Taking a shower has become an ordeal. The aftermath of the tribulation is well worth it, but only in hindsight. If I could take 30 consecutive showers, storing 29 of them for the days ahead, I would do it. What is it that turned showering into an ordeal? There was a time not so long ago when I showered first thing every morning, immediately after getting out of bed…or soon thereafter. Even on weekends, when I needed not worry about offending clients and staff with the odor of slightly ripe Homo sapiens, I started the day smelling like a bar of Dove soap. Back then, showering was a treat. Now, though, the treat takes shape only after I have washed, towel-dried, and put on clean clothes. These days, the process involved in rinsing away sweat, bodily oils, and smells reminiscent of a week’s worth of used gym clothes interferes with my appreciation for the morning routine. So I skip a day. Sometimes another. I would enjoy showering more if I did not have to do the work. That is, if someone: arranged for the water temperature to be just right; used a soapy washcloth to polish away the residue of the previous 24 hours; used a soft, warm, towel to dry my body; selected my clothes for the day and set them out for me. It’s not just the showering, then, that has become an ordeal. It’s the attendant efforts required to erase evidence of day-to-day life. Ah, but the most arduous aspect of showering? Using a squeegee and a rag, post-shower, to minimize water spots on glass and tile and gleaming metal. All of the elements that contribute to making showering an ordeal, though, are far more appealing than doing without water. Complaining about the effort involved in showering is akin to reacting to winning a Porsche 911 by saying is disgust, “Oh, God, we already have a small car.” (Credit belongs to George Carlin, I believe.) Perspective changes everything.
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A burst of energy yesterday afternoon allowed me to shower (HOURS after I awoke), wash the sheets and do another load of laundry, fill the bird-feeders, water the ferns on the deck, and otherwise demonstrate that I am more than a waste of resources and a drag on society. Once that stamina had been exhausted, though, I needed an infusion of soft serenity. So, I allowed Amazon Music to give me reason to relax. I listened to music by Susan Tedeschi, Keb’ Mo’, Taj Mahal, Hoyt Axton, Rhiannon Giddens, John Hiatt, and others. At any given moment, musical preferences can divulge one’s state of mind. Last night’s blend of blues, folk, and country revealed an entirely different man, with an entirely different mood, from the man listening to Dire Straits, the Rolling Stones, Pearl Jam, the Killers, the Foo Fighters, Leonard Cohen, or a Bach piano concerto. The relationship between one’s state of mind and the music that pairs well with it always has intrigued me. I wonder whether the relationship is one of cause and effect and, if so, in which direction? In other words, is the music responsible for the mood or vice versa—or is it something else? My guess is that there is some sort of symbiotic relationship between the two, with each feeding the other.
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We blindly trust the astronomers and physicists who tell us our sun has between seven and eight billion years left in its life cycle. The explanations they give us seem reasonable. But can we really rely on their predictions as we plan for the future? What if, instead of seven to eight billion years remaining, the sun begins its death spiral five to seven years from today? When we get the news, how will we react? Will humankind change in fundamental ways—either positive or negative—or will we simply plod along like the selfish bastards we are until our planet either plunges into Absolute Zero territory or is incinerated by million-degree temperatures? Almost everything would become irrelevant in light of the news that we all are going to perish within seven years. Attending college—or any school, for that matter—would be an exercise in futility. Farmers might decide to raise only enough food for their own families to last until “the end,” leaving the rest of us to do whatever we had to do to get by. Lawn care probably would become an utterly absurd undertaking. Pregnancies might either skyrocket or plummet. Competent healthcare might become damn near impossible to find. But there would be a fraction of Earth’s population who would not accept the inevitable; they would pursue every possible option with the ferocity of a cheetah protecting her kittens from a pack of ravenous hyenas. Hastily-assembled spaceships would be launched in the direction of nearby galaxies, their passengers desperately seeking to escape oblivion. Imagine looking skyward, five years after news of the nearest star’s impending demise has reached us, and seeing the sun pulsating—dramatically brighter for a second or two, then dimming to near-darkness for just as long. Would we react with terror…resignation…anger…immense sadness?
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