Holistic Problem Solving For the Human Species.
The Whole versus The Parts.
‘The Whole is Greater than the Sum of Its Parts. But You Still Need the Parts Too!’
How Repairing or Refurbishing a Yard Lawn Mower Proves the Point.
Wow! That International Space Station Must Be Something!
What About Planet Earth?
For the Current and Future Survival of the Human Species.
Versus.
The Current and Future Self-Destruction of the Human Species.
By: Mr. George D. Patnoe., Jr!
February 8th, 2019.
The Lawn Mower.
The Lawn Mower.
Repairing and refurbishing my 25 year old yard grass cutting lawn mover was a very long and overdue project that needed to be finished before I could cut or mow the front yard grass again. I had simply walked the lawn mower to the front yard and I pulled on the starter cord and nothing happened. Over and over again I was pulling while I was wishing and dreaming that the lawn mower would start so I could cut the front yard’s tall grass. But no! Nothing. So I walked the lawn mower back to the back yard to get started on fixing my 25 year old work horse lawn mower.
What a jerk I was to wait that long but I figured out that fixing the lawn mower could not wait any longer because the lawn mower was now officially dead. Well my dear readers I was thinking two things to myself while I was looking at gas leaking down to the grass and dirt and stuff that had collected on the bottom of the lawn mower. The first think I was thinking to myself was ‘what is actually wrong with the lawn mover?’ And the second thing I was thinking to myself was, ‘Should I fix one single part of the lawn mower or should I do a good job and replace everything I could so I could fix the whole lawn mower?’
Now then, a very real problem with fixing anything is trying to figure out what is the actual problem because there is only so much stuff you can see with your eyes before you start using tools to remove parts from the lawn mower. The problem is that we can only visually see only part of the problem because the human eyes and human brain are very limited in their scope of seeing and sight. In regards to my lawn mower, I saw gas leaking and I thought it was a cracked fuel /gas tank because I could see the long crack in the gas tank. So I found and bought a brand new fuel/gas fuel tank for my lawn mower online at Home Depot. Nope. Still did not work.
I lived next door to a guy named Art who had like five broken lawn movers on the side of his house and I have always wondered why he never fixed any of them. Instead he always bought new lawn mowers. I wondered to myself if he was just stupid or just lazy to learn how to fix a lawn mower. A lot of human beings are like Art, just to stupid and lazy to figure out how to fix things. But then there are a lot of even uneducated human beings who learn how to fix things.
Before I bought the new fuel/gas tank, I had bought glue to try to glue closed the crack in the obvious long crack in the fuel/gas tank. I did not really think it was going to work but I wanted to try anyway. The lawn mower worked for a few months, but it was still leaking fuel or gasoline. So I had thought to myself that if I buy and install a brand new fuel/gas tank that it would work like new. Nope! I was wrong! It was a very easy thing to do, three bolts, nothing more. And guess what my dear readers, nothing like in no start up from the lawn mower. Ok I thought, and I still see gas leaking too. I still see leaking fuel or gasoline. Hum?
So I took off the carburetor and cleaned it after I watched a Youtube video about how to clean a lawn mower’s carburetor. Again it was not a hard job. Unscrew two bolts and use some carburetor and a wire to clean the carburetor. Well it did work for about five seconds, and I still saw leaking fuel/gasoline. Ok, so at least it started for about five seconds which was better than being completely dead. At least there was some hope after all.
I had long ago like six months ago replaced a crack fuel/gas hose and the lawn mower worked just fine, well for a few months. So should not the fuel/gas hose get fuel/gas to the carburetor now? Nope. Why? Because after I replaced the now very clean fuel/gas carburetor, and air filter it still leaked fuel/gas. But then I saw a slightly damaged gasket that was located between the carburetor and the air filter plastic cover and I thought to myself, ‘Should it not work anyway.’ Sure it was going to work anyway, in my dreams.
Why? Because the whole is better than the sum of its parts. Meaning here that every part had to work and be in completely perfect condition for the whole to operate properly. But maybe the phrase should be that even the parts are as important as the whole.
Why? Because the whole is better than the sum of its parts. Meaning here that every part had to work and be in completely perfect condition for the whole to operate properly. But maybe the phrase should be that even the parts are as important as the whole.
Is that where the fuel/gasoline is leaking from I asked myself and of course the answer was yes. Hum, do I really need to replace a fuel/gas gasket that has been on the lawn mower for over twenty years? Yes, it did need replacing. So I had to go online and find the number to the specific fuel/gas gasket that I needed to very carefully put into the slots of the air filter plastic cover that would be needed to be screwed back onto the side of the fuel/gas carburetor. Only five and two dollars so I got one of each. The five dollar gasket for the next twenty years and the two dollar gasket for after then next 25 years.
While I was waiting for the fuel/gas gasket, I had replaced the spark plug and the air filter with a very new spark plug and very new air cleaner, all the while thinking to myself, ‘I am glad that I am not in the International Space Station, as I clearly had this mental image of the International Space Station with countless hoses and wires and all kinds of stuff for human survival in a Space Station that is floating in the void of empty space with no chance of human life surviving outside the Space Station unless a human being was wearing a space suit with its air hoses, etc.
