Is there anything more relaxing than being pelted repetitively by 115 degree water? Being totally nude, letting your pores open, melting away the days’ sorrows, and letting slip a quick pee. Then regretting it because you smell it, and oh god it’s forming a puddle, and it’s starting to OH GOD DON’T LET IT TOUCH MY FEET.

Showers are the baths of adulthood. Any adult who takes a bath for cleansing purposes and not just to induce a lulling meditative state is usually being washed by a nurse. Showers are a time to think, ponder, and reflect. By George, I couldn’t count how many topics and jokes have come to me in the shower. (Hint: all of them.) There’s just something freeing about having a daily routine that’s uninterrupted and safe. Unless there’s a spider in the shower, in which case I’ll go weeks without bathing.

Showering is my favorite thing after a brutal day of sending out job proposals and eating processed foods.

When you take a shower, your brain releases these chemicals called “neurons” that swim around in your brain and increase thought processing. This is why we get so many good ideas in the shower, but when we get out we forget them.

Many of the great ideas we’ve come to know today were first conceived in the shower: Isaac Newton observed the way the water fell towards the ground, and when he got out of the shower, he used this notion to invent gravity. Steve Jobs was eating an “apple” one day while thinking about microprocessors and suddenly it hit him: take a shower! He later founded Microsoft.

After long, hard days, the brain tends to put things in the big picture perspective: Why are we here? What’s our purpose? How long are we going to pretend people still like to watch The View? These are questions not even cavemen could answer. But while you’re standing there trying to elevate your train of thought to more advanced planes of configuration, trying to brave the narrow tunnel of uncertainty to the light of truth at the end, I ask you this: Do you really want to know the answer?  Sometimes I asking myself things without trying to answer them, just getting the thoughts stirred around. Really takes the edge off.

Showering is my favorite thing after a brutal day of sending out job proposals and eating processed foods. Some people have taking showering to the next level, by adding incense, ambient lighting, music, or candles. This is a real splurge, but man; can you imagine taking a shower with Ed Sheeran? (Not in the shower…like in the background. Singing live in your bathroom.)

Some days I even sit down while in the shower. This is a wonderful practice, until I get light headed from the heat and get tunnel vision.

However you like to do your cleansing rituals, be sure you pamper yourself. I know many people who take showers solely because they have something on their mind. The shower is a watery gazebo of tranquility, cascading onto the field of your head, allowing the roots of thought crops to grow deep within, and flourish. Don’t over-manure your thought crops. Let them blossom into beautiful budding ideas.

Until next time, my friends. Shower on.

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