Cheeky ;)

The human body is a baffling piece of machinery, at once frightening in its fragility and awesome in its audacious design. We have hard bones, the softest tissues. Lots of flowy stuff, gooey stuff and gummy stuff. Let's not forget all the chemicals. All of this packed within skin. Much like a sausage. And then we have brains, and we have bums. And though we all have brains, shocking variations in its usage leads me to this conclusion- only bums are universal. They are what I call 'the great equalizer'.

As a teenager, I read a great piece somewhere that goes like this- 'Don't be intimidated by anyone. Remember- everyone has a bum'. I took this great nugget of wisdom to heart. I wanted to make it my philosophy. I told myself that it didn't matter what a person is or has done-  if he's climbed Mount  Everest, been to the moon and back, or is the President of a country. He or she is just another sapien with a bum.

It's something I find it easy to apply in certain situations- in interviews for example. If there's a suited, bespectacled pompous know-it-all who's putting forth questions as if he has a direct line to Universal knowledge, and obviously trying to be intimidating, then in my mind, I wave a hand nonchalantly and think 'Pah! You have a bum.' And that's enough.

But it backfires in other instances when you don't want to be thinking of posteriors at all. Like when striking a conversation with an attractive guy. Then the bum is less an equalizer and more of a make-you-stutter-er.

The reason I'm going on and on about bums is because I believe that we are much too dignified as a species. After all, we have bums. So who are we kidding, really? Why do we sit in restaurants with our legs perfectly placed, hands stylishly holding forks and spoons, carefully dabbing our faces with napkins? Why do we walk with just the right amount of poise, arms swinging, but not too much, expressions neutral and controlled, our steps careful?

Now, I don't advocate stuffing our faces with food or whacking people as we walk past each other, but it bothers me that we are not energetically free. And I don't just mean physically. A book and a TV show that I experienced this week showed me how much we hold back emotionally in the name of dignity. I mean, the very first thing I work hard at when I like a guy, is to make sure that he doesn't know how much I like him. I'm 'dignified'. I'm also an idiot. And I know I'm not alone.

So what we should all contemplate more about is this- we all have bums. If we could just keep that fact in our awareness, we would be far less poised and far more animated. There'd be more honesty and less conflict. More love, less hate. More living, less existing. So that's basically the key to life, the great equalizer, the one guide to a better, less bummed out world- bums.