The day arrives when I decide to install the brand new fuel/gas gasket on the plastic cover that holds the air filter. Then as an experiment I leave off the outside air filter plastic cover that actually holds the air filter onto the carburetor. I try to start the engine by pulling on the rope cord and guess what? Nothing. Nothing at all. Just me wasting muscle energy.
But my dear readers I knew it was not going to work because there are certain laws of physics especially in a close system that have to be obeyed in order to make the closed system, in this case a closed lawn mower system, to work. The lawn mower needed the exact fuel/gas and air mixture ratio to even start the engine. It did not need an open system with the air filter and its black plastic cover off of the lawn mower. So instead of playing with an open system I decided to do the correct thing and make a closed system within the lawn mower by installing the outer black plastic cover with the brand new air filter. I screwed in the one screw and I grabbed onto and I pulled on the rope cord and like magic, the lawn mower started in one clean pull.
Let us repeat for the fun of it. New fuel/gas tank. A new fuel/gas hose. A cleaned carburetor. A new spark plug and a new air filter. And last but not least, a new fuel/gas gasket which stopped the gas from leaking from the lawn mower. Why is that important? Because I did not know when I first saw the leak in the fuel/gas tank that there was a problem of the fuel/gas leaking from the fuel/gas gasket because I could not see the worn out fuel/gas gasket. I did not know that the real problem was a little part of the cardboard gasket missing from the fuel/gas cardboard gasket especially when I saw that very long gas tank crack. In reality I was mislead by what I saw until I took everything apart and I saw the real cause of the gas leak was a worn out paper or cardboard fuel/gas gasket.
The International Space Station.
The International Space Station.
The International Space Station is a really closed system too with lots of other closed systems and open systems all working so that human beings who live and work on the International Space Station do not die in the International Space Station. I am not an expert on the International Space by any stretch of the imagination. But I do know that every human being on the International Space Station whether they are male or female or white or black or brown or young or old or educated or uneducated (I just had to add that last word) all need clean and good oxygen to live and survive on the International Space Station, for every second that they are breathing air.
The International Space Station and the human beings who live in it all need protection from the cold dark void outside of the Space Station too. Otherwise they will freeze to death within seconds if not faster. There are a host of other issues too that are to long for me to list here, especially since I do not know all of them, but at least I got the clean oxygen and cold void stated. One good size or maybe even a small hole anywhere on the International Space Station and every living being inside it will die either slowly or very fast depending on the situation.
Planet Earth.
Planet Earth.
Now then my dear readers! What about planet earth? It too is a space station of sorts, floating around the nuclear sun with its dangerous rays streaming down to planet earth and the cold dark void of nothingness of outer space. Planet earth and every human being needs good and clean oxygen and they all need the perfect temperature to survive on planet earth. Planet earth is both a closed and a open system in that from the ‘blue sky’ downwards it is a closed system. But from the ‘blue sky’ upwards it is an open system.
The concept of the whole is greater than the sum of its parts but the parts need to work perfectly too applies to the current and future survival of the human species instead of its current and future self-destruction of the human species. Planet earth is like a space station in that it is floating around the suns and it holds human beings to many laws of physics, ecology, and other stuff too. Each planetary part must work perfectly within the harmony of the whole planetary planet earth. Each human part must work perfectly within the harmony of the whole human species to survive into the future of the human species.
You must understand my dear readers that if the boiling point is ever reached when one of the parts is broke or broken either on a planetary systems or within the human species systems, that will could be the end, the destruction of the human species. It is not a matter of fixing a fuel/gas gasket on a lawn mower even if all of the other parts are broke and need replacing too. If there is one huge broken part on planet earth or within the human species that could be the end of the human species.
Years ago the ozone layer above planet earth was damaged, meaning it was to big, and that caused great concern for the human species. Now it seems to be fixed by becoming smaller for whatever reasons it is smaller. But now there are all sorts of part problems that still need to be fixed. Human beings still have a wrong concept of what God and evil. Human beings are still creating bigger and better weapons of war out of fear, hate, ignorance, and all of the other negative and destructive mental qualities that exist within the human brain, mind, and consciousness.
There is the dividing line between problem or issues of the human species on one hand and the planet earth on the other hand. Both the human species and planet earth each have their own issues and problems relating to the whole and its parts. On the other side of the bigger coin is that the human species needs a perfect planetary earth ‘space ship’ in order to survive but the planet earth does not need the human species to survive in one sense. The second sense would be that all living life on planet earth like all other non-human species and plant and fish species needs the human species not to destroy everything on planet earth, or even earth itself with a nuclear war or even without a nuclear war.
There are new generations of younger human beings who are now growing up and maybe one day they, unlike the older generations, will one day read my words and do what is needed to fix all of the broken or worn out parts on planet earth and even within the human species.
After all, if I live to be a truly old man, I want to be able to mow my green grass with my old lawn mower, if I can still get the parts to fix it to keep the whole lawn mower working.
