Changing Whatever Ails You

 When one has a lifelong problem that just seems to be getting worse, one might ask if there is another way of doing things -- and seeing what happens.  It frequently is the case, that how one thought to solve a problem, actually caused the problem -- rather than being the ultimately best solution.  Nowhere is that more true than in the simple act of cleaning up -- after making a mess, and resulting in an even bigger mess -- which then seems the least of one's problems and difficulties.

One of the great crises of last year, among many, was the great toilet paper shortage of 2020 -- which caused many more to consider abandoning altogether -- for technologies that made better sense, and eliminating many of the problems that cause people to require caregiving for these vital functions of elimination and cleanup.  Most don't give that much thought -- until it becomes a major preoccupation for many elderly -- as an increasing reminder of their growing incompetence and diminishing dexterity.

But need it be so -- or could one adopt new technologies and ways of doing things that make the formerly problematical, a non-issue? -- which I think the switch from toilet paper to the state-of-the art bidet attachment represents.  It seems like such a simple matter -- that has profound implications and consequences -- particularly in eliminating the chances for infection from the two major sources of contamination and toxicity.  One need not be a most highly esteemed doctor to realize that such a simple switch would make a major impact on world health and hygiene -- and eliminate many of those problems resulting from that primitive treatment of it -- to a new standard of hygiene in this regard.

That is also symbolic of many other great technological advances that we will not embrace simply because we were conditioned in another way -- and remained the only way we thought possible.  However, in the last ten years, or even five, the whole world of these possibilities have become available to us -- to transform life as much as we can imagine it to be so -- including that we do not have to be victims of our own bad health due to the poor choices we were conditioned with initially -- and are now the source of most of our health issues.  

Chief among them is the notion that we need to remain totally preoccupied on when our next meal is coming from -- rather than the better, more appropriate response of these times, to increase one's time not spent eating -- creating much more time and energy for other more productive activities.  I think that is greatly what it means to move into a 21st century life -- from the past's preoccupation with scarcity in all things, as the basic struggle of human life.  The problems now, are likely to precede from too much, rather than too little -- and those who cannot exercise that prudence and responsibility, can see their lives go off the rails irretrievably -- resulting in all the problems of human evolution and civilization.   That is of course, every manner of communicable and self-inflicted disease -- at its most problematical.  That is, how do we dispose of the waste, that left unattended, becomes increasingly more toxic?

Obviously, this has to begin at the most rudimentary level, and doing that, gives hope for further rectifications.  Those are what we are likely to take most for granted: air, water, sunlight -- as the basics of what has produced life as we know it.  If we truly understood only these three things -- and learned to optimize it, we could create a whole new universe of possibilities and opportunities.  Instead, some would propose that we block out all sunlight -- as though that was an intelligent thing to do.  That shows no understanding of life in any of its forms -- much less proclaiming oneself as its highest manifestation of intelligent life, not only here, but throughout the universe.

There's a reason things are as they are -- but better is always possible.  That is the story of evolution and civilization.  Those shifts are not merely arbitrary but that which stands the test of time.  Otherwise, one is likely to live a life full of regrets -- from hastily jumping on every bandwagon that comes by -- not only fearing to miss out, but even claiming to have thought of the idea originally.  Then weeks later, disclaiming and deleting every association with such wayward thoughtlessness -- while those monuments remain of how misguided and destructive those thoughts and actions were.

One only needs to tour the downtown areas of many cities to see the end result of such "enlightened and progressive" thinking -- for which future generations will wonder, "What were these people thinking!?"