Earth's Elixir

Water can quench our thirst, wash away our grime, it can even turn powder into pancakes with the help of a little heat. Water covers 2/3 of the earth and makes up nearly 60% of the human body. Whether clean and cold, or muddied and luke-warm, water is a necessity of life while being simplistic in nature. A glass of the lovable liquid makes it look as if nothing is there. Water should, in all respects, be clear; free of all particulates, coloration, or any milkiness.

If the water is to be ingested, these

qualities are that much more important. Temperature varies on personal preference. As the saying goes “some like it hot.” While that expression was most likely meant for a different interaction then simply taking a drink of water, the mentality still stands. Depending on a person’s own views, the intake temperature changes. For the most part, people seem to like their water cold. That leads to people believing the water to be “fresh” and or “crisp”.

When the water is being used to wash or clean, again, the clearer the better. No one wants to wash a dirty dish with dirty water; nothing gets accomplished. And again, like with ingestion, temperature depends on the necessary task. When taking a shower or doing the dishes, warm, even hot, water is needed to break down the dirt and grime, while the washing of a delicate silk or frail fabric may require cold water in order to retain the materials structural

integrity.

Water has the complexity of being both utterly simple and very complex at the very same time. Made up of two hydrogen molecules bonded with an oxygen molecule, at its base, water is not intricate it its construction. Its flavor is simple as well, or at least it should be. It should have little to no taste. Water should simply be a cold, crisp, refreshing wave of thirst quenching liquid traveling down your throat. Or a hot spear of scalding liquid ripping that ketchup stain from your favorite sweatshirt. If your water has a taste, whether it be metallic, earthy, or just

downright bad, something is tainting the purity of your product and needs to be dealt with. The problem could come from many locations. Wether the original source (a pond or stream, per-say), the plant it was treated at, or the pipes it traveled through, all the way to the pitcher you stored it in in the fridge. Various contaminations could come from anywhere along this path leading to a sub-par final product. The best ways to prevent such an unfortunate occurrence from happening is to employ a filtering pitcher or, if the space allow, get your water straight from the source and install a well on your property.

Water itself becomes complicated when all the issues of temperature, clarity, flavor, number of bubbles (or amount of carbonation), and the liquids source all come together to form the full

nature of the liquid.

Earth’s elixir is something we cannot live without therefore keeping the available water on our planet drinkable and clean is something we all most fight diligently for. Even if our own personal supply of water appears never-ending, it never truly is. Much like natural gas, our supplies of clean water, while almost never ending, can and will become drastically reduced if our current usage is to continue. In the future, mass purifiers or dangerous melting tactics may need to be implemented in order to quench the worlds near-infinite thirst. We must also think of the millions of people around the world who are not as water-fortunate as we are.