Structures and Things

Making it work, making it right

When something needs to be done, or even if it just wants to be done, there are two ways, technically three, to get it done. You have the wrong way, the right way and the no way. The way something gets done is often not practiced or even eloquent in its execution. We stumble our way through the various demands placed upon us each day achieving results for other people. Sometimes we do this to ourselves.

Working with other people to get things done often produces the most stumbling blocks. We don’t know each other or the varied methods that are used to achieve results. These may be good or bad results. The expectation is that everyone is attempting to provide good results and that is what professional behavior and respect are about. There is not an expectation that someone is trying to get away with anything that lacks true effort.

Reality and expectations are quite different. Putting forth the minimal effort to satisfy someone’s demands seems to be the new paradigm as people resent their positions and pay. As the economy is almost entirely shifted to a service base, there is very little pride in achieving the transitory successes available. There is joy in a well crafted object. The time provided to produce results is shortened and the robustness required of the results is minimized to achieve a ‘cost-effective’ solution that provides maximum yield in the marketplace. This provides us with manufactured goods whose life cycle is intentionally short. Corollary to this is the statement “You get what you pay for”, and the fact that a bargain will make you pay over and over again until the perceived value is gone. The cost is much higher than you were led to believe and you continue to pay in the performance quality of the object. This is fundamental to the cheap (poorly manufactured) goods, inflated costs and marketed perceptions that separate our earnings from our possession. This applies to most things that people contract to buy. This applies to your house, car, food, appliances, and supplies. Buying something for the short-term only provides it as a source of waste in to the landfills for the long-term much sooner. Most products cannot be re-worked, repaired, or otherwise re-purposed. Recycling cans, bottles and paper is flawed logic. It only supports the same system of short-term consumables.

The approach for the future is not about making it work, it is about making it right. We will bear the burden of our decisions. No one can escape this. Really they can, and people’s memories tend to be short, so they are abused and taken advantage of time and again. Some people pursue this path, they create havoc, reap the rewards and then move on to the next opportunity. The reality of this situation, is that eventually, there will be no more undiscovered country. By then, they will have made their money, in reality public debt, and have achieved the comfortable life they have sought. They didn’t directly kill or harm people, so there cannot possibly be anything to regret. They were just “doing business”, “following orders”, “working for a living”, “feeding their family”, or “doing what everyone else was doing”. Acting through paper, rather than getting your hands dirty, does not avail you to a clear conscious. Guilt is not inherent in people, it is learned, and if there is no other mechanism to guide your decisions (morals, etc.) then the only recourse is physical action against you to cease your activity. Civilization has recently, and most often historically, been about providing an opportunity for a few to leverage the work of many for their own benefit. Deception, lies, and violence have been used to achieve these ends. The use of force disguised as a “force of protection” for the community is in reality a force for regulating the community through the enforcement of administrative regulation. Law stands above these and requires justice. Justice is not fines, fees, incarceration, or the relinquishment of freedom.

Look at your actions and try to make it right by taking the time when you are working to achieve.

Infrastructure and Water

All great civilizations master a few technologies. Mastery over fire, using tools, print, construction, medicine, farming and clean water. The blood of all life is water. Water pumps through ecosystems, plants, animals, air via rivers, streams, rain, and oceans. Is there a more fundamental element to the success of life? Some might argue air, but let us remember that creatures and plants extract differing elements from the air, whereas all of life needs water. The fluid that moves, carries, falls, collects, and fills the entire world. So the question of human’s success and a measure of the greatness of their civilization is how they utilize water.

Our water infrastructure harnesses rivers, lakes and large reservoirs. It is delivered to our homes, businesses, and factories. The use of the water is measured by the state in which we receive it. Can the water be taken in by people? Is it only good for industrial uses? What chemical contaminants are contained in the water we use for processing our food, hygiene, and replenishing our personal supplies. What happens to the water we use after we are done using it?

What do people do with their water that provides for its continued use? Do we poison our own blood? Are the means in which we use water conducive to a continuity of live?

We take the water that falls from the sky as rain or snow. Each year it seems that less is available as we rush to refill our reserves. We channel it to our processing facilities. We test the water for contaminants. We add chemicals and metals to the water to eliminate parasites and other microbes. We continue to add more chemicals and metals to put in to the water supply regulated levels of ‘health’ benefits. The water is then pumped to various locations and reservoirs prior to its use in homes, factories, and farms. This is virgin water. Not all the water we receive is virgin water like you would get from the ground from your well processed by the earth and hopefully not contaminated from local sources.

Most water is reprocessed to meet the enormous demands of the public and industry. Water is recaptured from homes and factories through our civilized irrigation systems and plumbing. Sometimes the water is not directly captured and is disposed of in waterways (rivers, streams, lakes, and oceans). The waterways are full of toxic metals, pharmaceuticals, chemicals and debris. The water is then processed to remove solids, filtered, aerated, chemically treated and then reintroduced into the system. What does not get processed out of the water, ends up in the factories, fields and homes of the consumer. It is a known fact that the water treatment capacity of most countries is far less than the demand. This causes the facilities to dump what cannot be processed out into nature. This is also the case for America.

What do you suppose prompted the trend in bottled water? Was it more convenient to have someone else bottle your water? Was it just marketing? Water is in every part of your life. You drink it, you wash in it, you eat it, and it falls from the sky covering the entire planet. It seems pretty fundamental to want to have the best quality water for successful living. So what is wrong with the water coming out of your tap?

It is abundantly clear that the infrastructure system of all countries needs to be updated to provide healthy, clean water to people. The decaying infrastructure of America’s water treatment facilities should be our priority. Water quality will tell you how healthy your civilization is, and how advanced our thinking is about sustainable living. The green fields of earth are our first indication that we will prosper. We cannot look to the sky and complain of gases when the very blood that drives the lungs of the earth is poison. The irony of the situation is that carbon is used as a filter to remove toxins from water. Carbon is the basis of life and it seems that the planetary system for filtering the water and air work just fine. We need to work on our systems. We must provide pure water back out into the ecosystem so that it will remain healthy and function as it should.

Water affects everything. Fish, plants, soil, air, ocean life, and entire populations of people. Before you buy another synthetic container full of water that is processed and added upon to be ‘healthy’ for you, ask yourself why it is necessary. Is it the result of a great civilization or a desperate failing of infrastructure?