45s on 33 – #17: “Scratch My Back”

The notion of “you scratch my back, and I’ll scratch your’s” is the 69 of more decent and public inter-personal relationships. But it also speaks to a simpler philosophical outlook than might be applied to our current overly-complicated world. Not having access to high thread counts or scientifically mastered mattresses can make for aching backs that lack the same smoothness. Harsher laundry detergents for the poors, as well as cheaper second-hand clothes, not to mention tougher work environments create a leathering of the skin – natural animal reaction to outer layer being scuffed, scarred, tattooed, abused, stained, and minimally poisoned. Thus, the more sheltered and protected and coddled back NEEDS less scratching, and yet has more contact to actual back condition-altering scratching systems.
I was thinking on all this the past weekend, as I realized there’s a lot of shit at my compound I need to fix. This is always the case. We do not have the means to have other people fix shit, unless an absolute emergency, and even then it has to be a special emergency. Mostly, fixing our broken shit requires me figuring out how to fix our broken shit. I’d be the first to admit that my knowledge of fixing all things is limited to what I’ve been forced to do, and I am by no means an expert at fixing all things. Thus, a lot of what gets fixed gets fixed in most likely haphazard less than stellar ways, just to keep working.

Compounding this issue – as is the case for many people – is we are not in the market of buying luxury items or top level home appliances or vehicles or things like that. We get what we can afford, which often is the bottom of the line model (home appliances) or some “deal” we come across (vehicles). These things tend to break more often, thus more haphazard fixing goes on. These things also are not built with stiff metals and strong manufactured parts as they once were, because most companies that build such things have worked unregulated for three decades at cutting costs wherever they can, because that is how you build a successful business. A good cost-cutting method is to use cheaper materials. Negative effect of this is shit breaks down easier, but luckily the cost is cheaper too so often it’s just as affordable to buy a new piece of shit than to fix the old piece of shit. Unless you are not of that market. Then you fix your old piece of shit until your old piece of shit is absolutely unfixable, which probably happens even faster being you are the one who is forced to fix it, and then you figure out a way to juggle obligations and credits to get a new piece of shit, only when absolutely necessary. (Every small town and big city corner coin laundromat still exists due to the fact the juggle sometimes does not allow for immediate replacement, thus you end up spending even more to wash clothes even shittier at the coin laundry. It is not easy being not comfortable.)

The good news is the over-consumption of inferior material goods is not sustainable, and ultimately the entire thing will collapse, either because we as a civilization can’t keep it up, or because the very far down the comfortability scale start getting tired of this shit and begin slitting throats further up the pyramid scam. They won’t reach the upper levels, so unfortunately many people who are far below the power positions will probably die, but they’ll look further up the pyramid to those at the bottom. Hopefully, instead of being angry at those below, we can all share some perspective at this entire nonsense scam, and those who are getting their throats cut without actually being in power will look up further the pyramid and start slitting the throats they can see. This will be trickle-up slit throat-onomics, and it might actually effect actual change, where all our backs start getting scratched. Because if all your needs are getting taken care of, without thought, you have no idea how strong the itch can be.