I don't suppose this will be a very popular post but I'm doing it anyway. Because shit is really important. There's 'psychological shit', 'material shit' and just good ol' 'bodily waste type shit'. And they are all really important in the scheme of things.
So what is shit anyway? It's stuff we don't need and don't want. There are a few ways of dealing with it. The most effective is to process it in a positive way. The second is to hide or bury it (either in some complex psychological issue or literally in the ground or the ocean). The third is throwing it away and pretending you had nothing to do with it. The fourth is to invoke straight out denial ie shit doesn't exist, which is a very convenient and common way of not dealing with it.
Some people don't want to talk about shit because it's unpleasant, difficult and sometimes plain confronting. But let's face it - ALL the problems in the world are the result of humans not dealing with their shit. And this is why I care about this topic so much.
Shit has its own life and the bodily aspect of it can be very valuable or very toxic - depending on how much effort you put into dealing with it. For a few weeks now we have been using our newly installed waterless toilet. There's nothing like a composting toilet to force you to confront your own shit - because you see it and move it around. The first revelation is just how much shit a human body produces. There's no getting away with it - the daily evacuation simply has to be physically dealt with.
A waterless toilet also makes you painfully aware of how much beautiful clean water is wasted in this country to flush a perfectly usable commodity down the toilet. This is only one component in a very complex fucked-up system within which we are dealing inappropriately with waste in general. My partner has recently declared himself a budding 'human-urist' and is becoming quite obsessed with microbes, good and bad bacteria and ways to use our shit on the garden because what used to occur naturally just doesn't now. It's a full-time job living sustainably and responsibly.
Dealing with shit requires courage and a commitment to truth. But first you have to take ownership of it, take responsibility and that's a major hurdle.
Munted Doll graphic: Dr Grafix (blog author)
Toilet (line graphic): https://www.dragoart.com, colour by Dr Grafix
Very cool shit. I'm reading Underland at the moment, about things that happen beneath our feet. The lengths that humans have gone to, to bury and dispose of things is incredible. For example nuclear waste has such a long half life that the current dilemma is how to alert potential discoverers of the shit in thousands of years time, what they have found and to not touch it! McFarlane also writes about how we are great historians and lousy futurists which, once again, points to our capacity to deal with our shit.
ReplyDeleteHow serendipitous that you should be reading that book and I posted this Sarah.
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