The health-wealth connection: a grassroots revolution in personal responsibility

The health-wealth connection: a grassroots revolution in personal responsibility

Health (Photo credit: 401(K) 2013)

 

Imagine a family that is facing some kind of a health challenge. The family has been spending $1000 per month on expenses related to health, such as medical care, health insurance, gym membership, exercise equipment, medications, and even groceries. However, the health challenge is getting worse. So, the family reviews it’s budget and spends $1500 the next month. Soon, the health challenge get even worse. Then, the spending on health is raised to $2000 per month, then $2500 per month, and with each increase in spending, the health challenge gets more and more severe.

 

What is the natural conclusion to make when reviewing this pattern? Is it to spend more on the same kinds of methods that have been disappointing? Or is it to be fully aware of the disappointing results of the prior methods and be open to new methods?

 

But what if it is not a single family, but a neighborhood? What if the neighborhood spends $100,000 per year, then $150,000 the next year, then $200,000 and so on, yet the results in terms of actual health are worse and worse? Then is the natural conclusion to increase funding for clearly disappointing methods or to explore a new approach?

 

What if it is a national government? What if the governments spends $1 trillion on health in a decade, then 1.5 and 2.0 and 2.5 in the following decades, yet overall health declines further with each increase in spending? Should spending be increased more for the same old paradigm or should new approaches be explored?

 

Historical government spending by major function in the United States from 1902 to 2010 (2008 estimate, percent GDP) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

Notice that it may be much easier for an individual to alter personal behavior than for bureaucracies to alter their practices. If there is a huge increase in spending, but not a huge increase in funds available, then a huge increase in spending might naturally result in individual people being more open to recognizing disappointing results as disappointing and then changing their spending habits as financial challenges also begin to arise from their health challenges (and their chosen responses to the health challenges).

 

The average financial health and physical health of much of the developed world is declining. For instance, obesity rates are rocketing while average net worth per household is declining. (In the US state of Arizona, where I currently live, almost all real estate speculators are “upside down” on their mortgages, which means that their practice of gambling on borrowed money has decreased their financial “net worth,” sometimes accelerating them toward bankruptcy.)

 

Now, in the context of rising rates of financial crisis, rising rates of health crisis, and rising spending on disappointing health care methods, it may be intriguing that sources of information which are clearly established as lacking in competence are still considered credible by so many people. For instance, if the FDA publishes guidelines that are marketed as promoting health and preventing obesity, but there are clear indications that following those guidelines promotes obesity (and even prevents health), then those results establish the FDA guidelines as unreliable (at best) and also as either irrelevant or counter-productive. However, when the FDA later presents a slight revision, how is it that so many people are interested in what a discredited source says next?

 

English: Logo of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (2006) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

Here is a big part of why so many people still pay attention to the FDA. Briefly, we are dealing with a religious belief system of presumptive superstitions being followed by a panicking herd. Because there is a general culture of hysteria or panic or dis-ease, rational thinking is not to be expected from the individuals within the herd. If the FDA is perceived as an infallible god, then whatever god says will be given trust by the masses simply because they are in a panic. If god says to spend more on methods that also happen to be well-established as having no value or to be counter-productive, all that a panicking member of the herd is aware of is first the fact that god spoke and second the instructed action that god commanded.

There is no rational thinking involved. There is a state of panic or emergency and an automatic, hypnotic reflex by the terrified masses.

 

So, the FDA has no magical increase in scientific credibility as of today- no more credibility than decades ago when they began issuing the kinds of guidelines that have resulted in dramatic declines in over health and dramatic increases in health challenges, health care spending, and profits by mainstream health care providers. Consider further that the economic and financial challenges of households and nations cannot be from any other cause but disappointing choices. 

 

 

I may be over-simplifying when I emphasize personal choice as the primary or even exclusive source of results. However, it is a useful presumption.

  

Consider that if there was a lack of concern and foresight about risks (such as the danger of an earthquake or of driving a car), then, after a natural disaster or collision, one can recognize one’s own choices as having been part of the process that led to the results. This is not a matter of blame, for blame generally does nothing to improve the results of prior choices (unless there is also a lawsuit involved). In other words, if I reject the idea of personal responsibility, then we can notice that blame and resentment are natural consequences of… the CHOICE to reject the idea of personal responsibility, personal influence, personal power. 

 

Notice that now we are constructing our language around a presumption of personal responsibility or empowerment. If I blame the FDA for being incompetent, then I may struggle to reform them and oppose them and to promote some ideal of “bureaucratic responsibility” (which may be a fantasy or delusion) . I may find that such choices or investments (which arise from a rejection of personal responsibility and a religious practice of blaming others) to be initially very passionate, but soon frustrating and even exhausting. 

The basic disappointment in the results of my choices would remain. First, I followed the FDA guidelines and my health suffered (along with my finances). Then, I invested in reforming a bureaucracy and so my health and finances suffered even more.

 

Logo of the United States Department of Health and Human Services. The symbol represents the American People sheltered in the wing of the American Eagle, suggesting the Department’s concern and responsibility for the welfare of the people. The logo is the department’s main visual identifier; the seal is now used for mainly legal purposes. The color can be either black or reflex blue. More information here and here. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

However, if I simply recognize my own disappointment at my own initial choice to invest in the recommendations (commandments, belief systems) of the FDA, then there is no blame in that. I was naive. I was operating from a state of confusion and hysteria and panic within an irrational herd. I might have even felt threatened and insulted if someone suggested that my infallible god be questioned in regard to scientific credibility. “What quack would suggest a review of actual results? This is my presumptive religion which I call science! I do not need to use rational thinking to review results! My infallible god, the FDA, has spoken. What other proof of scientific credibility could possibly be relevant?!?!” 

 

At the time, I might have viciously argued and defended and then condemned and ridiculed critics and even skeptics. “How can you be so arrogant and naive as to entertain any question of the divine authority of the FDA?!?!” In other words, I might have been operating from a state of confusion and hysteria and panic within an irrational herd!

 

 

So, what else is there to do? There is the alternative of studying some reliable results (some science), and then applying science to your health. 

 

In my own personal case, I had a major breakdown in physical health in which I lost the ability to walk and had a severe decline in neurological functionality. A western doctor would have called my condition “Multiple Sclerosis” and probably would have labeled it “incurable” (which simply means that the doctor does not have enough competence in the biochemistry and physiology of the human organism to understand and reliably treat the condition).

 

I had a full overnight recovery. My recovery immediately followed my choice to invest less than five dollars in purchasing a food that has been common for humans for over 10,000 years. 

 

You might be surprised at the very low cost of the recovery. Note that prior to my recovery, my physical condition (which was the natural results of my chosen behaviors) was severely limiting my ability to earn money. My expenses rose as a result of my health challenges (which were the result of my personal choices), which also resulted in my productivity and income declining.

I am grateful to have survived as well as grateful for the severe decline in health which cultivated a deep personal responsibility in me. When my health challenges climaxed, the ritual practice of blame (vilifying others and identifying myself as a helpless victim of the identified villain) was still a very real part of my life (and of my language). However, it was extremely obvious to me that blaming others had no practical value to me in regard to improving my health.

 

Government spending (Photo credit: 401(K) 2013)

 

Imagine if millions of people in the US who are so disabled that they are not contributing to the US economy and indeed are receiving government hand-outs were suddenly to have dramatic improvements in their physical health due to improved choices. Imagine the value that such a development could add to the productivity of the nation and the global competitiveness of the US.

