I got curious about exploring this metaphor because of how I felt during a trip, thinking about how tedious and annoying it was to constantly have to recharge everything – drink water, pee and so on. But what was the point of that? I guess thinking about how I want to get better at managing my rhythms.

Bodily functions can be quite an inconvenience. We have to breathe, eat, drink burp, fart, cough, sneeze, sweat, pee, shit, sleep. We try to be either discreet or civilized about all of those things. Talking about it can be seen as rude or impolite. And that makes it something some people laugh and joke about, precisely because it’s seen as rude or impolite. Farts have been funny for millenia, and still elicit laughs in serious situations between serious people. It’s just a reminder, I think, that we’re all ultimately tubes with a mouth on one end and an anus on the other, regardless of what noble things we aspire towards. These functions get impeded somehow, people experience great distress, and often die. It’s interesting then how much we hide it. We seem to be ashamed of what makes us human. 

This applies to more. It applies to our sexuality, desires, yearnings. And the whole thing gets hilariously convoluted, partially because we’re so scared to be open and honest about things. And lots of people live incredibly stiff, constricted lives just trying to navigate all of this. Never enjoying the intrinsic delight of a whopping fart. 

Anyway that wasn’t where I planned to go with this. I was planning to segue from full bellies and empty bladders to other sort of meters we have to take care of (or choose to). I stayed at work about 20 minutes longer than I had to so that I could charge my phone a little longer, making sure that I’d be able to use it the whole time I’m on the way home. 

I’m reminded of the elaborate dance me and my wife sometimes have to do with all our devices: both our MacBooks  (thankfully they can use interchangeable chargers), and both our phones- mine’s an android and her’s is an iPhone, so we have to use different charging devices or different cables. The wife also has a fitbit, which she charges from whichever MacBook has more power, usually. 

And these are just the mobile devices that have batteries on them. We also have three battery packs. And then there’s everything else that runs on electricity- fans, airconditioning, refrigeration, the washing machine, lights. 

All of this is stuff we take for granted and it’s so easy to think of it as a hassle. But for most of human history the main challenge was really just finding stuff to eat. And for many (most?) people in the world this is still a really worrisome thing. 

To live in modern civilization is to live with contradictions and absurdity. My great-grandfathers would be so confused to learn about the things that bother me. I would seem a strange, spoilt child. I’m not sure if that’s something I should feel 

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the phrase “we try to be discreet or civilised” is interesting to juxtapose with my other choice of phrase which is “civilization is recursive potty training”. why is it rude to display bodily functions?