The Power of Showers

Alas, here is the reason for my quirky yet serious belief in longer showers by Americans being incredibly important:

The time in the shower is fundamentally unlike all other locations where we spend our typical day. And this uniqueness of Shower Time still holds a potential for effecting world change that has been lost by all other common activities shared by Americans.

The shower is the one habit, daily for most, when we leave our smart phones and laptops behind. All other similar habits of daily living allow for us to be plugged into the Web of incessant information.

We can jog, chew, work, pretend attentiveness in a meeting or classroom, commute, play, tend to mother nature, and participate in almost all other typical daily activities while still being hooked into the Real Matrix of Virtual Connectedness--while still having those head phones in and those apps churning. Most all of our day hooks us like this, most all, except for the shower. Our smart electricity doesn't work under water, but we do, and in fact, have to be able to do so in order to survive as a species.

Unless you swim often or are paranoid enough from being separated from the Internet and have the money to convert your shower walls into some waterproof computer-touch tiles, there is little else in your day that momentarily separates us from finding out which wife Henry VIII killed, whether Cafe de La La is still open, or whatever else our busy minds must know next.

I know the reason for my call to a new season of longer showers is not a new critique on our society's immersion in the Web of endless information. But even an "old reason" can remain relevant. In this case the relevancy of such a rare "unconnected moment" in the shower only increases as does the number in front of the "G" in cell phone speeds.

But it msut be clear at this stage in the investigation that "unconnected" from the Web does not mean unconnected from others. In fact the reason for the power inherent in a shower is a host of crucial CONNECTIONS that are weakening due to our living in the Age of Information.

The showers we take daily hold an influential and innate power, and more posts are to come on what exactly is so groundbreaking in those few minutes we have completely under water. But today we see that Shower Time is very different than most other activities of our day. The power in that Time is about the absence of a very common thing--already called by various names above. But the power is also about what is inherently there for all of us in that absence.

Here's where our study starts to get really enjoyable! For even as I write this, I know only a little of this what behind the power of showers to change the world for the better.  By us engaging on this further, we will all, me included, become students to this original question I posed and find a multitude of satisfying answers. For even though this question is quirky, it implies a topic, a process, that can guide all of us to live well for the rest of our lives.

I hope you stay tuned because I need more than me if this power of the shower is to offer more truth. I need not just my voice but others.