 

Imagine if instead of pouring trillions of dollars in to mainstream medical methods that show decreasing effectiveness, individuals one by one began to invest in things like five dollars worth of a reliable remedy for multiple sclerosis? Imagine the vast improvement to their health. Imagine the vast improvement to their economic productivity and finances. Imagine if a simple choice to discontinue the rejection of personal responsibility could lead to a total transformation of humanity.

 

Next, imagine blaming a 2nd grader for not being especially competent in algebra, rocket science, and human physiology. Then, imagine investing trillions of dollars in the services of incompetent 2nd graders and then blaming the 2nd graders for the results produced by your investing in their services.

“They should be giving me better results! Those 2nd graders need to reform their system and stop calling algebra impossible or unsolvable and also stop calling immune system responses incurable or untreatable. They need to be more mature and more intelligent! Algebra problems can be solved by anyone competent in algebra! Health challenges can be resolved by anyone competent in physiology and biochemistry! Those incompetent 2nd graders are to blame for us investing naively in their incompetence!“

 

Ritalin (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

That may be precisely how critics of the FDA operate. The FDA is by now clearly established as having no credibility in regard to diet and health.

Maybe it is time to consider who has had credibility in those fields for the last century (while so many of us who have been panicking in irrational herds have been choosing to invest our attention elsewhere). Maybe it is time to explore dramatic improvements to health through dramatic declines in health spending (by re-focusing our spending on experts and methods that have a long-established record of reliable success). Maybe it is time to make new personal choices and challenge others to do the same, cultivating a grassroots revolution in the physical health and economic vitality of not just our household or neighborhood, but entire nations and even all of humanity.

 

 

So, I am not against the FDA. If people want to practice that religion and invest in that belief system, that is their choice. However, because the recommendations of the FDA are well-established as directly leading to the rising rates of obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular illness, and so on, I may still comply with regulations that coerce me to support them financially, but I choose to discontinue compromising my health by being a blind follower of their religion of irrationality. At least until they adopt a rational and scientific approach, I will reject their guidelines as disappointing rather than reject personal responsibility by blaming them for the disappointing results of my past choices to follow their guidelines. 

 

I assert personal responsibility. I assert an interest in logic and rationality and science and therefore I adopt at least a skeptical orientation in regard to the assertions and claims made by organizations with no little or no scientific credibility, such as the FDA. I will assess the value of guidelines by reviewing the established results of following those guidelines. I will reject a panicked, hysterical presumption that any particular organization has any credibility whatsoever based on anything other than actual results. That is simply how a revolution in personal responsibility works.

 

 

credibility (Photo credit: moond_studio)

 

 

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the power of language: beyond blame to health and wealth

Are you clear about the power of how you use language? 

 

Many blame others for the results that they experience, while perhaps only a few claim personal responsibility for the results they have produced. Many who practice blame also argue over who to blame, exhausting themselves as they defend those they call “heroes” and condemn anyone who does not also blame their selected target of their blame. 

 

However, we have been trained to blame and to argue, right? Maybe so. Still, we could accept responsibility for all the activities of blaming and arguing that we have been practicing, as well as the resulting resentment, frustration, and exhaustion. Thus, we could recognize the power of how we use language as we refrain from reflexive blaming and arguing.

 

Are you motivated to explore new alternatives because of the deteriorating financial conditions of our society?

 

Rocketing numbers of people have extremely low reserves of savings, with cash reserves often totaling less than two months of typical expenses. Many of them have been spending wildly on low priority consumer goods, presuming steady future income and steady expenses.

 

Average net worth is plummeting. The average ratio of debt-to-income has rocketed (for households, businesses, and governments). The total amount of debt has also rocketed. Speculative gambling on high-risk real estate borrowing has led to waves of bankruptcy for the most aggressive households as well as the most aggressive lenders.

All of those patterns are widespread throughout the developed world, not just in one state or one country or one city. Huge numbers of people across the planet focus their language (their attention) on who to blame, leading to arguing and bickering and combativeness. Few claim personal responsibility for the recent results of their past patterns of behavior.

 

Public Health Dentistry (Photo credit: Trinity Care Foundation)

Are you motivated to explore new alternatives because of the diminishing health of our society?

One of the fastest-rising costs in our society is health care. While rapid advances in technology have resulted in plummeting costs of so many things (such as electronics and computer memory), costs of heath care have soared. Those rocketing costs have also been during the most rapid advance in scientific clarity about health. How interested are you in why the costs of mainstream medicine going up so fast while the average health is going down?

 

To take actions that promote your health, it is not essential to know why health care costs are rocketing while effectiveness is falling. However, note that when someone is clear on an issue, there is no interest in blaming or arguing over who is most to blame, but only in clarity and prudence in regard to the science and the specific behavior that are relevant for promoting health. (Much of modern “science” has been totally discredited as a superstitious confusion of causes with effects, yet even the most obviously inaccurate presumptions are still promoted as science by mainstream organizations like the FDA and ADA and AHA.)

For who are clear about the power of language, there is an interest in clearly assessing scientific credibility (like based on actual results produced reliably). In contrast, there is no interest in who to blame, because blame does not directly improve health. Only investing in healthy behavior promotes health.

It is generally healthy to refrain from blaming, with certain notable exceptions (like in filing a legal action), for blaming does not directly promote health or constitute a healthy behavior. Arguing is similarly unhealthy, fostering rising rates of physical altercations and even divorce due to escalating patterns of two or more people practicing argumentativeness (often hysterically, as in without any experience of self-control and intention, but just out of trauma or panic: blame, argue, blame, argue, etc…).

But even the most basic measures of physical health are plummeting. Rates of obesity, diabetes, depression, insomnia, dental cavities, infertility, and many other conditions have gone from nearly non-existent not much more than 100 years ago to rapidly accelerating in the last few decades. The number of people addicted to medical drugs has also rocketed, especially among the elderly, who often are addicted to several medications. In the absence of any one of those medications, many people would likely soon find themselves in emergency rooms. However, many emergency rooms are already experiencing issues with historically long wait times.

 

If there was at least one area in which you could dramatically improve the results of your investments, wouldn’t a dramatic improvement to your health be a priority?

Many people may think that they are more healthy than most people. However, as average health plummets,  the gap increases between average health and optimal health. Focusing on health can not only produce huge increases in athletic performance, but in all other types of performance: concentration, productivity, intelligence, creativity, problem-solving, and so on. (That also means increased earning potential.)

What if you could dramatically improve your health while dramatically decreasing your health care expenses? How many other people can you think of that would want to spend much less for much better results?

In the case of people who are addicted to medications or otherwise experiencing chronic health issues, the relief of major symptoms can produce a dramatic change in their life, especially when it also saves them significant amounts of money (and even helps them to dramatically increase their earning potential). People who have been hopeless and desperate have had full recoveries from conditions they considered incurable.

(In my own case, I had a full recovery at age 36 from paralysis – in the form of multiple sclerosis – resulting in an overnight recovery of the ability to walk. The total cost of my full recovery was under five dollars… plus a few more dollars for shipping and handling. Prior to that, I had spent “much more than that” on diagnostics and treatments that produced little or no benefit.)

Of course, there are other factors contributing to our deteriorating economic conditions in our society besides expensive health care that is decreasing in effectiveness. However, the single factor of a revolution in the effectiveness of health care could result in a redistribution of huge amounts of economic activity from expensive, ineffective remedial care (based on flawed conceptual models) toward productive and competitive economic activities.

What is the first step? I assert that it is a commitment to refrain from blaming and arguing. Those who are unwilling to admit their addiction to blaming and arguing are unlikely to invest in unfamiliar methods of promoting their health that may be extraordinarily effective and yet inexpensive.

