Maybe all we have is proximity. I read once, or was I told, I can’t remember, that we can never really touch something, that we never make real contact. As the atoms that build our finger tips, our lips, our bodies, approach another solid, they repel what they encounter. So this sensation we call touch is actually the pressure of a micro repulsion, as tender as it may be.
How to touch without touching, Catherine Rose Evans, 2021
