The current New Yorker contains a short piece by a woman who initiated medical intervention after experiencing a couple of short periods of unconsciousness. After months of tests and treatments, one doctor diagnosed dehydration.

This reminds me of the time my husband and I spent several hours and an ER copay discovering that our son’s alarming symptoms were due to hunger.

Our son was prevented from eating by his parents, who over the course of several hours took him on a long bike ride, then to someone’s house where food was promised but not delivered. This dehydrated adult, on the other hand, simply did not develop the habit of drinking water, or even water-based liquids, ever. After a few years that apparently can become a problem.

She claims not to have recognized the feeling of thirst. She had realized she was dry-mouthed and headachy, but neither knew nor attempted to discover why.

Once diagnosed, she theorized that since “the discerning person has accumulated so much culture that no room is left for natural instinct”, she was perhaps subliminally trying to belong to an elite subgroup–or supergroup.

Huh?

Maybe this attitude is common, but I can’t seem to find any mention of it. Of course, here near Silicon Valley, several overly-wealthy entrepreneurs are planning to upload their consciousnesses to the Internet and live forever, which pretty definitively dismisses nature.

Good luck with that.

Meanwhile, the author used an app for a while to remind her to drink at regular intervals, but has now returned to her dry, aristocratic ways.