 

Book 1: dramatic improvements to your health

 

Book 2: dramatic improvements to your finances

 

Book 3: dramatic improvements to your personal power, communication, relationships, & happiness

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How severe obesity is a sign of starvation (malnutrition)

Throughout the animal kingdom, creatures sometimes dramatically increase their storage of fat tissue. Two common occasions for that would be, first, in the “lean” months of late fall as winter nears and, second, during pregnancy and the period after delivery when the offspring will be nursing (at least in the case of mammals including humans).

Another population that tend to be a least a little “overweight” is a “very special” group of people who have been diagnosed as manifesting the symptoms called “Down’s Syndrome.” You may be familiar already with Down’s Syndrome, but I will describe it in a way that may be intriguing for you- a way that is related to how obesity is a sign of starvation.

Ben is a Downs Syndrome Boy-1= (Photo credit: Sheba_Also)

Down’s syndrome is a label for a “partially-developed” human due to the presence of only enough nutrients for that much development. (The broad term “developmentally disabled” really just means partially developed or developing at a much slower pace than is typical, as in retarded growth or less growth or less development.)

Starving babies have less mineral density in their skulls compared to “normal” or well-nourished” babies. The same light is being shined in the same way on to the skull of 3 different infants above. The more that the light passes through the tissue, the lower the density (mineral nutrient base) of the tissue.

I may be oversimplifying slightly but then again maybe not. Even humans that have narrow jaws and crowded teeth in adolescence (which is about 95% of us including me) are not fully developed due to lack of nourishment. If we look at “normal” human skulls across several thousand years of time, we find that the narrow jaws of modern humans is extremely abnormal, with thinner skulls and less mineral density in our much more brittle bones from sedentary lifestyles.

 

Note the various thickness of human skulls above. Many modern people have very low bone density and bone thickness compared to long-term averages (due to less minerals in their diets).

Obesity is also a sign of malnourishment and in fact a moderate degree of starvation. Obesity is obviously not a lack of calories but a lack of a full range of nutrients. The body “prepares for winter” by storing a lot of fat. Why? Because when the nutrient-base of foods is very low (like in many modern diets), then the body goes in to anti-starvation crisis mode and releases hormones that signal for producing more fat, which has a similar hormonal “signature” as when a woman who is newly pregnant suddenly starts increasing her fat deposits. She needs a huge increase in nutrients to support a fully developed fetus (rather than just a down’s syndrome fetus).

English: Pregnant woman at a WIC clinic in Virginia (vertically mirrored image). (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Obese people are starving. That is why they are so hungry. Many pregnant women and breast feeding mothers who nurse are also starving, and “post-parting depression” is simply biochemical exhaustion aka starvation.

Picture of an Obese Teenager (146kg/322lb) with Central Obesity, side view.Self Made Picture of an Obese Teenager (Myself) (146kg/322lb) with Central Obesity, Front View. Feel Free to use. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

So, the practical issue with obesity and other forms of mild starvation is not to reduce the quantity of food, but to increase the quality. Those who follow the current instructions of the FDA and mass media commercial advertisements may be severely undernourished (and thus obese). Those who are committed to health may be able to easily find social resources and sufficient biochemical nutrients- yes, even if a dramatic improvement in health involves at least slightly changing what foods one eats.

All emotions are healthy- anger, worry, and sadness as frightened behaviors

Could all emotions actually be healthy? A radical (behavioral, functional) model of human emotion:

First, a few new definitions: scared, mad, worried, and sad

 

scared- experiencing a present fear or distress (can produce calling for help, moaning, crying, weeping, whining)

English: A tearful child, sad that his hot dog fell to the ground. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Emotion: Fear (Photo credit: Cayusa)

worried- projecting fear in to an imagined future (as a method of coping with present fright/horror/terror). The event that “worried me” or “makes me worry” is being projected in to the future, which “spreads” the practice of fearing across a projected or imagined period of time, diminishing the immediacy and intensity of a frightening, terrifying, or horrifying disturbance. This projecting in to a distant or nearby future can “desensitize” someone to the fear of a particular outcome, slowing allowing for relief and relaxation.

Note that hysterical, paranoid agonizing, also known as “the fear of fear itself,” is one of the most extreme forms of fearing. The labeling of any emotions as “negative” is the natural “coping mechanism” of any culture of hysterical paranoia, which tend to be quite anxiously arrogant and thus repressive of the terrifying power of emotion (vitality). In other words, the display of many “frightening” emotions would trigger a display by a paranoid audience of terrified blame and condemnation (rage)….

 

Figure 15 from Charles Darwin’s The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. Caption reads “FIG. 15.—Cat terrified at a dog. From life, by Mr. Wood.” Author’s signature is at bottom left. See also figures 9-14 and 18 by the same author. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

 

mad- pushing away whatever is perceived as a threat (feared). We only have contempt for people that we fear may detriment us personally, right? Do we have contempt for puppies or the sun? Do we condemn anything that does not first frighten or disturb us?

All frightened behaviors, including anger, are designed to produce a distancing from a perceived “ongoing threat” (or a reducing of or neutralizing of the perceived threat). Some increasingly severe forms of fear are frustration, blame, resentment, arrogance, rage, contempt, and disgust.

Frustration involves a desperate desire to escape (to experience relief), but with a recognition that the methods currently perceived as available are not expected to produce the desired outcome. In other words, fear and desperation (despair) are at the root of frustration and thus all forms of anger. Frustration does not need to be personally accusative, but a common way of coping with frustration is to seek interaction and attention by blaming someone for “unfairly” (unexpectedly) interfering with one’s priority. Frustration is produced by “whining to one’s self,” like an indirect call for attention through a small tantrum of frustration. We can build a fear in to an anxiety by whining privately, which is the activity of agonizing or anxiety, which can then escalate to frustration. Frustration is the moment of disconnecting from an obsessive pre-occupation with a method that has been recognized as not working for some time. After the arising of frustration, only then further relief (disappointment and then disillusionment or the ending of illusions and arising of clarity) is possible.

“Worried!” Or just on the verge of tears? (Photo credit: photoloni)

sad- projecting fear in to past (as in regret for a particular historical sequence that allegedly led to a later outcome that is being labeled “negative”). Like the behaviors of anger listed above, all forms of sadness are forms of withdrawing from a frightening or disturbing “trigger” (“fleeing” from the original fear or shock).

Implicit with sadness is worrying about a possible repeating of a similar historical sequence in the future. Thus, sadness is a form of worry, with the worrying being about a past sequence of events, implicitly wondering how to avoid a particular outcome in the future. Disappointment is worrying “about the past.” Depression is just a severe, paralyzing form of agonizing/practicing anxiety. If one is afraid that others will perceive them as worrying (or angry) and punish them for being afraid, then they may suppress the fear and worrying and anger in to disappointment, sadness, grief, or depression.

English: A sad person (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Conclusion:

As for the commercial business of suppressing emotion through the use of potentially poisonous pharmaceutical medications, it is admittedly a very lucrative business, which also involves the insurance industry and public (governmental) protection of and subsidy of these industries. Resentment toward the systematic repression of human emotion for the exclusive profit of shareholders and investors is… entirely optional, like resentment toward a cold winter or a dangerous earthquake.

Yes, someone could assert that there has been a “war” on emotion and vitality by governments and churches and commercial interests for thousands of years. Any process that organizes society will involve encouragement of certain behaviors and discouragement of certain behaviors. So, we could say that there is a war on any behavior targeted for discouragement, such as by labeling it a sin, diagnosing it as a disease which may be alleged to demonically possess it’s victim (as in cancer, mental illness, scurvy, baldness, obesity, diabetes, etc), or even punishing a targeted behavior as a crime.

