On day19 or any other day would you put grit in a finely tuned machine?
I've just taken delivery of a brand-new car (not the one pictured). It has all the bells and whistles I could want, and it has that lovely new car smell (probably carcinogenic, but I'm ignoring that thought).
Day | Wednesday 19th July |
|---|---|
Days without alcohol | 34 |
Funds raised | $3,107.66 |
Badges earned | 2 weeks Dry |
I'm feeling | Thoughtful |
Beautiful machines
When we get a new machine of any kind there is that wonderful period when it is brand new, works perfectly and it's sparkling clean. Of course, that doesn't last long.
But while it does last, we can be obsessive about it. We wipe away the tiniest speck of dust, we clean the new car every day (well I don't but some do).
As I wrote yesterday, our bodies are beautiful machines too. When I visited a friend over the weekend to help with some gardening, his two-year-old nearly had a meltdown because he got some mud on his hand. As I helped him wash it off, I was struck once again by how perfect the skin of a child's hand is, certainly very different to my gnarly middle-aged claws!
Care and maintenance
Every new machine comes with some kind of guide on how to care for it, and most of us know the basics of caring for machines instinctively such as keeping things clean and well-oiled.
When I worked for a major manufacturer back in the day, they used to keep the factory floor scrupulously clean so that a drop of oil falling from a machine to the floor would be instantly visible, alerting the operators to a potential problem. In similar vein the maintenance engineers would put a thin line of white paint across every nut once it was tightened into place, so that it could be easily seen if a nut was coming loose long before it became a problem.
Unthinkable
We wouldn't think of doing anything to a well-oiled machine like, say, putting grit in the works and expecting it to perform better, and yet we don't have a problem with adding all sort of mildly toxic substances - like alcohol - to our bodies on a regular basis.
Even the finest of human-made machines are coarse and clunky by comparison to the beautiful machinery of life that powers us, but ultimately at the cellular level the laws of physics still apply.
More on that in tomorrow's post.
So that's Day 19 of Dry July, soon I'll be able to start counting down the days to when I finish this challenge, but I'll be thinking about keeping off the gargle for a bit longer I suspect.
You can support my campaign by donating here.
Thanks for reading!
Kommentare