People, Magazines & "The Act" in the Loo

Ever wondered why people take something to read when they go to the loo. OK, going to the loo for a long time that is. Yes I am talking about number 2 here.

I was thinking why do I need to take something to read when I got to go shit. It has just passed on to us from generation to generation and we have taken it quite mindlessly.

If we think about history, what did people use to do when paper was not invented. No readable material. Lets think about this now. I think its all about being distracted from the task at hand. People dont want to think about the act that they are in the process of doing and hence want to think about something else. The easiest could be to take something to read.

Okay so in the earliest of days, people used to do it out in the woods. Out in the open. So there was always nature to look at, be distracted. Lots of people still enjoy doing it in the pre-historic way even today. Its like man connecting with the past, with his truest self.

So when they started writing on leaves and stuff and started thinking about doing it in caves as in somewhere private, I am wondering did they take their leaves with them?

Of course then newspapers were invented and people used to take news into the loo. This worked well until recently when newspapers and the news printed became mundane and the objective of being distracted from the act went away. Taking a newspaper in the loo became more of something to get distracted from the news rather than the other way around.

That's when magazines, novels and comics became in style. Colorful material, mindless comedy. It all works for distraction tactics from the act considered disgusting by most people. Its something people are embarrassed to talk about. I am not one of those people at all, as it might clearly show from this post.

In recent times, with everything changing to electronic, I know people take their mobile phones, ipods, electronic readers and what not with them as something to spend time on. RSS readers in such devices are a great tool used by people.

Ever thought why the English form (left) of the toilet is preferred from the Squat form (right). I'll let you in on the secret. How the hell do you maintain balance while reading a newspaper, magazine or an ipod, smartphone etc? This is not possible on the Squat Form of the toilet.

I have not really been a toilet reader until recently. I used to be somebody who used to enjoy that moment of solitude, think about stuff. I still believe that royal seat is a great place to think about world peace, save the environment, economy and all those big things that politicians debate about in big meetings and conferences with not much success. I think they should all sit in their toilets and think about it there. They would have much more ideas and we would have something more solid come out of meetings similar to the one we had in Copenhagen recently.

Anyway, its only recently that I started taking things I like to read with me. What I have realized was that I am spending much more time than I would do normally before. I mean it used to take about 10-15 minutes and I was done. This of course doesn't apply to the morning visits cos that's when I catch up on sleep sitting on the loo doing nothing. You can actually sleep on the seat and the your body relieving of the unwanted stuff on its own. Its like auto-pilot and works well for me.

But those 10-15 minutes originally have now turned to close to an hour and do you know why? Its because of the reading material I take. See, if you start an article, you got to finish it right? So even if you are done with the main act, you got to sit there a little longer to finish the article or at least reach a logical break. So it can become a cat and mouse chase between an article and what you are doing if you are suffering from lose motions.

You start shitting and when you are done, you are trying to finish a section of the article. Then while you are finishing the article, its starts coming again, so you start another article and so forth. The good thing is that you can't shit forever and its usually the article that wins in the end or other people in the family who have been waiting for you and banging on the door.

Whats your distracting past-time while in "The Act"?