English: Biting one’s lip can be a physical manifestation of worry. Español: Morderse los labios puede ser una manifestación externa de inquietud. Русский: Плачущая девочка. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Language is behavioral. Labeling of emotion is a neuro-chemical behavior (neuro-linguistic). Fundamentally, emotions are patterns of behavior, including behavioral relationships observable at a cellular level (and thus the functional patterns labeled as “emotion” can be influenced by nutritional and pharmaceutical interventions).

Many people might assert that “the business of suppressing certain emotions is a new threat,” and then seek to blame specific groups or individuals for a culture that may be labeled anti-emotion (or anti-human). Again, while that reaction of terrified blame is entirely predictable (and common, thus evidencing the validity of the above model), that reaction is also entirely optional (as in potentially temporary or brief).

When one is no longer disturbed by words, then one cannot be disturbed by the various linguistic labels of some emotions as “negative” or “dangerous” or “evil.” From the perspective of someone who is terrified of a certain emotion or even a certain conceptual model in language, it is natural to label anything terrifying or embarrassing as “sin,” “illness,” or even “crime.”

In other words, the repressing of emotion is itself emotional. Repression (condemnation, repulsion, etc) is emotional (more specifically, fearful).

All human cultures involve fear (repression of taboos) like all human cultures involve language or diet. To fear one’s culture may be very healthy, as in to notice and respect the danger of the operations of organized violence (gangs, governments, etc) within that culture. To have contempt for a culture of fear is to practice the programs of that culture through a terrified contempt toward that culture.

Ironically, recognizing that cultural programs of frightened contempt are in fact just cultural programs of frightened contempt is the disillusioning or dissolving of the programs. Prior to such dissolving, we could call the terrified contempt a form of denial (lack of clarity, lack of maturity). Subsequent to such dissolving, w can call the terrified contempt the process of maturing, of clarifying.

Could sadness be a form of fear? (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

 

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resist ignoring warnings

Warning: you must resist ignoring this

(The script is below the video players. Total playback time is about 16 minutes. To view the videos while you read along with the script – and there is some unscripted ad-libbing - open the videos in a new window by right-clicking them and selecting the second item from the top.)

part 1 – 3:59

part 2 – 9:02

part 3 – 3:09

When I was very young, I was warned that if I did not use two hands to carefully hold my cup, it was more likely to spill. I was told that if I was not careful with the door, the doggie would go out through it.

I was warned that if I touched a certain thing with my bare hand, my body could be burnt. Later, I was warned that if I stayed out in the sun too long, even that could burn me. I was warned about getting bitten by ants. I was warned about staying away from poison ivy. I was warned about running out of gas while driving. I was even warned about getting involved in a certain way with the opposite sex.

Of course, warnings do not always interrupt someone’s behavioral momentum. In fact, we may even keep repeating patterns after actually running out of gas or getting involved in that certain way with the opposite sex. Sometimes repeated challenges train us to adapt, sometimes a single so-called surprise produces instant learning, and sometimes, with just a mere warning, we may adjust our behavior.

However, you could say that I was a rebel. You could even say that I ignored warnings and repeatedly engaged in obviously risky behavior for the specific purpose of attracting attention from other people.

“Look at me; I’m not like everyone else. I’m more unique than they are. I’m more special.”

For instance, I’ve burnt myself more times than most people. Also, I’ve complained more than many people about the relationships I have developed with several members of the opposite sex. Yes, I kept getting in to those same dynamics with new people, but did you ever think about how many interesting stories I got out of all of that?

“In fact, the latest was such a therapeutic process for me that I wrote a song about how much I learned from that last relationship. Would you like me to play it for you now? Alright, but before I do, let me tell you that this song shows how much smarter I am now than I was the last time I wrote a song about a crisis in a relationship of mine. But I am totally over that other relationship now, which is why, without anyone asking me about it, I keep bringing up at least one particular thing about the relationship or the other person or whatever. That reminds me that lately I have been noticing a lot how it has been such a long time since I stopped ever thinking about her at all.”

Humans are strange creatures, according to my own decades of direct research into this subject. Just to be clear,

Human male and female - anatomical features pointed out (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

when I say humans I mean the other ones. They- the strange ones, and you know who I am talking about- are nothing like me. By the way, if you don’t know who I am talking about, then you are probably who I am talking about.

I know better than they do. I give them warnings about the things that I know better than they do. Then, for some mysterious reasons that obviously evidence that something is wrong with those other people, some of them do not automatically adjust their behavior in accord with my warnings.

I would give them clear, explicit warnings and even offer simple principles so they can easily understand the logic of the warnings. I would even tell them about the unprecedented opportunities available. In response, I have heard things like the following:

Yuck! That topic is complex and confusing and negative.

Anyway, hopefully the government will take care of that for us.

Or, hopefully the insurance companies will take care of that for us.

Or, hopefully my husband will take care of that for me.

Or, hopefully my CPA will take care of that for me..

Or, hopefully my lawyer will take care of that for me.

Or, hopefully my children will take care of that for me.

After all, it is sacreligious to focus on money, plus I have to go because really can’t afford to be late for work.

Basically, I’m just too busy to review my finances. It’s not worth the time.

Hey, you know, speaking of time, now is just not the right time for me.

There are other important things that I really must do first, like saving the world… from the humans..

Boo has learned, rather late in life that being nice to people is a "good thing"... And, besides, it gets you more treats The fascinating thing about Boo's expression here is that this "smiling" is apparently something dogs only use with humans. They don't use it with other dogs at all. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

By the way, I want to clear this up because I think I know what you have been implying; I am just not that kind of person. I’m not in to unearned gains from things like speculating on the stock market… especially not with borrowed funds! Plus, don’t those unearned gains seem immoral to you? People should have to work very hard for a very long time in order to do well financially. Anyway, I have a buddy who knows about some surefire huge gains in flipping some foreclosed real estate that has just dropped in value by about one half. You know, those are the kinds of investments that easily produce huge unearned gains even though they require absolutely no money down and, best of all, they are super-safe… because real estate always rises.

Well, what can I say to that? If someone insists on using one little hand to lift a very full cup, especially when there is a kitty and a doggie chasing each other around in the kitchen, well, they might not get a another refill. One minute you think it is fun to feed the doggie and the next minute you may be complaining that the doggie cleaned everything off of your plate after you left it where he could not miss it (while you went to do those other more important things first).

That’s like playing the game of flipping real estate but then complaining when the foreclosure auction and bankruptcy are over. That’s like being surprised when the governments and insurance companies announce that they are not going to keep the promises that they made to you when out campaigning and canvassing for commissions.

Yes, sure, shame on them for making such ridiculous promises, but shame on you for investing in them without understanding them… and shame on the doggie for stealing all the food off of your plate and shame on whoever filled up your cup that full, even if it was me. So, I know: maybe we can write a really important song about all of this.

Some of my friends have introduced me to the idea that people get the governments they deserve. What seems simpler to me is this: people get the governments they get. In fact, people get whatever results they get and the results they get are always the results they invest in getting.

Indian family in Brazil posed in front of hut - 3 bare-breasted females, baby and man with bow and arrows. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The experience of betrayal may simply be evidence of trusting in what is unreliable. The experience of shame may simply be evidence of believing that life should not be however it actually may already be.

