Feeling Good is the Best High

The best reason for being in good health is to feel good -- and not just not to feel bad, which is often the way it is promoted.  In that manner, it is an achievement and accomplishment rather than an avoidance.  Good health, is the capacity to feel good -- and not merely in order not to feel worse.

That difference in outlook and approach, is the difference between being-motivation from deficiency-motivation -- which is the self-actualization Maslow spoke of in the previous century, when he noted that their was no psychology for positive development, but only the psychology for dysfunction, deficiency and inadequacy -- as though that was the "normal," and expected.

He further noted that what we knew of human history and culture, was largely if not exclusively, the work of maladjusted people -- because those were the people who wrote, played music, became "entertainers" -- driven as they were, to be "liked," and approved of because that's what they lacked in their lives -- and thus, drove them to extraordinary lengths for.

To get to that level, they frequently resorted to alcohol, drugs and other abuses to transcend the reality of their actualities, and were applauded by those who also shared and experienced those same motivations and neediness.  Even cultural institutions were driven by those same desires to be "other than what one is" -- rejecting the person one is, in favor of those they should become -- as though that made perfectly good sense, and ennobled one, rather than it truly did, diminish and reject all one actually is -- and understood oneself to be.

In fact, the person one is, was never thought to be a worthy subject of study -- although the wise persons of every time and culture -- had pointed out that the greatest attainment achieved, was simply in knowing oneself -- rather than the ideal they wished to become.  Frequently if not always, it led to mistaking the person one wished to become -- for the person one is, and is apparent to everyone else.  And so we call such people "delusional," because they cannot acknowledge and live in the reality that most people do.

That of course, is the basis for most mental illness -- living in a reality shared by no one else.  In that reality, they can attain unparalleled and unachievable greatness because that opinion need not be correlated and corroborated to any other reality agreed on by any other.  Sometimes that achievement can be obtained at the sacrifice of everything else -- as mass murderers think to do in going out that way.  That is their moment of glory and fame -- but whether anybody else thinks that a worthy achievement, dumbfounds everyone else -- except those similarly deluded.

Hopefully, one doesn't have to be "out of control," in order to experience one's own immense power.  That transcendental moment can be experienced  in all that one does -- when one puts their whole being into it.  That is the integration of mind and body -- rather than the splintering of it.  That is achieved in all the little things one does -- and not just the one big thing one hopes will redeem them from the thoughtlessness of everything else they have done.

That is the goodness one feels in being totally healthy -- and one's being, is one's doing, and not the fragmentation into alternate realities.  That is a very real possibility in this time and age.  People don't have to be motivated by deficiencies and dysfunctions -- to attain their greatest health and well-being.  That can be achieved by just the proper understanding that such a thing is possible -- and not a futile quest for only the vain and inordinately lucky.  It is in fact, the meaning and purpose of every life -- as the "new normal" that is entirely possible for everyone.

It is not the way we were -- but much better.

Wisdom of the Ages

For every ailment under the sun

There is a remedy, or there is none;

If there be one, try to find it;

If there be none, never mind it.

 

-- Mother Goose (1695) 

More often than not, problems exist because we are not aware of the solution -- but accept the problem(s) as how it was meant to be -- for all time, and forevermore.  But living in these times, one is inclined to suspect that one simply hasn't discovered the right solution, and even if they did, many would not accept them -- or think those solutions are just for the privileged few, of any time and place.

Thus, many think they have to first become kings and queens, or very rich people, in order to be entitled to such privileges -- rather than that they are the right of those who can merely recognize what works and what doesn't -- in today's mass market world.  Some of the best ideas are nearly free -- because the greatest value of a great discovery (invention), is the sharing of it with the rest of the world.  That's how that reality comes into being.  Otherwise it doesn't, and is lost for another few centuries -- until it is inevitably discovered again.

The challenge for many at this time -- because never have so many lived so long before -- are these challenges of "old age," or simply "aging" (badly) at any time in life.  Since so few lived to deal with it, it's never been thought that people can age well -- as commonly as they accept that aging badly is the fate of all -- with no exceptions.  Except now, because of mass media, more are aware that a few seem to defy what we've come to regard as the normal aging prospect -- however usually attributing it to extraordinary means not accessible to most -- just as pharaoh in his day, felt he had the exclusive right to immortality.

Now it is the right plastic surgeon or geneticist too far ahead of his time who is credited with having those powers -- rather than the realm and jurisdiction of most consumers with access to all the markets and information -- most of which is unarguably bad, even with the imprimatur of those who claim exclusive authority on such matters.  But ultimately, authority derives from those who really know what they are talking about -- rather than how much money they received for deceiving others into thinking they do, which is what commercial writing and propaganda is all about.

In a previous generation, it was simply dismissed as the proper province of Madison Avenue -- where it was regarded that it was fair game to say anything one could imagine, as long as one could get away with it -- after hiring all the experts to their side -- to look the other way.  In some places, everybody who was anybody, was in on it -- because the money made it true, at least for them.  Thus we had many boondoggles that became money pits that solved no problems -- but actually perpetuated them -- as their solution.

The majority then became jaded into thinking no solution was really possible -- for any problem anymore, and all in life was futile, and then you die -- after being robbed all their lives of hope that anything worthwhile could ever become of anything, and all one's efforts.  Such people never saw any problem actually solved.  It was simply the selling of one gimmick after another -- falling more into the category of "entertainment," than any other.  One simply hoped to amuse themselves in this way -- until one met their ultimate and inevitable bad end.  "For nothing else was possible" -- in their world. 

 

That, unfortunately, is still the life for many -- exploited by the few, but not the few they think.  These are the few one would never suspect, because they trade on confidence, and not the actuality of results -- that are even obvious to those who haven't been persuaded otherwise.  That may even be the myth that they live in "Paradise," when everything would indicate otherwise, and convince them that they don't, and live lives harder than anywhere else -- without such sanctimonious proclamations that theirs was the best of all possible worlds, and would be best off not even venturing to find out, never questioning the truth they've been taught by others to believe.

 

And that is all their "education" and "conditioning" has been -- to let others do all their thinking for them, and repeat it as though they thought of it themselves.