I just washed my hands. Pretty much everyone can say that all the time now. We've all just washed our hands and been singing or otherwise trying to time twenty seconds. I'm a counter, but I count too fast so I go up to thirty-eight and then rinse for twelve more counts. I give my hands three shakes into the sink then dry them on the towel, wondering, "when was that last washed?" Got to keep clean and try to stay healthy.
It got me thinking about the things people study and the ways other people mock such things until needing them. I imagine a few months ago when a study asking exactly how long to wash hands would have been ridiculed. Our local paper recently (mercifully) suspended comments, but an article on such a study would have driven the old-white-male commenting mob to complain about liberals wasting hard-earned money on nonsense. There would have been back-in-my-day comments. A hand-washing study would have been a joke, a waste, a typical bit of foolishness from those who seek to know more.
Until the old white guys caught fevers.
There are things worth learning that seem to have no use in the moment. My daughter is in college and unsure what to study. She wants something interesting and has been pressured to do something useful, but what does that mean? All her school life she has been urged toward "college and career readiness," but we are born college and career ready so long as we are born curious.
"College and career readiness" decides what we are supposed to study based on short-term thinking. I was an English teacher and "college and career readiness" meant no more novels. Just have 'em read informational texts. That turned out to be part of the war on intelligence, the battle against wisdom, and the hatred of expertise. Everything had to be clearly useful right away, damn it.
Useful to whom?
Once upon a time, a researcher wondered, "how long should we wash our hands?" She was a medical student or a surgeon, a lab technician or a professor. She was curious. The question tugged at the brain. She wanted to know what would be best for all of us. A minute seemed too long, ten seconds, too short. She was thinking of ordinary people. Ask too much and they'll skip washing all together. Ask too little and they might as well skip.
A hand-washing study began, continued, and came to the conclusion that twenty seconds is optimal for public health. I'm sure those results are still being questioned and tested. Curiosity shouldn't ever end.
Some studies turn out to be frivolous, sure, but others seem frivolous only until we need them. Remember the stories about Post-It notes? And Corning's Gorilla Glass was designed for 1960's race cars but later turned out to be great for phones.
I don't know what I'll need to know in the future, but I want curious people studying weird and wondrous things, checking their stopwatches to see how long I should wash and, through small miracles of wondering, keeping me alive. I want my daughter to simply be curious and follow where that leads. I want my country to be less afraid of and much more appreciative of those who serve through curiosity, research, and expertise.
I also want to go wash that hand towel and give my hands another wash while I'm at it. I'm not curious enough to want to catch this virus.
