Back in the day, if you got a disease or the wrong virus, you could die. I liked that. Don’t get me wrong, I’m proud of the accomplishments society has made in most areas of medicine, but I believe that mankind in general just doesn’t give germs and bacteria enough respect.
I believe the fear of germs or the constant need to be clean has gone too far. Bacteria is good for us. All of it. Yes, even the bad shit. I believe in survival of the fittest. And all the germophobes and clean-freaks are probably not the fittest. People, you need to stop being so worried about germs. Seriously. Or you could die.
I read an article the other day about this woman who had something wrong with her, and she pretty much had terminal diarrhea. She was constantly in diapers and confined to a wheelchair. Messy stuff. Doctors gave her a few months to live. Well, all except one doctor, who wanted to experiment. He took a portion of her husband’s stool and inserted it into her intestines – that’s right, he performed a crap transplant – and she got better. In a matter of days she’d almost completely recovered. She apparently was missing a certain kind of bacteria (which came over on her man’s log) that wiped out the infection that her own body just couldn’t control. Bacteria saved her life.
I don’t exactly welcome germs with open arms – you won’t find me licking any urinals or anything – but I don’t run from them either. I eat after people I know, I can touch things without resorting to hand sanitizer afterwards, and I don’t wash my hands if I think they’re clean enough. I believe the more bacteria my body is exposed to, the better.
And it works.
I hardly ever get sick. How often is hardly ever? How about less than once a year. When I start to get a cold (which to me, is different from being sick), I think, good, this is research for my body. Inside, germs and stuff are being studied, figured out, and then destroyed. I do my own thing – drink lots of OJ, have a hot bath, and get a good night of sleep – and I’m usually better the next day.
The more germs that my body has dissected, the smarter it gets at combating them. This, I think, more than anything, is what builds your immune system. Mine is a tank. I’ve been through some rough stuff and have almost died more than once, but I’ve always survived.
Survival of the fittest isn’t about who’s the toughest; it’s who’s the smartest.
The Chris Effect 