The Dao Of Poop

In ancient and not so ancient times, people used to try to infer or predict future events by extrapolating from every day, mundane things. Tea leaves, Tarot cards, bird entrails (gross, but still mundane), all could be interpreted and analyzed and used to guide decisions and approaches. They were like barometers for life.

While one side of me has taken a slightly more logical approach to inference/prediction via the Machine Learning route, the other side of me still really puts a lot of weight into these kind of interpretations. Well, I should say one specific interpretation. Where oracles and wise men once use any and all of the above to find their way through the world, I use one thing. My bowel movements.

I can pretty much tell what kind of day I'm going to have from my morning dump. Sometimes, I lay so much cable that no matter how I felt before the poop, afterwards I feel strong, young, invincible. I take that energy into the day, and quite frankly, kick the days ass.

Other days, I grunt and grunt and grind and all I've got to show for it is a couple of turdlets. Maybe a lot of gas. But nothing of substance. On those days, it's difficult to get excited. For one thing, I don't feel lighter, or stronger. I'm also a little nervous to go off on any run longer than 45 minutes. If we lived near the woods, no big deal. I'd just take some tp out on the road and be done with it. But we live on Mercer Island, and people don't take shits in the woods around here. I think it's a felony. Or close enough, anyway.

Lately, I've noticed that even if I don't necessarily have a great morning dump, I can work backwards to my last dump, and analyze it. I am a lucky man. I rarely have more than 2 dumps that are insubstantial. So, for me, worst case is that I'm off by one!

This last realization has led me to conclude that sometimes, it is possible to make my own destiny. The days of agonizing over the meaning of a bad dump have been replaced with bathroom playbacks, in which it is quickly established that I laid a breacher less than 12 hours ago. Immediately, all is right in the world. Or at least known. In effect I start to feel invincible about my shit before last, and use that to reset my approach to the day, the world, and life in general.

I'm wondering what other people use as a barometer...a lot of my friends swear by the bowel movement theory. But then again, that could just be the kind of people I end up hanging out with.