The Tao of Poo
Stop looking at the world through shit-colored sunglasses
I love the feeling of taking a good shit. Clear bowels make me feel light and energized, and a thorough movement, especially in the morning, can make or break my day. I try to eat enough fiber, stay hydrated, and exercise such that I’m ready to flush (pun intended) the crap out of my system. I have a similar relation to sleep. Being rested affects my mood and health so greatly that I shape my schedule to ensure I have at least eight hours in the bed a night, and I nap when I get less or need extra rest (just like I did before writing this). I recently realized why I fuss so much about pooping and sleeping. I realized an uncomfortable inner state has the power to negate even the most ideal outer state.
To illustrate the above idea, imagine you’re in a favorite spot —high mountains, beach, wherever. The weather is beautiful. You are with your best friends. There’s lots of fun activities to do and good food to eat. Everything is perfect…but, you’re constipated, exhausted, or in severe pain. No matter how awesome things on the outside are, your inner state won’t let you enjoy them.
Of course, it’s not just physical discomfort that does this. Anger, sadness, frustration, and other negative emotional states can torpedo the grandest of settings.
Despite the importance of the inner, most people elevate the outer. Everywhere I look, I see overweight, tired, stressed, and unhappy people dressed in expensive clothes, driving expensive cars, living in fancy homes, eating fancy foods. One can postulate these people put so much stake in the outer because they believe it can (or will) affect their inner states; e.g. a new Mercedes makes its owner feel important and powerful. But does it or can it?
The issue is our perceptual filters, i.e. the lenses through which we perceive and experience the world. Only our inner state, positive or negative, has the ability to affect our filters. Insufficient sleep compromises cellular regeneration, cognition, and memory, effectively making us weaker, stupider, and spacier than we’d be rested. Acute feelings of anger trigger cortisol responses, making us feel stressed all the time. Unevacuated bowels can affect the proper functioning of our gut biomes, compromising our cognition, mood, and immunity. A perceptual filter clouded by these dysregulated inner states makes the world appear hazy, crazy, and full of shit. (NB: good sleep, a lack of anger, a clear gut , etc. has the opposite effect).
Conversely, the outer has little direct bearing on our inner perceptual filters —they’re merely outer symbols of the inner state their possessor wants to have. So unless you’re eating them, Rolexes and designer clothes won’t trigger specific physiological responses. As such, it’s far more useful, and cheaper, to build inner riches.