Creative PSP Assignment #3 - Shit: A Dramatic Realism

            The first time I watched the YouTube video about how so many people live in such unsanitary conditions my first response was to recoil in disgust. My second response was to empathize and imagine what it would be like to have to use the river or local fields as a place to “do my business”. But watching this video involved no use of euphemisms. None at all. These people are struggling to survive and are, in our Westernized eyes, sacrificing not only dignity but precious resources that could be utilized for water or food. The tragic piece of information that would contest my prior sentence would be to acknowledge the fact that these people DO utilize their fields and crops and rivers for food and water. They are literally eating out of their toilet.

            Why do these people have to go in the rivers and fields? It just makes me think about how upsidedown and backwards our world really is (as Kurt elaborately and passionately made clear to us) and ultimately inspires me to raise awareness about issues like these. But honestly what else can I do? Does raising awareness genuinely create change in these foreign countries? Does our knowledge of the issue really give these people a toilet? Fundamentally, awareness comes with action but in our society, if it’s out of sight, it’s out of mind. How can we change this mentality? How can we see these tragic and backwards issues as if it were happening to us? Can we honestly absorb passion through a television or computer screen or do we actually have to see what’s happening for ourselves to ultimately pursuade ourselves something needs to be done? Just some thoughts.

            In our Westernized society, we are blessed with a sewage system but is it really something we should be continuing to be thankful for or should we step up and critically analyze what we're doing. Right now, we're defecating in our water. How can we change that? One option that comes to my mind is in the application of compostable toilets. If our society initiated the transition to an infrastructure that houses compostable toilets, it would be easier to take that application and use it in places that lack a toilet system. Overall, we need to look at the issues in the world and use them to create a system that works for everyone. Using a cyclical process that harnesses human waste would be most efficient. The best way to come up with an idea for this would be to look at nature and figure out a way to copy it; it's simply bio-mimicry. The ultimate result would be a system that requires little labour or perhaps is self-maintained.