Bitterness

It used to be pointed out to me, not infrequently, that I had a negative attitude. It's true I've been a staunch critic of society most of my life. And of others, admittedly.

It was mildly disturbing, factual enough, so I worked on it and tried to cultivate a more agreeable personality. The funny thing is .... I didn't want to be thought of as bitter. It did seem like an insult. I knew I was angry a lot but that didn't bother me all that much. Bitter was never applied to me, though. It seemed like it was for older people.

So I got to wondering, "What is this thing called bitter? Why the aversion? "

Bitter: Having an acrid, disagreeable taste. Unpleasant to accept.
Acrid: burning, sharp, pungent
acris: acid

If it's one of the four taste buds, it must be pretty important. Part of the main sensation of life since only four tastes made it to the human tongue. My theory is that the taste receptors are symbolic of experience and we need sweet, salty, sour, and bitter to maintain our places in empirical space and time. Sweet is easy to take in, salty is delicious, sour is a little tricky, but bitter is tough. Then I started thinking of bitter things .... smoke, medicines, fruit seeds, herbs, weeds.

So here's my conclusion. Bitterness is unpleasant but comes in anyway. The receptors indicate the ability to assimilate the experience. It can even cause a sort of sickness but in the end I think it could be part of healing. Part of acceptance of the whole reality of the physical realm and it's emotional counterpart. And the acid could be a catalyst in the human chemistry. A stimulation. There's a certain amount all the time. There's probably more bitterness in my make-up than I realized, now that I'm no longer especially angry. And of course, I am a little bit older.