Sustainable life traumatizing my poop
I live in National Capital Region (NCR) of India. When I was young, it was imbibed in our upbringing to save energy. Back then, India struggled with energy supplies. There were cities with long power cuts and hours of power outage day and night. It was taught to us as kids to save energy so we can help light up the houses who need it more than us. It was regularly fed to my developing brain that Earth has renewable and non-renewable resources - Food, water, Air, livestock and Sun - and they are depleting rapidly. Utilize the resources in sustainable manner so the coming generations do not have to live unknown spaces of universe. That is a different story that Elon Musk commercialized it and marketed it worldwide.
The world has now grown to the energy saving mode - like the battery of the world is about to die and is working on 10%. I do not condemn the saving - however having a salary of 100,000 saving 90% is not considered an optimal use, it is considered living in poverty when we have treasury as big as Scrooge McDuck. So what should we do, eat up everything? When we ask millionaires what they do with their money, no one says we save it or spend it. They invest it. So shouldn’t our focus be on creating new reservoirs and more sustainable ways to create energy, finding a paper that doesn’t need trees, inventing a substance that works like water without any side-effects.
I understand, its better said than done. It’s is high time that we stop pushing the things under the carpet, saying it is out of our hands, let almighty handle it. Almighty did his job when he gave you the option to imagine, think, create, fail, re-create and repeat. Karma is a constant job, it is not about sitting back thinking someone else will do it for us. Most of us been to public restrooms - at work, airports, train stations, malls. How many of us have actually paid attention and responsibly reduced the use of tissue paper?
It is a nightmare for me going to washroom now a days. A notice near a tap of water mocks me with Save Water and as I move on to pat dry my hands by a couple of sheet of paper napkins, I find it hard not to read Save paper, Save trees. So now I have world saving responsibility on my little shoulders - the choice is what should I save between water or trees - meanwhile at the back of my head - Trees help reduce the carbon emission - so works with air pollution too. And a major break-point comes when I start thinking, how the trees will grow without water? This is a fucking side effect of being educated. I don’t want this huge decision onus at my peaceful place of pooping.
Just leave me and my poop alone. Just when I closely escaped it thinking self hygiene makes us and everyone safe, I see an option of an electric hand dryer - which got on automatically. Because my below 4 feet above sea level shoulder ignited its sensors - sounds sensual, however it was a terror. A sticker on the body of the hand dryer reads Save energy. Now I have accidentally wasted the energy by turning it on - I have chosen hell after death due to this.
Now I try to stay constipated during work, drink less water so I do not have to confront with the hard choices of my sustainable life and deal with a mental dilemma 3-4 times a day - Hashtag saving water, trees, energy and reducing carbon emission all at the same time.
Pun intended!
