QuickBlog (On life and toilets)

I'm just about to get on my way to Em's now, so I'll be very brief. I just want to perpetuate a couple of thoughts upon which I will extend later.

1. We're all lifemates. Worldmates. (I wonder if I'm coining the term right now)
2. Toilet pipes should be wider than our intestines.

That's it. Cya in a bit.

*****

All right, I'm back. More than 24 hours later...

So about #1...

You know how, when kids are kids and go to school and play and learn and do school-stuff, you have a group of classmates? Classmates are those others who share the class with you. You know your classmates, you make friends with some of them, some you do not like, etc... And then you grow up and leave school, and you're no longer in class. But you still have people all around you, and the same patterns arise. You know some of them, you make some friends, some people you don't like, etc...

I know I'm just comparing social groups of a different magnitude, so it's logical that patterns are similar. However, if you look at classmates, it's easy for them to identify themselves as a group. They share something, the circumstance of having been assigned to that particular class. You live with them for a long time, and you get to know them somewhat closely, and etc... This pattern is not exactly replicated when you leave the classroom and go into the larger world context. There are so many more people in the world than there were in your class - how can you identify yourself as part of such a large group? It may be desirable, but it's just not... plausible. Even in a class, there are times when you feel alienated from the rest of the class, how can it not happen in a full-blown world?

But wouldn't it be nice? I mean, we all share a world. An enormous ball full of life, full of beauty, full of people... aren't we all here? We all share it, we're in the same context. Being that as it is, shouldn't we all try to help each other live on/survive/be happy? I mean, that's sort of what society already does for us. I don't ever need to grow my own food or carry my own water - I give out my services in return for a little part of every other person's services. Economics, you know. But I just think... sometimes people focus so much on themselves that they forget what the broad perspective of it all is. That we all share this life, this world, this amazing context. We're all worldmates. So we should all help each other out while we're around! Yup, worldmates! That's the spirit.

So about #2 (Si vous plait do not read if you are easily disgusted and do not want to be disgusted):

My toilet got clogged a couple of days ago. After many failed plunger plunges and many hours of olfactory uneasiness, it is now unclogged and clean. But looking at the little toilet hole through which water and waste are flushed away, I got to thinking about the little journey of a piece of feces, all the way since its conception inside the intestine, down through the lower digestive tract, out of the body, into the toilet, and *FLUSH* through the toilet pipe. I am assuming that a piece of feces' girth is pretty much determined by the cross-section area of the intestine. So if the toilet pipe's cross-section area is considerably smaller than the intestine's, it could get stuck.

I know the real scenario takes into account other variables, including the piece's rigidity, the pipe's inner wall's friction coefficient, the pipe's downward incline, and the amount and rate of water flow used to flush the toilet. Nevertheless, the toilet pipe's aperture remains an important factor to be considered.

I imagine toilet pipe sizes must be fairly standard. I wonder if people actually got to measure and perform statistical calculations on a varied and well-distributed assortment of fecal pieces before determining an appropriate toilet pipe standard size. Would've measuring the actual intestines been helpful on determining an appropriate toilet pipe size? I don't think so... being organic tissue and everything, I'd guess their elastic coefficient would very much disrupt any static measurements upon them.

So those were my two thoughts, full blog version. Nothing urgent, just wanted to finish them off.
And now for my actual events, I'll post another blog entry. This I do for the sake of contextual hygiene, just to isolate my thoughts (especially thought #2) from particular social and worldly events.