Metaphorically Speaking · 2:41am Jan 20th, 2017
We are all chemical processing plants.
Like those big, industrial complexes you drive by on the highway, with their tall chimneys and squat round tanks the size of a house, paying them little to no heed at all.
We take in material, refine it, extract what’s useful and expel the waste. We are an interconnected megasystem made up of smaller subsystems that work both independently and in tandem. Each of these machines, these organic parts, are controlled from a single control center. A room deep within the plant with little flashing lights, gauges and dials reading out temperatures, pressures, and stress. Sensors all over the plant send signals back to that control center, letting us, the sharply dressed figure in the middle of said room on the little roller chair, that everything is working like it is supposed to. That all systems are go and operating within acceptable levels.
With maintenance, with care for what raw materials go into the plant, that smart little avatar of ourselves can ensure things run smoothly. If a system starts to lag, a little bit of focused attention in the shape of exercise or education can pick up the slack. If there’s an accident, we can call in an outside technician to make repairs. To replace failed struts, to tinker with the plumbing or maybe just apply some fresh paint. With that sort of maintenance, we can reasonably expect to keep our plants running along for many many years to come until we fianlly retire permanently.
That’s you. You are that marvel of organic engineering.
Me? I’m the plant the next county over.
From the highway, at sixty miles an hour, I look like any other plant. Except for the notable addition of some extra support beams propping one building up straight. Just like any other chemical plant, I process and refine. I expel what I don’t want or need. Just like every other plant, down inside there is a control room that every system, mega to sub, feeds back into.
But my roller chair is beat up, busted, more duct tape than chair at this point. My avatar has coffee stains on his shirt and bags under his eyes. He hasn’t slept in a while. All around him, little blinking lights flash out of sync, some of them smoking. Some of them dark. He doesn’t know if the sensors are telling him the system they monitor are broken, or if the little diode has blown. The guages are all in, or very nearly in, the red. The screens flicker and flash, their images blurry when there at all. Water dribbles from an electric socket.
Technicians have been called and dispatched. Fixes made, but they don’t keep. There is a gremlin in the system that is buried so deep there is no exorcising it. My avatar knows retirement is coming. Some days, he looks forward to it. But he wants the plant to work. He wants to keep going.
He has to find a fix or the plant will grind to a halt under his nose. The cranes groan and screech with every move. There’s air in the pipes. Waste is building up, material deliveries outpacing the processing. Everyday something new goes wrong. Sometimes he wonders how the whole thing hasn’t already collapsed.
So when you’re flying by on the highway, if things look like everything is fine, know that it isn’t. If the light are off and the stacks cold, I’m still in here, working on the problem until I retire.
Metaphorically speaking.
Yeah. I can understand.
I've been around for some 50-ish years now, and there are times I'd like to lay the burden down. But to quote a greater writer, I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep.
I get you, brother. My liquid waste processing unit has been on its last legs for years and will soon need replacement. It is tough to keep going sometimes. But when people depend on you...