Fall\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Waxing Harvest Moon<\/p>\n
At the Woolly meeting at Paul’s this Monday night, Mark talked about a woodworking group to which a friend (nephew?) belongs.\u00a0 They get together, teach other how to do woodworking, chip in on special tools and have a good time learning together.\u00a0 Sounds fun.\u00a0 If you want to learn woodworking.\u00a0 What got my attention was a moment in the evening they have called the organ recital.\u00a0 A new term to me.\u00a0 Each guy reports on his organs are doing.\u00a0 It reminded me of\u00a0 friend Morry Rothstein who often starts conversations amongst the geriatric docent crowd with the question, “Any new parts?”<\/p>\n
The Woolly evening had the ritual obeisance to the nostrum, “You don’t have anything if you don’t have your health.”\u00a0 This in the context of the wealth discussion we had.\u00a0 At the time I burned my sacrifice on the altar of health as we all nodded sagely, wise old men agreeing that wealth doesn’t mean anything if you don’t have your health.<\/p>\n
When I got home, though, I got to thinking.\u00a0 We may be setting ourselves up for incredible unhappiness in the not so far distant future.\u00a0 Or in the here and now if you’re, say, Mark, recovered from prostate cancer, but now battling a bum knee.\u00a0 Or if you’re, say, Frank with his bum ticker, a widow maker artery that could take him out anytime.\u00a0 Or Paul, whose hemoglobin count mysteriously dropped to worrying levels, but has now rebounded.\u00a0 Or, even me, with high blood pressure (under control) and kidney functions that haven’t looked the best of late.<\/p>\n
(the nine Greek Muses along with Hygeia, goddess of health, and a very young Apollo, the god of medicine)<\/p>\n
What’s my point?\u00a0 Soon or late, the body decompensates, succumbs to the inexorability of the 2nd law of thermodynamics.\u00a0 Entropy always wins against life, a losing bet from the very beginning.\u00a0 Between good health and that final reckoning with the laws of nature we may, and probably will, become ill with one of several now manageable conditions:\u00a0 certain cancers, congestive heart failure, declining kidneys or any of several non-lethal, at least not right away, conditions.<\/p>\n
What do we say then?\u00a0 Oh, no.\u00a0 My life is over, turn on the gas, or do we discover, as so many have, that health is not in fact everything.\u00a0 Everything includes love which transcends disease, enjoyment of literature, the arts, travel,\u00a0 sex, friendship, family.\u00a0 None of these come to an end because of a diagnosis or a condition.\u00a0 Might COPD or chronic pain limit the type and kind of things you do?\u00a0 Of course.\u00a0 But look at your life now.\u00a0 Travel has its limits, if not by funds, then by time.\u00a0 How much time can you be gone?\u00a0 Work has its limits now.\u00a0 Already you work so many hours, then rest.\u00a0 You could certainly change the ratio.<\/p>\n
This is not a plea to cast healthy living to the wind just so we can transcend suffering, far from it.\u00a0 In fact, living healthfully as long you can makes total sense.\u00a0 The key words there are, as long as you can.\u00a0 When you cannot, learn a new way of living.\u00a0 We’ll all have to do it, unless we just drop dead.\u00a0 And that doesn’t seem so desirable to me right now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Fall\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Waxing Harvest Moon At the Woolly meeting at Paul’s this Monday night, Mark talked about a woodworking group to which a friend (nephew?) belongs.\u00a0 They get together, teach other how to do woodworking, chip in on special tools and have a good time learning together.\u00a0 Sounds fun.\u00a0 If you want to learn woodworking.\u00a0 What … Continue reading Health.<\/span>