When we think about what is poopy in life, not only our own life as human beings, or our own individual lives, but also the lives of other physical beings, it is helpful to know not only what is core to the understanding but also what is at least within the same semantic domain and which can be viewed as being similar enough to them that they can be considered to be poopy things even if they are not literally poop. For the purposes of this discussion, we will adopt the view that poop in the broad and metaphorical sense consists of those physical aspects of our body that are normally contained within ourselves but when they break out of containment or are extruded from ourselves bring with them a sense or reality of defiling or shame or something of that nature. It is well worth pointing out that all that is poop consists of externalities, things that come out of us that under normal circumstances are dealt with inside. We will have much to say about the philosophical implications of this at a later time, but for the moment, it is worth noting that poop itself consists of externalities that relate to ourselves personally, that which comes out of our own bodies. We will shortly examine what things we view as poopy in our lives, and find that there are both similarities and differences in them that are worthy of reflection.

When we look at the substances that are similar to poop in that they come from inside of us and can make their way outside either through the normal operation of the body or through violence against our body, we find a large list of subjects that relate to the difficulties of human existence. Alongside our own fecal matter, there are a variety of substances that are extruded from our body through normal circumstances that nonetheless put materials outside of our body that are viewed as being in some way defiling or unclean. Included among these materials is the sweat that comes through the pores of our skin. It includes urine, by which the body eliminates uric acid that it cannot process internally. It includes menstrual fluid, which only women extrude during the time in which they are capable of bearing and bringing to term life, from puberty to their passage into barrenness. It includes sperm as well as vaginal fluids that are related to sexual contact. It includes tears, one of the means by which the physical manifestations of emotions extrude from our tear ducts, which are especially defiling in many circumstances to males. It includes pus as well as phlegm and snot, which come from the throat and nasal cavities. If we expand our definition to include that of gore, we see those aspects of our own organs like brains and intestines that are normally kept within our body but which can find themselves outside of our body as a result of serious to fatal injury that may endanger the life of a person and are certainly viewed as being unclean and defiling. It also includes blood, which stains and defiles and brings with it both guilt and sometimes the embarrassment of having to deal with a leaky faucet in a place of the body like the nose that simply cannot keep all of its blood within veins, arteries, and capillaries but which sometimes expands to such a level that this life force is brought into the outside world.

We noted earlier that human beings are possessed of both an interior world that is largely invisible to others and an exterior world that we have to deal with. This fact, which many people have assumed is unique to human beings is in fact an aspect of existence that we share with all living things. Indeed, it is quite possible that what makes consciousness on some level a quality that applies to all life forms is related to the fact that, at least within the physical world we live in, all bodies are material and offer clear boundaries between what is inside and what is outside. The very act of putting a border between inside and outside appears to be necessary to life. This is so because bodies, even bodies as simple as viruses and single-celled organisms, contain within them delicate chemicals whose operation is necessary for life but which cannot operate under the harsh conditions of the outside world. The creation of a boundary between inside and outside to protect something vulnerable itself may be sufficient to cultivate consciousness, and it is even possible that consciousness results from an awareness that there is an inside to protect from the outside world.

In many cases, it is also worth noting, our poop (whether we think literally or metaphorically) is the result of natural processes by which waste is to be removed from the inside of the body and dealt with outside. In order to live, we must take things inside of us from the outside world that are necessary for survival and to remove from within ourselves waste products. In order for us to pass on life, we must bring into the outside world a new life form that is of the same kind as we are, that has developed in some sense on the inside and then takes its place as its own organism, with its own needs to take in nutrients from the outside world and to deal with waste products in that same outside world. Even a virus, to copy itself, needs to extrude its own genetic code into a living cell to turn that cell into a factory for replication. What gives life to a virus takes life from whatever that virus serves as a parasite to. The same processes go on in living cells, in organs, and in bodies as a whole. It should also be noted that the same thing is true for larger communities of human beings, about which it will be necessary to discuss at its proper time.

When we think of poop as it relates to our own production of it, we can think of it as the transfer of bodily substances that are the result of natural processes inside of ourselves to the outside world because they cannot be contained, for one reason or another, inside of us. If our poop stays inside of us, we will die. If uric acid stays inside of us and is not gotten rid of through urination, we will eventually be crippled by gout crystals. If we cannot sweat, we may not be able to regulate our internal temperature and may end up dying as a result. If we cannot get rid of the natural byproducts of our bodies’ efforts at self-defense from colds through phlegm and snot, we may find ourselves unable to breathe because of the fluids that fill our lungs, which would result in death. If poop is something that must be dealt with carefully and which it is often embarrassing to bring into the external world, and viewed as something dirty and shameful, it is also something that is necessary for life. Our attitude towards our own externalities represents an occasion to think of our attitude towards the necessities of physical existence. Some people lament that it is necessary to eat–and thereby to kill–and that in order to live we must push waste products from within us into an exterior world, which we then must manage in order to preserve the world around us. We may often wish to think of life as pristine, but our own existence and the processes of our body should indicate from the very start of our lives, when we are nothing but googooli [1] poop factories, that life is inherently messy. We would do well to remember that from our youth instead of living largely in denial of that fact.

[1] Googooli is a transliterated Persian word that refers to beings, especially infant children, who by nature of their chubby cheeks and general cuteness and innocence provoke in us a natural and inborn desire to protect them from the evils of the world. In general, we find that youth of many species, including puppies and kittens, baby cheetahs and the like, have the sort of rounded faces that provoke a protective response on the part of normal adults of many species, not only human beings. We may even posit that a lack of protective feeling and response towards that which is googooli is an indication of some sort of corruption or deficiency on the part of the being in question.