On Knowing Something Was Done

[lwood]

You know, out here in the tall grass, there are a lot of things which, when you've done them, you've no idea whether you've done a damn bit of good.

Was I talking out of my ass when I gave that cryptic oracular pronouncement?

Is anyone actually going to read a website I just spent a zillion hours designing?

How long will it be before that stupid user gets malware all over their computer again?

Why is that potential priest doing all he can to be come a complete shiny-chasing poser?

Friends, I'm here to tell you that cleaning up shit is not one of these things. I do not offer incontinent crazy dying lady excrement as a panacea for the world's ills, but it certainly provides a bit of perspective.

The limited scope a scrub-brush, some cleaning solution, and the offending poo provide is really easy to get your head around and, when you've done it and laid down a nice fat layer of Lysol in your wake, you really know you've made a small, positive change in the world--or at least the world of said dying crazylady.

The real universal compassion points would come when it's less innocently deposited, I realise, or when it's a chronic sort of deal. I get that.

But for a quick antidote to acute craniorectal inversion syndrome, I recommend poo cleaning.

-- Lorrie

Comments

[ardaniel]

Even at a polite distance, cleaning a feral hog carcass, driving a swamp buggy with a tub full of offal strapped to the rear bumper out into the middle of nowhere, and dumping the remains for the buzzards is also a great antidote to bullshit. ;)

[lwood.livejournal.com]

Ayup.

-- Lorrie

[mordantcarnival.livejournal.com]

Yeah, there's a lot to be said for cleaning up shit to get your feet back on the ground.

[lwood.livejournal.com]

I may not know the reality value of a lot of my rich and colorful inner life?

But a simple concrete task has reality value approaching 1. ;)

-- Lorrie

[emberleo.livejournal.com]

And yet somehow Diaper Changing just doesn't feel like a major accomplishment. But then that's what you pointed out the Chronic bit for.

--Ember--

[ardaniel]

Doesn't have to be major, just needs to pull your head out your ass. ;)

[lwood.livejournal.com]

I'm telling you: send the n00bs to the Old Priests' Home and solve many problems with one shot:

Get mentored, improve your shields, acquire de/re/attachment skills, and a good spoon of perspective. 8-P

If I win the Lotto, I should build one.

-- Lorrie

[countgeiger.livejournal.com]

I think the difference here is that when you're changing a baby's diaper, it's a needful thing that you know will have a limited duration, and well, let's face it, a baby doesn't exactly have any dignity issues around this. They simply haven't learned better yet.

When it's an adult, who's managed to fend for themselves more or less for decades, there's ... hrm ... more to it. You're helping to preserve what shreds of dignity the other person has left, and doing for them when they're no longer able to do for themselves.

Maybe I'm not saying this very well, I dunno.

[lwood.livejournal.com]

*smooch* That's part of it, yes.

-- Lorrie

[lwood.livejournal.com]

Well, exactly. I don't know that I'm well-suited to hospice care; I alternate between too callously detached and too empathetically attached, when the ideal appears to be holding onto TS Eliot's mantra: "Teach me to care, and not to care; teach me to be still". If I was scraping shit off toilet seats (and floors, and...) for months on end, I don't know if my ability to cope would grow faster than my burnout and disgust--and there are long-term tasks to which I know I am suited, so I can deal.

This also happened just after the bembé; as we left her house, I mentioned all this and declared, "This moment of clarity brought to you by Iemanja Asesu, Lady of the Sewers".

Now Diana had the resources to take up all the soiled bedding and wash it, and she's had similar things to say about "well, no matter how much my life sucks, this does wonders at granting perspective."

Don't get me wrong, it's still a messy disgusting business, but dammit that toilet is now clean, and while I can talk out of my ass about a lot of things, and not know if I did a lick of good, I cannot argue with the fact that the toilet now has less poo, and the spreader of such is grateful that there is now less. It would have been a different perspective-granting scenario had a wad of fresh stuff been flung at me, or had she been less appreciative; I do understand that.

It also pointed up to me that it is good to show compassion: with my family three thousand miles away and not caring terribly much about me in any case, with a husband fifteen years older than I and most of my best friends considerably older than I am...the only substantial difference between how I'll end up and the lady in question is that I'll have a bit more money to play with while rattling around some lonely abode as its resident crazy cat lady. 8-P

We need an Old Priests' Home, I swear, and then we ensure that whippersnapper shit-hot n00b spiritworkers are assigned there for a goodly stint.

Mentoring and poo-cleaning perspective, all in one shot!

It could work!

-- Lorrie

[trogula.livejournal.com]

Actually, I find that doing anything that helps another person who's in need to be the greatest cure for chronic rectal-crainum insertion.

[lwood.livejournal.com]

I also find that while it's good to be useful, it's better when you know you had nothing to do with causing or catalyzing the problem.

So, while it's good to help with the freaky woowoo issue, I know I spend a lot of time busily plowing and planting seeds to that end, and that 'sploding hearts, minds, souls &c are part of the harvest. I'll help, and it's good to help, but I also know, that I may have helped make that problem, or one just like it, or something I learned here will be applicable to the next ticket, on which I have a lot more prior history and need much more detachment. It's the Loki Problem: coming through with the goods is nice, but did you have to cause calamity to get there?

See, I have to work a lot harder to declare myself Part of the Problem when it's diabetes and inoperable brain cancer. 8-)

-- Lorrie