I have to disagree with xkcd a little bit.
The problem with learning about biology is that everyone you meet is it
The problem is with not learning enough about biology. Once you know enough, you appreciate that the whole of your existence is wallowing in a cloud of everything and you might as well accept it — we’re all interconnected and part of the whole. Then, once you know too much, you find yourself wondering if your wife would mind if we invited a swarm of spiders to join us for a dinner date.
I made a graph.
So once your knowledge exceeds the intercept, your revulsion becomes negative and you start to enjoy breathing other peoples’ lung air?
I’m excruciatingly aware that on the internet it’s almost impossible to avoid the facile observations of xkcd.
Everybody poops. Think about that.
No more true graph ever! Could be labeled, “Why I Became A Chemist.”
Ray Ceeya @3
We not only depend on commensal bacteria for digestion, we have co-evolved for so long that some of their biomolecules passing through the gut barrier into the bloodstream now have become essential for early childhood development.
If the gut fauna does not diversify- for instance, because of malnutrition- this contributes to developmental retardation.
My curiosity has always exceeded my, well, it’s not always revulsion but it’s more like nature dumped nitrous oxide in my curiosity. I have to find out why.
So you’re say it surrounds us, penetrates us, and binds the universe together?
Mind you, there’s also an xkcd about the effect you’re describing: https://xkcd.com/877/
My personality also includes an overload of morbid curiosity because of a need to understand what leads to the morbid thing. It’s tied into a strategic way of looking at things where I need to understand the threat or threat claim.
Over the last couple of years I’ve tried to convey the flaws and vulnerabilities associated with things like bigoted behavior. It’s a bug in one’s software and leads to processing errors.
If the air bothers you, consider that the water you drink has an extremely high chance of having gone thru another human. And if you go back far enough, I suspect that that chance would approach 100%.
This graph also applies to medical professionals who regularly deal with cysts, boils, and blackheads.