This is a weird post, but I have weird thoughts.
I was watching Sean Hannity several years ago, and he was explaining how he knows there’s a God whenever he looks toward the sky, and sees the majestic blue eternalness, the white fluffy clouds, the sun shining on a faraway mountain. That vision, that view, proves to Sean Hannity that there must be a higher power.
I, on the other hand, look in the toilet.
Have you ever taken a close view of shit? It’s brown, it’s lumpy. Sometimes it comes off in bits of pieces, sometimes there are kernels of corn, or little green peas. Our poop can be bloody, it can be grayish, or greenish. Sometimes it’s even white. With rare exception, our poop smells. Sometimes it’s not so bad, but generally—awful. Like garbage rotted by more garbage. There aren’t that many 100-percent unique-to-one-thing scents in the world, but a wad of shit smells like a wad of shit.
But here’s the thing: I love shit, because it’s a reminder that, ultimately, we’re just these things roaming the planet, no more special than rabbits (which poop) or deer (which poop) or squirrels (which poop). When I walk my dog Norma, and she stops to poop, she’ll sometimes glance my way as the brown goop leaves her rectum. I can hear the little voice in her head saying, “Pooping—just like you do, bitch.” And she’s right. My brain might be larger. I don’t have fur or a tail. But we both poop.
If we were as special as Sean Hannity thinks, our poop would come out in a wrapped gift box. Or it would look like an iPhone. Or it would smell of roses (Of course, if our poop smelled like roses, would we still like the smell of roses?). But it doesn’t. Poop is gross and yucky, and that’s OK. From Halle Berry to Harry Styles, from Barack Obama to Tom Brady, we all have brown smelly nonsense descend from our bodies.
It’s all good.
