Wednesday, April 7, 2010

What if "Not Enough" Is Not the Problem?



In the developed countries, where we have everything we really need, and pretty much everything we'd ever want, there is a strange paradigm that I am beginning to think is founded on false logic. Whenever something is wrong here, if you are sick, or you're tired, or you've got restless leg syndrome, the assumption by our medical professionals is that you have too little of something. In fact, it's the assumption almost all of us make. My skin is itchy, I must not be getting enough water. My asthma is acting up, I must not be getting enough vitamin B. My eyes are tired, I must have a deficiency of some kind. Even mental illness is treated thus, and everyone medicates or get medicated accordingly.

The idea of deficiency is counter everything we know about being American, and it's something we only agree about when we're at death's door. For example, when someone has colon or prostate cancer, they make them stop eating casein protein and usually make them stop eating animals. When someone's heart is clogged up, he is supposed to stop eating cholesterol. When someone has lung cancer, they think about quitting cigarettes. Why wait until it's too late and live and die miserably?

It goes further. When people are getting shot in the streets, people start thinking we might have too many guns. When drunk drivers kill kids, we think maybe they shouldn't drink so much. Planet's getting hotter, y'all, and we're fighting wars all over the world or oil; maybe we're burning too much crude. Dust bowls are caused by over-farming. Obesity is caused by overeating. So why do we always think we're not getting enough of something?

We've been hoodwinked, that's why. The food pyramid is a lie. It's a politically-motivated exercise to sell you more of what the government subsidizes. You don't need more vitamins, more bottled water, more protein, or more of anything else. Chances are, if you're American, you're eating or drinking too much of something. We suffer from overabundance. We eat too many calories during the day. The only thing you might not be getting enough of is exercise. Too much TV?

Change something.
I am going to make a big change. I'm struggling with it right now, but I'm working on it. . . and I'll write more about that soon.

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