I like to think of myself as a rational, thinking, reality-based human being. I don’t believe in effects without cause. I believe in personal responsibility. I believe in solving a problem using hard science based on hard evidence. I believe that society is best served with that kind of thinking. Somehow, though, all that goes out the window when it comes to running my own life.
As a rule, a living organism does whatever it can to assure survival. That is the first order of business for all life because without making that effort, life would cease to exist. Much of the effort made to survive is a based on the pain/pleasure, stimulus/response cycle. If you are in pain you do whatever you can to alleviate that pain. If you are a hungry lion, you go find an antelope to kill and eat. If you are an antelope, you look out for lions because being eaten is painful, to say the least.
Human beings aren’t wired quite as tightly as most other creatures on this earth. Oh sure, if we stick our hand into a fire the pain will cause us to pull it out, but we are also capable of pouring gasoline over ourselves and lighting ourselves on fire. Surely a lion or an antelope would watch that and think, “What the hell?”
So it is with our personal health – both physical and mental. In spite of hard evidence and painful personal experience, we can somehow ignore it all and continue behaving in a way that will only lead to self destruction. It truly is amazing that we have that capability. More than amazing, it is distressing. It calls into question our real capacity for rational thought, and I have to admit that I find myself in that situation.
There is no one that can grow old and retain one-hundred percent of their youthful bodily capacities. Given that obvious fact, would it also not be obvious that we should do everything that we can to delay the onset of any physical disability? Obvious, yes, but far from enabling, as I can personally attest. With old knees that have worn out, an aching back and rapidly vanishing strength and flexibility, you would think that weight loss and physical conditioning would be a priority. Well, the human brain inside my head doesn’t seem to be able to act on that.
It’s not a matter of rational thinking or lack of knowledge. I know what I should be doing and I know the consequences of not doing it, but somehow I cannot motivate myself to act. You would think that the pain that results from not acting would be sufficient to stimulate the response that would go far in relieving that pain, but once again, the human mind is capable of pitting the human body against itself.
Perhaps it is a matter of warring factions. While my body says, “Hey! Take better care of me. Lose some weight, get some exercise, eat better,” my mind is saying, “Hey, you’re depressed about your life, go ahead and eat what you want and blank out your emotions by mindlessly planting yourself in front of the television. Who needs exercise?” I’m afraid my mind has been winning.
The truth is that I’m sick of this war, but I can’t seem to facilitate a truce between the factions. Is this to be a war to the death? Well, technically, yes – I can’t get around that. The real question is how much more quickly that death will come without finding a reasonable compromise between my mind and my body. On the other hand, I have always found that in a conflict, compromise almost always means that both sides have lost, and I know that my body should not give up the fight for health, in spite of all the propaganda my mind throws at it.
I really do not want to spend the rest of my life, however much time that might be, in physical pain and suffering because of the frailties of my mind. Whether I can allow my mind to let go of the many issues that drive it close to the edge of insanity is questionable, but the results of not doing so are inevitable. In the end, as is usually the case, my life is pretty much in my own hands. What a sorry place for it to be.