If the doggie does not keep the promises clearly stated on page 268 of a written contract (such as the Constitution), what are you going to do about it? Do you really think that little shapes of ink are what gives you authority and rights and protections and privileges?

Maybe if you value your food next time, you won’t leave it out it where the doggie can see it. If you want your investments to be available for you in a week, are you willing to invest in some things that last (like honey or cheese or potatoes or jerky) instead of leaving that half-eaten ripe banana out in direct sunlight? If you refuse to resist ignoring the warnings, then you definitely will not be committed to seek out prudent alerts concerning the emerging shift in risks and opportunities. You won’t be willing to pay anything for information and services that can save you a decade or two worth of retirement savings- or earn you even more.

Instead, you could invest your attention on TV shows and youtube videos about which little doggie in the window is the most scandalous and corrupt… or the most cute and unthreatening. However, if you take home one of those little doggies, it could get hungry and then grow and soon be even more hungry- kind of like certain governments and their deficits. Your playful little doggie may even turn out to be a wolf, so you might consider carefully what breed of pet you would prefer for your children and household.

Especially if you ever do not like the results of however you have been training your doggie, I invite you to keep in mind that whether or not you already know that you have been training your doggie all along, indeed you have been training your doggie all along. People get whatever results they get, including me, and the results we get are always the results we invest in getting.

(concluding unscripted ad-lib)

 

First published on: Mar 30, 2010

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the origin of health (and “God”)

This is a conversation originating with this blog: http://jrfibonacci.wordpress.com/know-what-you-need-to-know/

I just made a video summarizing this conversation, but I am not uploading it anywhere at this time. If you’d like the video, request it of me.

On Wed, Aug 4, 2010 at 7:53 AM, Garry Fleet  wrote:

Hmmm, interesting idea. In reading this I think of health. Does ill health not mean the absence of good health…?

“Live Long … Live Well”

Garry

Consider that saying “ill health” is a bit like saying “unhealthy health.” See the below word origin entries.

First, here is a summary model of health: first is the fundamental level as the originating of the physical organism, including all pre-natal influences. Most obvious would be ample nourishment in general of all cells and tissues (including the factors of hydration and, post-natally, respiration) as essential for the full development of tissues, organs, limbs and so on. In this foundational category, I also include factors like genetics, astrology, and even bio-energetic conductivity (i.e. the flow of the meridians).

Beyond that foundation is the structural level, such as chiropractic alignment as well as the integrity of the physical parts. By integrity of physique, I mean factors like no internal bleeding, no major injuries, no major parasitic infestation, and no holes in the heart or stomach (an ulcer) or even between the “external” intestinal boundary and the bloodstream.

Continuing now with the analogy of a computer, next might be the operating system of specific neurological functionality and pathways of neural networks. This includes all aspects of coordination, movement and fitness, like yoga and martial arts. I also include all pre-verbal functions in general, such as the assessing of spatial relationships (kinesthetically and also visually as geometry) as well as the “spiritual” factor of presence AKA attention or intensity of vitality.

After the basic functionality of the operating system, plus the higher priorities of hardware and electricity, then accessories can be useful (like, for a computer: monitors, videocards, keyboards, soundcards, printers, webcams, modems, USB ports, etc…). Note that everything I have mentioned before applies to all animals and even plants. However, that ends here.

Language is the great gap between humans and other earthlings. Through language, we conduct processes of creating distinctions and identities of people, then social networks of particular formal relationships (like “wife” and “legal guardian” and “slave” and “two-star general”). Of course, this “model” of which you are reading is formed in language, and there are many human languages and sub-specializations of technical terminology within each of them, like “legalese.” Language involves all systems of coding and decoding and interpreting associations, signals and symbols, AKA intelligence, information, paradigms of science and/or religion, media exposure, education and legal systems. While animals of course form neurological associations like between sudden loud noises and danger, there is a distinctively complex realm of verbal language and visual symbols (hieroglyphs, numbers, astrological symbols, letters, traffic symbols and codes of green light, yellow light, and red light).

Consider that, in a certain technical sense, there is no such thing as God until this realm. God, in the original or root sense of the word, is simply the function of creating through spoken language. 

[Old English god;  related to Old Norse goth,  Old High German got,  Old Irish guth voice]
as in invoking, invocation, calling forth, precipitating, consecrating, sanctifying, ordaining, declaring into being

Image via Wikipedia

However, now that I have “dropped that bomb,” we can also include at this level of “accessories” things like practical skills (like competence with using a hunting bow or shovel or hammer or fax machine or airplane or sword or any musical instrument or biochemistry or the electronics of building or defusing bombs). Realistically, fluency in language is just one of many of those instrumental competencies, and when there are no other people around fluent in a particular language (or in a setting too loud to speak and be heard), it is clear that language is just one of many instruments for interacting with “anything beyond one’s own organism.”

So, this is the level of all learned behaviors and all training and development (as distinct from interventions like medicines, electric shocks, surgery, or imprisonment), including patterns in/of language. I also think to include physical possessions at this level (because that has to go somewhere, right, and being able to operate an airplane is really only relevant if one has access to one, as well as fuel, etc)?

As a reminder, all of this that you are reading is a model of health. Except for a solitary recluse in the wilderness, it is essential to consider that human health includes these issues beyond hunting and gardening and protection from weather, but also language and social networks of personal (or impersonal) relationships.

So, next is that level of social, legal, and political systems. Consider legal and political systems are just specific forms of social systems, and all social systems are created or “installed and sustained” using language, such as religions. Of course, other tools like swords and incense and music may also be used in religions and legal systems. This is the level of governing, by which I mean in general the direction of attention and behavior and social organization, but also

the specific technical sense of the use of organized violence.

This is the level of all contracts (formations in language). That means contracts of legal jurisdiction, citizenship, legal status, licenses, access, membership, and, in particular, the legal category of ownership.

Note that ownership is entirely distinct from physical possession. Ownership, like of a copyright or a patent, is entirely conceptual (linguistic). Ownership refers to a relationship between the local ruling operation of organized violence (“the government”) and some other natural person or legal entity, with regard to some particular legal property, such as a copyright or a surveyed region of “real estate” or a horse or a slave or an account or mining rights.

Once all of the below “foundations” are clear, only then is there the category of financial “wellness or health.” Financial health refers to accounting. It refers to accounts, credits, liabilities, and contracts for employment, banking, investing, and so forth.

Note, currencies exist only through language (the realm of “money” or “agreements” as in “socio-linguistic constructs”). Currencies and all forms of ownership rest on the operations of governments and their organized coercion. There is no currency without a governing system (whether a private bank’s governing system or NATO or the UN or the EU or the US, etc). Governing systems form currencies and then enforce the value of those currencies through organized violence. Currencies, in regard to purchasing power, represent the organized violence of the relevant government, such as that they will perform evictions and foreclosures and other mercenary acts based on some claimant coming to them with their currency and hiring them to so act.

Note that governments have been known to refuse bids to perform contract services (like contract killing), as well as of course to consent. Government operations also have been known to merge (like by the US invasion of Mexico, resulting in the new states of Texas and Arizona etc) as well as to dissolve (like the Confederacy of Southern States, which one might also call a merger). So, what is the currency of the Confederacy worth without the organized coercion of the Confederacy to enforce it?

As to the overall health of an organism, clarity as to the above relationships may be conducive to functionality and well-being. In particular, financial wealth or wellness is extremely useful for influencing other people to exchange (for currency) perfectly good food and gasoline and bullets and patent rights and shares of the ownership of the Federal Reserve. Currency is also useful for getting out of jail and for hiring government mercenaries to perform evictions and garnishments and levies.

