I don’t believe in umbrellas. This means that I occasionally get drenched when for one reason or another I have to walk a longish distance outside in a torrential downpour.

The reason I decline umbrella protection, though, is that being drenched by rain is really not a traumatic experience at all.

For the record, I do NOT enjoy pulling my own teeth, walking on rusty nails, or eating dirt-encrusted pebbles. After being completely soaked by rain a number of times, I just don’t find it physically painful, emotionally upsetting, or damaging in any way, unless I happen to be carrying my birth certificate and don’t have a plastic bag handy to stick it in.

What is particularly great about forgoing umbrellas is that it reminds you how it feels to be exposed to many of the trivial things we protect ourselves from.

The umbrella is not a bad symbol for North American culture, actually. We are the insurance culture; we are ingenious at smoothing out the curves and spikes of any potentially unpleasant variation. That constant bombardment of caution and protection and insulation makes it easy to forget that it’s possible to be content and even happy in the rain; that it’s okay to go without an umbrella from time to time, or even often; and that we really aren’t risking much at all by exposing ourselves to the world a little more closely.

The occasional rainstorm can be a good nudge to the senses. We need those sometimes to remember to live in our own lives.