If I am fired from my job--"layoff" if you prefer the less harsh euphemism--there will be drastic changes in my lifestyle.
I think a lot about about the effects on the body and mind because of massive changes to one's life. Ah well, do not worry. I am not going to jump off a cliff. After all, I am a calm wreck of a man!
This post is about a mundane change that results from abrupt changes of huge magnitude.
I write about shitting.
You read that right. Shitting.
We take shitting for granted. It deserves a lot more respect.A little deviation can mean trouble. Like, if you are traveling. As if the body knows that you are not home! "as many as 40 percent of people experience constipation while they’re away from home."
Why is it difficult to shit when on a vacation?
Traveling throws off one’s routine -- and constipation may be one result, said Dr. Brooke Gurland, a colorectal surgeon at the Cleveland Clinic. “We’re creatures of habit,” including when it comes to bowel movements, she said. “People have a time when they do that, and once we throw the schedule off, we can become completely disrupted.”Off the regular schedule means no "regular" ;)
Perhaps "home, sweet home" was first expressed when the person was ecstatic while shitting in one's own bathroom, after getting back to the "regular" schedule?
“Any time you leave your general habitat, it’s throwing your gut microflora off balance,” says Brooke Alpert, a New York-based registered dietician.Crap, those damn bacteria in the gut, again! ;)
The experience of a holiday trip—remembering to pack everything, navigating a crowded airport, staying with family for an extended period of time—may be enough to stop the bowels from functioning the way they usually do.If travelling causes so much havoc, then imagine how much a layoff could mean. A whole new shitting regimen, and possibly in a new place altogether!
It is not that I am the only one who appreciates the importance of shitting--daily and regularly. Heck,even poets and writers tried to tell us that, perhaps tongue-in-cheek; like the following poem by John Updike that I came to know about from this essay.
"The Beautiful Bowel Movement"
by John Updike
Though most of them aren’t much to write about—
mere squibs and nubs, like half-smoked pale cigars,
the tint and stink recalling Tuesday’s meal,
the texture loose and soon dissolved—this one,
struck off in solitude one afternoon
(that prairie stretch before the late light fails)
with no distinct sensation, sweet or pained,
of special inspiration or release,
was yet a masterpiece: a flawless coil,
unbroken, in the bowl, as if a potter
who worked in this most frail, least grateful clay
had set himself to shape a topaz vase.
O spiral perfection, not seashell nor
stardust, how can I keep you? With this poem.
"The Beautiful Bowel Movement"
by John Updike
Though most of them aren’t much to write about—
mere squibs and nubs, like half-smoked pale cigars,
the tint and stink recalling Tuesday’s meal,
the texture loose and soon dissolved—this one,
struck off in solitude one afternoon
(that prairie stretch before the late light fails)
with no distinct sensation, sweet or pained,
of special inspiration or release,
was yet a masterpiece: a flawless coil,
unbroken, in the bowl, as if a potter
who worked in this most frail, least grateful clay
had set himself to shape a topaz vase.
O spiral perfection, not seashell nor
stardust, how can I keep you? With this poem.