Image via Wikipedia

Those who do not understand what language is cannot be especially functional in the realms of social psychology or economics or forecasting or investing. Language, simply, is God.

However, this term “God” is just a model or concept within language. Even more fundamental than the “profane” domains of social norms and investment trends and legal systems of organized coercion and so on is the “sacred” domain of nutrition and bio-energetics and chiropractic, but also of language. Language is sacred. Even if you might say that did not already know that, consider that you actually did already know that.

Appendix:

<em>
Word Origin &amp; History</em><em>
from http://dictionary.reference.com/</em&gt;
ill

c.1200, “morally evil” (other 13c. senses were “malevolent, hurtful, unfortunate, difficult”), from O.N. ]Old Norse] illr  ”ill, bad,” of unknown origin. Not related to [the word origin of the word] “evil.”  Main modern sense of “sick, unhealthy, unwell” is first recorded c.1460, probably related to O.N. idiom “it is bad to me.” Illness  ”disease, sickness” is from 1689. Slang sense of “very good, cool” is 1980s.

health
O.E. hælþ  “wholeness, a being whole, sound or well,” from PIE *kailo-  “whole, uninjured, of good omen” (cf. O.E. hal  “hale, whole;” O.N. heill  “healthy;” O.E. halig , O.N. helge  “holy, sacred;” O.E. hælan  “to heal”). Healthy  is first attested 1552.

sacred
c.1300, from pp. of obsolete verb sacren  “to make holy” (early 13c.), from O.Fr. sacrer  (12c.), from L. sacrare  “to make sacred, consecrate,” from sacer  (gen. sacri ) “sacred, dedicated, holy, accursed,” from O.L. saceres,  which Tucker connects to base *saq-  “bind, restrict, enclose, protect,” explaining that “words for both ‘oath’ & ‘curse’ are regularly words of ‘binding.’ ” But Buck merely groups it with Oscan sakrim,  Umbrian sacra  and calls it “a distinctive Italic group, without any clear outside connections.” Nasalized form is sancire  “make sacred, confirm, ratify, ordain.” Sacred cow  “object of Hindu veneration,” is from 1891; figurative sense is first recorded 1910, from Western views of Hinduism.

god

O.E. god  “supreme being, deity,” from P.Gmc. *guthan  (cf. Du. god,  Ger. Gott,  O.N. guð,  Goth. guþ ), from PIE *ghut-  “that which is invoked” (cf. Skt. huta-  “invoked,” an epithet of Indra), from root *gheu(e)-  “to call, invoke.” But some trace it to PIE *ghu-to-  “poured,” from root *gheu-  “to pour, pour a libation” (source of Gk. khein  “to pour,” khoane  “funnel” and khymos  “juice;” also in the phrase khute gaia  “poured earth,” referring to a burial mound). “Given the Greek facts, the Germanic form may have referred in the first instance to the spirit immanent in a burial mound” [Watkins]. Cf. also Zeus. Not related to good. Originally neut. in Gmc., the gender shifted to masc. after the coming of Christianity. O.E. god  was probably closer in sense to L. numen.  A better word to translate deus  might have been P.Gmc. *ansuz,  but this was only used of the highest deities in the Gmc. religion, and not of foreign gods, and it was never used of the Christian God.

Published on: Aug 4, 2010

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from should to could

“From what should be to what could be”

by J.R. Fibonacci

4/2/09

The written “script” is below the audio playback windows.

Part 1: from struggling to peace

Part 2: from resistance to promotion

part 1

part 2

Part 1 (of 2): from struggling to peace

When we focus on some idea, we concentrate attention on that possibility. We cause our experience to organize around that point of reference. We express our values through our choice of focus. We magnify, nourish, and develop what is important to us by investing our attention in that possibility.
Note that in certain conventional moralities, there are exactly two distinct linguistic categories of behavior (and even of reality): good and evil (also known as right and wrong). A certain idea of how things could be, but may not be, may be emphasized as “should.”

Should is worshiped, and reality is judged against the pre-existing conceptual standard of should. Any reality which violates the particular shoulds of a certain morality is identified as “a problem.” The response to a problem is to either single it out or pretend it is not there, then to repress it or fix it, to hide it or solve it.

This paradigm appears not only in morality but in certain traditions of medicine. The emphasis is not on functionality, but on problems of functionality. The problems or symptoms are identified and named, so that people “have” some condition, like they have blindness or they have scurvy or they have dehydration. Any symptoms categorized as illness may be aggressively interrupted, repressing the natural healing processes of the body’s immune response. Or those problems may be “solved,” such as with eye glasses or a “seeing eye dog.”

In a case like “having dehydration,” medical specialists recognize that the situation is actually not one of having some excess, but lacking something essential, such as hydration (water). So, water is provided.

In a case like “having scurvy,” medical specialists may not recognize for centuries that the situation is actually not a situation of having some excess, but lacking something essential, such as a nutrient recently identified and named vitamin C. So, ignorant of what is missing, and often presuming that something is present which “should not be happening” (the body’s natural healing immune response), medical specialists may relentlessly interfere with the immune system, perhaps in the sincere hope of delaying death. However, the perceived problem of “having scurvy” (which is actually lacking or being deficient in vitamin C) is never “fixed” by adding interventions to interfere with symptoms.

Since someone starving from a lack of vitamin C may also be missing other nutrients, such as water, a nurse can provide relief of certain symptoms, as well as mechanical adaptations like electric wheelchairs. Having a wheelchair is not as healthy as being able to walk. Having a “seeing eye dog” is not as functional as being able to see clearly without glasses or other “corrective” adaptions. Of course, corrective glasses do improve functionality and “remedy” the problem, but the actual health (including vision) of the person is not the focus of the medical system. The focus of the medical system is problems of health.

Further, while most disease conditions are not specifically considered evil, there is still so little emphasis on a functional immune system that people may be afraid of contagion, with evil representing anything feared, and contagion as terrifying. Note that contagions may only be dangerous to people with immune systems that are functioning below natural levels.

For people without healthy immune systems, germs may be considered dangerous (bad). Certain foods may be considered bad. Certain practices may be considered bad. In the context of symptoms being deemed bad, certain practices are judged for contributing to or diminishing the appearance of symptoms (the functioning of an immune system).
Fundamentally, there could be a model of how life should be and that model may be worshiped instead of how life is (reality). The white-robed priests of the medical profession, along with the black-robed priests of the legal profession, direct the behavior of their wards. They look for problems, address problems, and even issue curses. The same goes on in politics and business and many other realms, such as education systems in which incorrect answers are highlighted and correct ones are ignored.

Correctional systems and remedial systems sometimes do not work, though. In the realm of financial trends, a certain trend may be deemed unfavorable to a person or group, then identified as a problem by that person or group, producing a struggle to stop the trend, reverse the trend, and prevent the trend from ever returning. However, developments in financial markets, just as in all other realms of reality, are singular expressions of the overall conditions of reality. Any single development or phenomenon always fits the rest of reality.

Calling winter or summer “wrong” is a distinctly human process of linguistic labeling. Summer and winter will be back, no matter how many heroic celebrations are made for the latest alleged “victory over the past.”

Further, some people react to the various symptom-focused systems of remedy and correction by saying “that is not the way it should be” or “focusing on problems is a problem” or other ironies clearly indicating that someone is still operating within that same paradigm. Actually, that paradigm is just “the way of what should be.”

It works how it works. It does not work how it does not work.

