Life is Shit

People who complain about how ‘shit’ their lives are, are probably not totally aware of how shit their lives are. Sure, they think their jobs and kids and double-chins are the pits, but if they really stopped to examine this flippant statement, they’d probably feel utterly mortified by the truth and definitely wouldn’t draw attention to their lives by the rhetorical moaning.

Life is shit. But not in a philosophical way. Life is shit because we shit. A lot.

Before going any further, there’s one thing we need to kind of agree on – the idea of shit. Firstly, shitting is essential – there’s no debate there. But, I think we can all loosely concur that, of all the bodily functions, shitting is right down there with the worst of them in terms of the general disharmony the act creates with the rest of the environment. Sure, there’s also sweating and burping. But sweating can be sexy and in some cultures burping is a compliment. There really isn’t another universally accepted bodily function that elicits the same scrunched-nose-downturned-mouth-squinty-eyed-guttural response quite like a poo.

We should be doing a number two every day (according to most research the normal number of poops spans from three times a day to once every three days; i.e. the average person poops approximately once a day). That, in itself, should hurt your feelings; shitting once a day means you’re winning. According to statistics, an average human now lives to 71 years. That’s 25,915 days. That’s 25,915 doo-doos. Let’s ignore the fact that you shit more as a baby. Or that, at some point you’re going to make your own babies and deal with their shit too. We’re definitely not going to delve into the wiping of some old relative’s geriatric arse. This is just a simple equation. And the answer is 25,915 shits in a life.

There aren’t many things you will do 25,915 times. Yes, yes… breathing, blinking – you do that often enough. But those are reflex actions. They don’t take planning or coaxing. (If you haven’t discerned already, this is where the case for more sex comes in.)

71 years – the aforementioned average lifespan – is 3702.14 weeks. If you get a little time between the sheets once a week from the day you were born, that’s 3702.14 shags (that .14 is the mathematical equivalent of just-the-tip, in case you were wondering). Only 7% of people have sex 4 or more times a week. But for the sake of hyperbole, let’s go with this rabbit-like group. Let’s say the luckiest people on the planet live to 71 years and have sex 4 times a week for their entire lives. Optimism is heartbreakingly beautiful. Anyway, that’s an impressive 14,808.56 humpadoodles per life.

It sounds good. Until you realise that it’s still over 11,000 fewer shags than shits. Poor shitty life.

Any animal can defecate and every animal can procreate. But wild animals do both without qualitative distinction between the two actions. We, however, are sensual, intelligent beings. We have the intuition to be able to separate those bodily actions into different values. It is true that we will never have more sex than shits. But we owe it to ourselves to try. Cue stirring music. We owe it to ourselves to shift the theme from daily poo to daily woo as much as possible before we shuffle off this mortal coil. We owe it to humanity and the sanctity of life to uplift ourselves by humping to a point of equilibrium. If that’s too far, perhaps we can just try to minimise the shit-to-shag divide.