November 23, 2003

• The ninety percent rule

  
  

   

  
  

  I was on a recovery board recently and someone quoted the 90% rule–”Ninety percent of everything is junk.”  It was attributed to science fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein, and it may be his–it sounds like one of the facile, slightly cynical sayings he liked to put in the mouth of Lazarus Long.  Anyway, it got me to thinking, early this morning, so much so that I couldn’t get back to sleep. So here I sit–took time to get dressed, for a change–in our darkened trailer, the only other sounds besides the keyboard clicking and the CPU humming  being the sweet music of my old lady softly breathing, and the woodstove ticking as it heats up.

  
  

  I object to that rule, although I once thought it devilishly clever, not to say profound.  I was once very lazy and mostly asleep.   I am still lazy but now I make an effort to wake up now and then.  I object to saws and adages and rules of thumb in general because they discourage critical thought.  They help us stay asleep.  And sleep–in the E. J. Gold, Gurdjieffian, sense of the word–is the enemy of our personal evolution, the enemy of our being fully human, and fully alive.

  
  

  So in this blog, I intend to subject the rule to some critical thought, and define “junk” while I am at it.  Here goes.

  
  

  Here in rural Alaska, “junk” is not a bad thing.  At our old place across the highway, we have seven or eight junked vehicles in the yard, some of which still serve as valuable sources of spare parts for vehicles that are still running, or may be restored to runninghood.  We also have a junk pile that was the envy of our neighbors, and from time to time would get some money or barter from folks needing, say, a truck wheel with useable tire, or a  roll of barbed wire, or a flowerpot.  The pile is largely picked over and biodegraded now, but I am sure that a careful search would yield more than a few  needful things.

  
  

  But what does “junk” mean in the context of the ninety percent rule?  Let’s look at police–are 90% of them junk–that is, stupid, corrupt, brutal, and/or incompetant?  I doubt it. Based on my own experience and observations,  I think the true figure is between 20 and 60 percent, depending on whether you are talking about local speed-trap artists in Georgia or Interpol.

  
  

  But most folks who read this will be well-off white people who have nothing to do with the police unless they get a speeding ticket. Let’s look at something more universal–food.  I would venture to guess that at least 90 percent of the fast-food offerings are indeed junk food–that is, victuals that are too high in salt, sugar, or harmful fat to really be considered fit for human consumption.  And this does not include the rare, but increasingly less-rare instances, of outright lethal grub, such as the  hepatitis-ridden Chi-Chi’s salsa in western Pennsylvania which killed 3 people and sickened some  600 more.

  
  

  And if you go by sheer amount of display space in supermarkets–the vast baked-goods departments full of sugary, trans-fat and refined wheat flour laden junk; the aisles of pre-sweetened cereal laced with possibly-carcinogenic dyes; EVERYTHING in the candy aisles; the salt-laden canned prepared foods and the canned vegetables which tend to be innocent of both flavor and nutrition–ninety percent may be optimistic.

  
  

  In consumer goods, I think the rule falls down badly.  I don’t buy new clothes, but the used ones I get at the thrift shops tend to be well-made (and well broken in!).  High-tech stuff is not only functional these days, but amazingly cheap–my first VCR cost around $500; new ones of equal or better quality go for less than $100.  (Never mind that you need an engineering degree to work some of them–that is outside the scope of this rant.)

  
  

  Ditto with new cars.  Again, this is something I have no experience with–the last new car I bought was a 1980 model, and I am driving a 1988 Dodge now.  Sure, they cost a fortune to repair if they get bashed, and they have more computer power than the first spaceship that landed on the moon, and shade-tree mechanics are pretty much a dying breed due to their complexity, and it might cost you $2500 to replace the fancy solid-state keychain that does your remote-starting if you lose the darn thing–but they run.  And that is all that matters in a vehicle.

  
  

  But what about people in general?  Are we ninety percent junk?  I think not.  It may sound bumper-stickerish and Sunday schoolish, but I accept the notion that god does not make junk.  As I noted before, most of us are asleep most of the time.  That is not entirely our choice. At a deep level, we do want to stay asleep, but the politicians and hucksters  and their media cronies are only too happy to help keep us in a comatose and uncritical state.

  
  

  Many of us are fearful and confused and uncertan.  Many of us with good reason.  Many of us live in daily fear for our very lives, whether we are afraid of a stray bullet coming through a window (something inner-city folks live with on a daily basis) or whether we live in a country ruled a by a sadistic and/or certifiably looney dictator or whether we face starvation due to famine.

  
  

  But as fragile and tenuous as human life can be, we are also tough.  Sure, there are some soft city people who think it is a crisis if they get a bad olive in their martini, or if they spill some of their latte on their Armani, but there are millions more of us who are  mentally tough and  spiritually resilient. Who do not moan and whine about their condition.  Who give, quietly and unsparingly, of their time and energy to those in need. Who take hardship in stride.  Who live with pain and disability on a daily basis and who keep soldiering on nevertheless, simply because to do otherwise is unthinkable.

  
  

  I know this because it is my privilege–and sometime challenge–to be married to one of these people.

  • 1:45 pm
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