The way of “what could be” is a distinct realm as well. While many people may be attached to arguments about the way it should be and even about “the way it is” (which may actually just mean that they are attached to arguing), it is typical that people do not argue over “what could be.” Some people may deny any particular possibility, and they may even fear and attack it or try to prevent it, but then there is always some other possibility to deny, resist, or fix! In fact, by arguing against a certain possibility, people are really saying “it should not be” and if they are talking about it at all, that may be because they at least conceptually recognize the possibility that it could be, or they would not be resisting it or struggling to prevent it or arguing against it!

Some struggle against reality. Some struggle against what should not be. Some struggle against what could be. Consider that struggling is something that could happen, but also might not.

Struggling could be optional. Peace could be possible. Peace may not be possible, but it could be possible, couldn’t it?

CD86 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Part 2 (of 2): from resistance to promotion

Consider that behind the two linguistic categories of “right and wrong” are the human processes of promoting and punishing. That is, whatever we promote, we call good. Whatever we punish, we call wrong or evil.

Thus, we could practice language in the realm of moralities of “should,” like “right and wrong” or we could simply describe a spectrum of possibilities. There are behaviors we could promote, such as by rewarding them economically in a variety of ways. There are also behaviors we could punish through a variety of punishments.

We can consider that some behaviors are highly rewarded, some are moderately rewarded, some are neither rewarded nor punished, some are mildly punished and some are severely punished. That is the spectrum of promotions and punishments.

However, while that is far more detailed than a simple “either/or” paradigm of “right or wrong,” that spectrum is also incomplete. There are actually behaviors that may be punished if people fail to do them (like paying taxes). There is also the issue that certain behaviors are only rewarded (or punished) when performed by certain people in certain restricted ways.

For instance, when one person takes something from another person involuntarily, what is that called? In general, it is called stealing. However it can also be called confiscation, seizure by authorized personnel, disarming an enemy combatant, or repossession of collateral.

If we were describing the interaction of some wild animals, we would say “one taking something away from the other.” We could also use those exact words with people, but we could also include a label for the social relationship between the people: stealing, confiscating, borrowing, purchasing, and so on- with the psychological assessment of any agreement between the parties being distinct from the physical transfer of possession of some tangible object.

<ad lib>
In simple terms, a particular behavior produces a particular result. That is like chemistry. However, in complex social systems, a certain behavior produces a specific social consequence only relative to the specific social status of the one performing the behavior…. That is like the physics of navigation: you have many variables: speed, altitude, direction, changing wind, visibility through clouds, other air traffic, fuel reserves, and on and on.

Consider that the same household chore might be rewarded when performed by a young child (to encourage them to practice that task and develop competence), then… go unrewarded for an older, more mature child (when that behavior is considered their opportunity to contribute to their own well-being and the functionality of the household), and finally, for a mature child, they might even be punished for failure to perform that behavior (as their responsibility or duty). So the same task could be a practice, an opportunity, or a responsibility.

One example is washing clothes. A young child is prohibited from washing clothes, then later encouraged with supervision, then eventually allowed without supervision or obligation, then expected to do it and do it well.

In some cases, someone might even be punished for doing something that is “below” their social status (or “above” it). For a military officer in an emergency protocol, they might be reprimanded for washing their own clothes because other staff are assigned to do that specifically and that officer has other functions that are (also) highly valued and can only be done well if the officer is focused on that rather than on washing clothes.

Similarly, people may be punished for digging in their yard without permission, such as if their digging could have damaged an electrical wire. Only after going through a zoning permission sequence so their proposed digging project can be checked against the map of buried wires, people are allowed to dig without facing punishment. The issue in this case is not that digging is “above” or “below” their social status, but that there are certain precautions that governing regulators may deem prudent and enforce with punishment. Thus, people could be punished for failing to use a certain standard procedure to maximize the possibility that their digging project goes well for them personally and for everyone that could be effected (such as by interruptions in electrical service). Someone might say “you could be punished for digging without a permit” or even “you should get a permit before digging” or just this: “you could favor the results only available by getting a permit first.”
The Church of Blessing promotes the explicit use of rewards and punishments, as well as the reality of diversity (as in inequality- including physical inequality, social inequality, and technological inequality). The practice of shaming, blaming, and cursing (as well as guilt and “making wrong”) is deemed optional. In fact, all practices are deemed optional, though the reality of consequences (including possible social punishments) is recognized.

Conceptually- not as how it should be, but as how it could be- the entire idea of punishment is also considered optional. In an efficient social system, it might be that no behaviors were punished, but that the rewards available by contributing to social value were so attractive that people would focus their attention on performing those behaviors for their own direct natural consequences or for the indirect rewards available through social transaction.

As for all behaviors considered dangerous or injurious, those could be minimized through an emphasis on safety and discretion. Activities known to be dangerous could be performed only after selecting and training appropriate personnel. Vulnerable members of society could be supervised and kept in areas that were maintained as safe by having those areas be accessible only after formal qualifying steps were completed to the satisfaction of those responsible for maintaining the sanctity of the sanctuary.

Generally, there could be four basic social categories or functions: those who primarily operate beyond the sanctuary, those who operate at the boundary of the sanctuary, those who operate within the sanctuary for the internal functioning of the sanctuary, and those vulnerable members of the social group that stay within the sanctuary unless accompanied by an attendant responsible for their well-being. Implicitly, of those who primarily operate beyond the sanctuary boundary, those who are recognized as having approved access into the sanctuary are distinct from those who are not recognized as having access (or are explicitly repelled).

There could be places and occasions for “public assembly” (where “everyone” is invited to attend) and places of private sanctuary (only formally accessible by invitation). There could be training in socio-linguistic distinctions such as “should,” “could” and even “would.” There could be specific services available in the realms of promoting health, relationship, prosperity, and technical competencies (like how to garden, repair automobiles or install plumbing).

Would you be interested in participating in such developments? If so, how?

more on youtube from J.R. Fibonacci:

http://www.youtube.com/user/144jr144

For a more concise (and visual) presentation of similar content, see http://jrfibonacci.wordpress.com/534/

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MDs on nutrition: “my eyelids are blinding me”

“The ignorance of most MDs regarding nutrition reminds me of a person with their eyes closed complaining that they have been blinded by their eyelids.”

Note the thickness of the top two skulls from pre-columbian Native Americans (before the arrival of Columbus). The full skull at the bottom is from a modern human of similar ancestry but who ate a quite different diet lifelong.

Note also the variation in the development of the skulls below, each of which is being tested with the same intensity of flashlight placed against the head of the infant:

A skull is “transilluminated” (lit through) in proportion to the amount of fluid-filled space between the brain and skull. A well-fed infant (left) has a well-developed brain with little space and fluid between the brain and skull. Not so, for the malnourished (center) or starving child (right). 
Reproduced courtesy of F. Monckeberg 
from http://www.orgonelab.org/saharasia_en.htm

Will wrote to me (without seeing the above pictures):

 As to agriculture– I disagree with you there. Humans are the ONLY species that die in Childbirth. Simply put our Cranium is too big, though only as big as a chimps, and the Birth canal too small. As a species we like our Birth canals… tight. a Joke; Though that jest doesn’t say anything, i know.Agriculture is very recent—-8 to 10 thousand years.True. Not that there are higher{ Good} carbs and Lower {Bad} carbs— heaven forfend. But agriculture is Far to recent for evolution to show serious consequence.

I replied:

I’d say diet can have faster consequences than 10,000 years. Consider the effects of consuming just a single gallon of vodka in an hour.

Also, your reference to “too small” is entirely presumptive. Consider the crowding of teeth. The teeth are not too big for the jaw. The jaw, when undernourished, is too small for the teeth.

