Why Serious Authors Must Not Listen to The General Advice of “Write Simple and Small”

C. Simple vs Complex Narration

The water story

a) Simple water story

For example “our body is up to 70% water” is an oversimplification of the complex fluid dynamics of the body which doesn’t at all tell the story of water in our body. This simple story assumes that water is present in our body as is, and we need to drink a lot of water to maintain this ratio. If we drink a lot of water, the excess water will be anyways excreted by the body.

b) The real complex water story

Let’s see the actual underneath water story:

1. Females have 58-66% body mass as water.
2. Males have 66-73% of their body mass percentage as water.
3. Newborn babies have about 75% water mass.
4. The above is because men’s body is much more inflamed as men work more(or are supposed to work more), and water acts as the coolant. The same with a newborn who has more water to support the inflammation when it makes an effort to come out of the mother’s womb.
5. Fat people have only about 45%-55% water as their body mass. This is because lean fat enables the retention of much more water, and adipose tissue fat mass retains less water.
6. Salt and glucose help the body to retain more water. If salt is reduced, water retention also reduces. That is why fat people have much higher cravings for glucose and salty food.
7. Because water act as a coolant, and fat people have less coolant, their physical throughput is much lesser than an average lean person.
8. Water molecules in the body don’t stay in the exact liquid water form that we see them, instead, they are present in the body in different chemical forms, such as interstitial fluid(ISF)(the space between the tissues), intra-vascular compartments(IVC), trans-cellular fluid(TCF), intra-cellular fluid(ICF), and extra-cellular fluid(ECF). Intracellular fluid is about 70% water but has different properties than water. The mineral absorption by this fluid is much slower than normal water.
9. The ICF pH value is 7.4, whereas the pH in ECF is between 7 to 7.4(slightly alkaline) which increases as the cell grows.
10. Water shifts from one space to another space by controlling the osmotic pressure and hydrogen gradients and is managed through a complex physiological process. This is called a fluid shift.
11. Third spacing is referred to as the abnormal amount of fluid shift into the interstitial space. Whenever there is a burn or inflammation, third spacing increases. This also increases during long complicated surgeries where a fluid shift from intravascular space to interstitial space shift is observed.
12. When we drink a lot of water, that has to go through several processes to get transformed and placed into the needed space. Excess water is not excreted immediately by the body but after a lot of processing. Water is more abundant than fat, and therefore drinking more water doesn’t make the body release fat. When fat intake is more, the body will store that fat in anyways it can, and will release the water.
13. When the body feels dehydrated, drinking a lot of water doesn’t solve the problem. One has to burn more fat, and one has to reduce the inflammation(such as overactivity, overthinking etc) to bring back the water balance in the body.

c) Interpretation of the simplicity theory from a) and b)

You can easily understand that one who has a need to understand the water story in the human body has to understand and know it deeply. However, if one reads the simple water story just so that he can feel “knowing something” he will miss very important aspects of the story. One who needs to know about water(such as one who is facing frequent dehydration problems) will put all the effort to learn it. One who is not affected by any illnesses that affect bodily fluids will not make an effort to understand and learn a complex story.

Rupam Das

Passionate, Accountable Student for Life