massive industrial complexes exist solely to provide fragrances and other stuff that smells good. Have you ever taken a look at all the buyable things with artificially enhanced or provided smells? It's incredible.
Love the new car smell? No problem, just go out and buy a bottle of the fragrance. Enjoy the wispy tanginess of a tropical beach? Here you go, beach-in-a-jar candles. I suspect there is no natural smell without a candle dedicated to it (okay, probably not an outhouse). Clearly, we value the smells around us, to the extent we even spray pleasing aromas onto our own skin with cologne and perfume. In the future we'll likely have the ability to exude these fragrances with a phone app controlled bracelet, or necklace.
Imagine taking a photograph that not only captures the image, but all the scents associated with it. How about sampling a cake just by pulling up an example on the internet and touching a probe to your tongue. Will it be possible to change the flavor of a simple sirloin steak into the finest Kobe beef in the world? Are we approaching a time when our very perceptions will be as virtual as the images we examine? Hmm, maybe, but I still will prefer the real thing. Nothing can ever replace the reality of leaning over and smelling a freshly blooming rose.
- M
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