Let’s improve the common toilet invention why don’t we? It was seen as such a mastery of inventing, the infamous ‘S’ Bend and the magic flushing action, but I say please lets move on can’t we?;)
WC or water closet. What a waste of water for a start, and we really need to be taking water use into serious consideration for the future.
Many toilet systems in England still have the bidet in elaborate structures, a bottom washer, that you can squat over and be squirted at by, but that again is more a waste and a market design, than a good invention demonstrating sense and hygiene.
Let us not forget, that efficient removal of our waste products, is for the very reason that such bacteria and contaminants was the original and main cause of ill-health, disease and death amongst us. This still applies to us today.
Keeping separate our faeces and urine from our essential needs of intake were, and still are, the most important considerations for maintenance of good health.
As I always say, there are good inventions and not so good inventions. There are inventions that are not sensible at all but marketable, and harmful inventions that we have examples of needing to phase out of common use, due to the significant damage they caused. DDT use, dangerous toys, cigarettes as a few examples.
Inventions are just something we have designed with our creativity, and there is no reason whatsoever that we cannot improve upon them with our improved knowledge.
May I suggest a mirror on the underside of the toilet as something that I consider necessary. I used to have a round one stuck to the underside in one house , and in my house these days I have a mirror on the wall in proximity to the toilet for easy viewing.
If our very life and health depends upon good hygiene, and the very root cause of ill-health used to be from contamination with our waste products, then it stands to reason that we should combine the invention of the mirror if it can assist us with keeping ourselves clean? No?
Many folk have healing to do in relation to their own connection with these lower body parts, and I feel a mirror would assist with this also. Many preventable disorders would be observed long before they became more serious.
As woman I can share of many other useful reasons for a mirror as we maintain ourselves in the best health possible. Sometimes a quick look in a mirror of changes in colour or anything else can give us insight long before we feel any discomfort, and how sensible to do it as part of regular toileting.
A simple rule of life, is to look after our body the best we can afterall. Lets ‘get over’ ourselves, and embrace every part of us;) Also, I don’t enjoy particularly sharing the room I bathe in, with a toilet. If it can’t be outside – and I ask why not – then better if in a separate room altogether.
The Tv show Dr Oz, had a wonderful and explanatory episode showing tests they had done in a lab on personal items from audience member’s bathrooms. Tooth brushes, shower-caps, jars to hold toothbrushes, all showed intestinal bacteria present on them – from poo.
How many of us are told that the lid of the toilet prevents intestinal bacteria and whatever else is lurking in the toilet, from travelling 20 feet in water vapour particles whenever it is flushed?
Drop toilets are extremely practicable and there are wonderful composting systems available so you can turn your waste into productive waste for the earth. I looked into many of these in my ecology training, and Wilderness Society/Greens/Conservation Council involvements.
The design in Muslim countries has a much better usage of water, where you use it to clean yourself, rather than using it to assist your waste to travel away from you! Squatting lower to the ground allows for a better position to assist its removal, and water can be accessed with implements if not a spray nozzle device attached to the wall.
In some of the fine hotels in Bali and Indonesia I visited for my studies of Orang Utans, I have experienced the best designs of a nozzle and hose attached to the wall that enabled the most complete and easy clean of all. It is the winner so far, in the categories of good health, great design and common sense!
The nozzle was in easy access, and extremely flexible with a soft, small but strong spray that could be directed expertly. It makes far greater sense to use water this way, than to use it to chase the faeces fancily away from you while you wipe yourself, unseen, with a piece of dry tissue!!;)
Wiping yourself without any moisture at all – and without even a mirror!- does not make for 100% as squeaky clean as you can be every time. The common term ‘skid marks’ in the English language, given to fecal stains found in a streak shape in the back sea of your undies, can attest to this.
My British Grandfather used to frighten some of the grandkids with his toilet antics. He was very strict about only 3 pieces of toilet paper being used – 3 of the perforated squares only. ” One to wipe, one to polish, and one to shine” he would order.
He would inspect the role to paper to check up on you. he would remind you of the strict rules before you needed to go, and he would enquire about it from his comfy chair, after you had been. There was always the fear that he would visit you in there, when he was mobile enough to do so.
This is a classic example of priorities being lost. More important that a child learns correct hygiene and reason for keeping oneself clean after toileting, than fear inducement or saving pennies on buying toilet paper from the shop.
Feedback I have received from folk talking of lovers they have had, who had not “wiped themselves properly” at one time or another, suggests it is the habit of just wiping themselves, that is not really a ‘properly’ or an ‘adequate’ thing to do!
I am a huge fan of us all combining our strengths, passions and expertise as we live together, on, and as a part of, the organism ‘Earth’. Lets do something better and wiser- the earth over- with our intelligence and our waste removal! : )
C'mon, Be a Human Already!;) 