Currently, that is around 95% of the population in developed nations. 20,000 years ago or even 500 years ago, people on average were much better nourished and had much wider jaws and much less crowding of teeth. A dentist from Cleveland traveled the world in the early 20th century and documented the variation in dental development and took photos and surveyed people about their diets. let me know if you want to see hundreds of photos of his research.

As for the hips of women, the same issue is clear from the archeological record. It is since agriculture’s development that the typical width of an adult female’s hips (and pelvic opening) has dramatically shrunk. Babies heads did not get much bigger. Of course, there is a wave of propaganda associating sexual attractiveness with tiny thin adolescent looking females. However, while they may be attractive for targets of sexual conquest, they are not attractive for child-rearing.

In primitive cultures still, a woman with wide hips and ample breasts – and a wide jaw- is a much prized marital partner relative to a petite teen-ager who looks like a pre-teen. In cultures with sustainable economic growth, women are reproducing by 15. In cultures like ours, women are shipped to factories and offices with the men and the reproductive rate produces only very modest growth at best. It is from immigration that the US population soars, plus those immigrants are the ones most likely to have more than 1.5 children.

By the way, you may even recognize this from your own memory bank of seeing thousands of women: width of jaw is correlated to width of hips. The same physiological program (DNA “hardware” + hormonal response “software”) that determines how much bone mineral to devote to jaws is the one that controls hips too.

Infants do not need huge jaws or hips, but early in life, like when an infant is nursing on wholesome well-rounded breast milk, the biochemistry starts to adapt to the actual nutritional variation that is presented to it. If we analyze the breastmilk of a typical set of women from developed nations, we would find a very different concentration of nutrients than from a tribe of healthy primitive women.

In modern women, hips can be so small that cesarian section operations are rising dramatically. Those operations have been around for only a few thousand years. Is that progress or regress? How about the frequency of sub-optimal fetal nutrition resulting in congenital deformations and developmental disabilities? Is that progress? Sure- in a way- but I’d say that is “one step back” even in the midst of two steps forward, and that kind of alternation is only natural, right?

Post-partum “depression” is certainly not universal and is indeed rather new in human history, right? Based on biochemical nutrients, when there are no nutrients left, the woman’s body cannot produce highly nourishing breastmilk and the mother can experiences the biochemical depletion so common in western cultures and called by such names as “chronic fatigue syndrome.” That means a lack of metabolic functionality.

Metabolic functionality is not mysterious. Organs need nutrients like cells need oxygen. The ignorance of most MDs regarding nutrition reminds me of a person with their eyes closed complaining that they have been blinded by their eyelids.

Here are two Maori sisters in New Zealand. The face on the left is wide, including the lower jaw. Her posture is upright and her shoulders are square. The face on the right is narrower. Her face looks almost concave (with the very top and bottom being prominent and the middle section sunken back). Her posture is clearly tilted.

According to the caption of this image published in 1939 in a book called Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, the sister on the left is the older of the two. Notice how much younger and healthier the one on the left looks!

Full text of Weston Price’s Nutrition and Physical Degeneration (including pictures):

http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks02/0200251h.html

Weston Price

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order, natural consequences, & justice

All of life is orderly. The orderliness may be perceived correctly or it may not be correctly perceived, but there is no actual randomness or chaos inherent in any aspect of life.

There is simply either the presence or absence of correct perceptions of order. The absence of the correct perception of order does not constitute the presence of a chaos or a randomness.

Similarly, a week with seven days does not have an absence of more days than seven, but simply has exactly seven days. So, there are only variations in the presence of hair, but no such thing as the presence of a baldness; there are only variations in the presence of saltiness, but no such thing as the presence of a saltlessness; there are only variations in wetness, but no such tangible thing as the presence of a dryness; there are only variations of heat, but no such thing as a coldness; there are only variations of sound, but no such tangible thing as a silence; there are only variations of light, but no such thing as a darkness, there are only variations in sight, but no such thing as the presence of a blindness; there are only variations in hearing, but no such thing as the presence of a deafness.

In other words, the absence of a particular thing does not constitute the presence of something else. The absence of a certain process is not the presence of a nonprocess. The absence of certain standard of development is not the presence of an underdevelopment. The absence of a certain orderliness is not the presence of a disorder. The absence of a certain functionality is not the presence of a dysfunction.

Thus, there are even only variations of health, and no such thing as an illness. Either the immune system and overall organism is functional and sufficiently nourished, relative to whatever waste is present, or else the functionality is inadequate. However, the absence of a sufficiently functional immune system or organism does not equate to the presence of an illness. Likewise, inadequate nourishment is not the presence of a starvation or of an undernourishment, while inadequate hydration is not the presence of a depletion or of an underhydration.

Further, just because humans do not hear the same range of sound as a typical dog, is the variation in the capacity to perceive sound the presence of a deafness? Dogs typically can hear very high-pitched whistles which we humans might, for our convenience, call “silent” (meaning that the sounds of the whistle are imperceptible to unaided human hearing), but still we do not say that all humans have an ultrasonic deafness or a deficiency for hearing ultrasonic pitches. We simply have exactly the range of hearing that we have.

The fact that human eyes do not perceive infrared light does not mean that humans have the presence of a blindness for the infrared spectrum. Similarly, dogs may not be able to perceive color, but that is not the presence of a color-blindness. That is just the presence of a certain capacity for vision.

Going even further into a sillier example, a black-and-white television mechanism does not have “a color impairment.” A sentence with 8 words does not have ”an absence of 9 words,” but simply the presence of only 8. A monophonic audio recording does not have a deficiency of stereo sound.

A deficiency is not the presence of something, but the relative absence of something. In other words, there is no such thing as having a deficiency, nor of having a disability, nor of having an absentness. Rather, we simply have the presence of the exact ability that we have. We only have the precise range of perception that we have- whether of sounds or sights or orderliness. There is no such thing as the presence of an absence of something.

Again, all of life is orderly. The orderliness may be perceived correctly or it may not be correctly perceived, but there is no actual randomness or chaos, but only the presence or absence of correct perceptions of order.

Therefore, all consequences are natural. Some developments may be recognized as the consequences of particular causes and other developments may have unrecognized causes.

An awareness that does not currently include a recognition of causality is not the absence of causality, but the relative absence of awareness or recognition. For instance, just because human hearing might not hear the vibration of a dig whistle, that does not mean that there is no reason that the dogs reliably start barking when they hear what humans may not hear.

Any one organism’s ability to predict natural consequences in any particular case never constitutes the absence of natural consequences. There is no such thing as the absence of natural consequences. There are no other kinds of consequences except natural and orderly consequences. Humans are part of nature, so consequences imposed by humans are not unnatural.

There will always be variations in the capacity to accurately recognize and predict patterns of cause and effect. For instance, dogs will never be intellectually equal to humans and humans will never be perceptively equal to dogs, even if using hearing enhancement technology!

No two things are literally equal. If two things are distinguishable from each other in any way, they are not absolutely equal, even if they may be generally equal in some quality, such as being very equal in weight or in height or in age.

All developments are just. In fact, all developments are just what they are, and none of them is anything else. There is no such thing as the presence of an injustice.

There is no such thing as the absence of anything. There is no such tangible thing as the absence of order, nor the absence of natural consequences, nor the absence of justice, nor the absence of awareness, nor the absence of infrared sight, nor the absence of health, nor the absence of equality, nor the absence of a deafness. There are only variations in presence, in order, in perception, in functionality, in intelligence, in health, in consequences, in curiosity, in clarity, in language patterns of conversation, and so on.

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