[891] Salty

“Can I come out now?”

I want this to be very broad. As something of a fundamentalist when it comes to the method of discerning and repeating factual information, there's a sense that literally anything, big and small, is playing some version of the same song. I think there are functionally foundational methods to not just orienting yourself in a conversation about the natural world, but about what it means to be human. I think a lot of those fundamentals have been dressed up and confused in the manner in which they've been shared in school or between cultures. The truth of them, and the consequences of playing in concert or discord, play out predictably.

To be a little thirsty is familiar.

Everything, everywhere, needs to replenish itself in order to survive or perpetuate. You don't get life on Earth without a closed energy system constantly raining down from the sun. The light doesn't know nor care if it's illuminating a book or a torch. Heart disease is the biggest killer in the world. You clog the rejuvenating system, it prematurely ends. Your body is a closed system that can only work with what's been put into it. So far, we haven't learned how to scrub our veins and arteries so we don't feel burdened by the effort or expense it would take to eat healthier. We prefer instead to adapt by adopting a “you only live once” mindset that makes poor attempts to cope with death in every onerous bite.

In one of the last episodes of Vikings, a group is lost at sea. Slowly, they begin to die, and one boy hastens his death by drinking the salt water. Hopefully, if you're reading this, you've never been someone so thirsty you would deeply empathize with his plight. For all of the things these adventurers were excited and motivated to discover about the world, they already figured out it's foolish and deadly to drink from the sea. What goes through a person's head, so desperate, so deluded and bereaved, to do it anyway?

Our biological systems are a wealth of knowledge. Before we began the conspiracy to persuade ourselves we were ever “safe,” we built a complex series of understandings that tracks straight from our genes to our hero stories. That understanding was meant to provoke us to react to danger, real or imagined. It said we can take a thousand cuts to our skin in service to protecting what lies deeper. Practically overnight, those systems were subjected to modern environments they weren't designed for. When the physical plain or jungle disappeared, a new stomping ground was created in the mind. Now, convoluted philosophy or religious ideas shape and bind. Needs multiply in keeping with ever-iterating abstractions, to be saved, to follow rules, tithe, consume, or otherwise obligate yourself to your neighbor.

I think at every single moment, since the beginning of time, and at least since the beginning of consciousness, it's the same tools, same game, and same decision as to whether or not to drink the sea water. As deadly as it may be, a little won't kill you. This provided you drink 2.8 units of fresh water for every 1 unit of sea water. It will never be “safe” anymore than drunk driving, but each time you make it home without killing yourself, someone else, or ending up in prison, you have a visceral reminder of what *seems* to work. That fresh water is coming is taken for granted. Unrealized consequences, in fact, aren't consequences.

Water, at least, you can tell whether or not it's salty. Whether that's enough to deter any one person is its own question. What to do about murky ideas? What to do about abstract or deliberately convoluted ideas taking years to impact? You just got away with drunk driving yesterday, sipped a little sea water to celebrate, and now you're being told to ponder what happens to children you don't have 10 years from now when billionaires get tax breaks? Meanwhile, it's completely lost on you that the reason you were out drinking is because you feel generally miserable from your low wages now impacted from what was done to you maybe 40 years ago! How can you be expected to wrap your head around this game or these timelines? Especially because you've been told never to trust who's told you about them.

The more you own your complicity, the easier it is to understand. That is, say you've been given an opportunity to join something, say something, or build something, and you don't. First, and this is the insidious yet most meaningful detail, you have to recognize you had the choice to join, say, or build in the first place. Much of the modern discourse seems wholly engulfed by the idea that we're all just along for the ride. (Choo choo Trump train!) It's not me, it's my boss. It's not me, The State is all-consuming. It's not me, the rules are *clearly* written down. We're afraid to get called out or be held accountable. We're, pathetically, afraid of disassociating with the worst perpetrators. We don't want the burden that comes with holding and fighting for what it means to choose to be a rational and responsible actor in the world.

A little, dumb, coup attempt took place not 2 days ago, and there was an infinite saltwater sea of moments between certifying the election and going home to “debate” whether or not a president inciting insurrection should be removed. His vice president isn't on board with the idea, and the cowards and opportunists he hired resigned before even chancing getting asked the question. These aren't people. These aren't leaders. These are the result of previously unrealized consequences filling a power vacuum when you don't join, speak, and build.

So much of the narrative over the last 5 to 10 years has been about “canceling” or extirpating “problematic” ideas from our thoughts. We learned the dangers of social media, and continued to sip at regular intervals. We learned that absurd math of “trickle down” and devoted cherished Disney classics to the folly of greed and pride, sip sip sip. Mollify the angry Whites, don't condemn. Beat the Blacks for daring to claim their lives matter. Fake news and foreign interference. Nary a nod to the misdeeds in our own backyards when it comes to spying, environmental destruction, war mongering, or entertaining a unique racist brand. It's as simple as representation! Don't you know words like “qualified” are toxic and maybe violent and sexist?

By default, we are wrong, and nothing about how we engage with the world tries to reckon with that save scrupulous scientific pursuits. By default, we are thirsty, and we can be persuaded to drink sea water. We can squeeze it drop by drop, or gulp by the handful. I see people who swim or surf that perhaps accidentally drink it. I know some people make a game or guilty pleasure out of downing a cup here or there before racing to the water fountain. They go on to pretend like it didn't happen. Then, they pretend they can't see dehydrated people on the verge of death gleeful and delirious as they reach once more over the side of the boat.

The Nazis become the Germans we know them as today because we gave them a plan, dignified work, and an opportunity to buy-in to this increasingly precarious global experiment to prevent the extinction of humanity. (Or at least to get them all shopping.) They were very thirsty, and those as equally informed by history and human psychology as anyone else of their day opened fire hoses of sea water. These same monstrous fools are in every third house in your neighborhood. They're still thirsty, and no one is turning on the water. They don't know of any good wells. And whatever you're drinking has made you quiet, afraid, and unironically entitled. Onto the infinite negative feedback cycle you go, justifying your ongoing posture as the threat escalates sip by sip.