Making as a Bodily Function
December 4, 2023
Our bodies are constantly dripping, oozing. Sweat is drenching my sweater, I’m wiping my eyes and blowing my nose, and I just came back from pissing (not to mention that I’m on my period right now so that trip to the bathroom also included wiping away blood and discharge). I have a habit of throwing up after a couple of drinks, spitting on the ground, and extracting pus from any blemish I can find on my body (first pus, then blood). It is excellent that I am secreting so many fluids! I am not dead- this proves that I am alive! What evidence of me would there be if not for the sweat stains on my shirt? Would I be a person if I was not constantly excusing myself to go piss? The average person pisses about 6-7 times in a 24-hour period. Pissing is vital. It is one of the most important things a person can do, must do, and does automatically. Is piss useful? Not in the traditional sense, in that it can be used for further purposes. It is not a raw material, but rather a filtered substance created by the body. Its existence and expulsion is its function. Once expelled, it may be analyzed. Uroscopy is one of the oldest forms of diagnostic testing. Common practice in Classical Greece, medical practitioners, after Hippocrates, would hold up a vial of piss to the light and examine it for blood, pus, and other abnormalities, basing their analyses on the idea of humors. Today, urinalysis makes use of chemical tests and microscopic examination in addition to this visual examination. However, the vast majority of piss is not examined but rather discarded, flushed away and reintroduced into our water system.
There is a clear sequence in the creation of piss: consumption of liquid, filtration that separates water (filtrate) from the bloodstream, reabsorption of some of the water and vital nutrients, secretion of waste and hydrogen ions, combination of filtrate and ions, and finally expulsion. This piss re-enters our water, and we continue to drink and piss and drink and piss and drink and piss. The cycle continues. It is possible to consider the creative process in the same way; consumption of surroundings, filtration that separates ideas from the mind, reabsorption of some of those ideas, secretion of skills and methods of making (often coming from previous experience), combination of ideas and methods, and finally expulsion. These creations enter the physical world, and we build upon them, and we continue to experience and make and experience and make and experience and make.
Ideas and creations may be pissed out and examined, typically visually, as in uroscopy, and analyzed. The collection of this expelled creativity is (like uroscopy!) an activity that has spanned time, connecting the cave painters of Lascaux with Ancient Greek oral storytellers and the Impressionists and the Futurists and knitting circles and book clubs and the Downtown New York no wave scene and drum circles and Pratt Institute’s puppet club. The urge to make has always existed alongside our bodily functions. It has always acted as a given, something that we are born with and are tasked with maintaining. Most of our time is spent making. Making food, making love, making art, making music, making sounds, making up stories, making connections, making fires, making friends. It is natural and vital and constant. So why should piss be expendable and ideas be few and precious? If we treat making as a bodily function that is vital for existence but not precious, we will make more. Preciousness is the enemy. It stands in the way of free-flowing creativity, blocking the flow of ideas. But this flow is incessant.
Making is an essential bodily function in the same way that pissing is. Our bodies make these fluids for us from the raw materials that we provide to them; the body itself knows how essential creation is. We are making and expelling, making and expelling. Breath and blood are flowing, sweat and spit and piss are dripping and dripping and dripping and we drink and drip and drink and drip. There is no reason for the body to make urine and hold onto it. Piss is not precious. It is a function that expels waste. It is vital for existence. There is no reason for you to have a creative idea and not act upon it. Creating is not precious. It is a function that expels waste. It is vital for existence and so we must piss and make and piss and make and piss and make and piss and make and piss and make and piss and make.