ILLNESS AS BELIEF

It remains a constant source of amazement to me that so many people believe that illness throughout life is inevitable; and even more amazingly, that drugs and surgery are the prerequisite approach to these varied illnesses, tacitly accepting also that illness is best treated by doctors with perhaps decades of experience, and not by the body itself, with a lot more than several million years of experience. Also tacitly agreeing thereby that modern treatment, not ancient prevention, is the way to go. Colds are inevitable; allergies are inevitable; doctor consultation is inevitable; hospitalization is inevitable; surgery is inevitable; and the older you get, the moreso.

The medical industry just loves this illusion profoundly, and of course will always seek to preserve and deepen it (witness monthly ultrasound examinations on healthily pregnant women), will never do anything to change it, indeed will fight and discredit those who try. As a very simple example, I hear and read often of people who have been laid low for days, even weeks, with severe colds, and are only now recovering at last thanks to long bed rest and the drugs their doctor has given them or that they bought at the pharmacy, a regular shopping stop. Such 'colds' occur twice a year or more, and nothing but this can be done about them: only doctors and inactivity and drugs and lost weeks, throughout life. It's inevitable, they believe.

I, who am only a minor-level health nut who makes it a policy to break the rules now and then, have in the past gone for up to 10 years without a cold. I have not had a full blown (no pun intended) cold now for several years, and when I do (always as a result of aforementioned rule-breaking behavior to excess) it begins with that tickle and then I prevent it.

The last time I was in a hospital for treatment of illness was 57 years ago; my parents took me. In the collective 163 life-years of my immediate family thus far, not one hour has been spent in hospital for treatment of illness. My kids had all the childhood illnesses invisibly; they were unaffected while for example their schools were closed for 10 days for chickenpox, their classmates staying in bed for 10 days with sores all over them and no sleep, high fevers, doctors and lots of drugs to worsen the unnecessarily traumatic situation. All this when illness can be minimized, even prevented, very easily! And at way less expense than medical insurance and doctor bills, not to mention the permanent invasion of surgery!

Over the years I have been governmentally forced to pay millions of yen (tens of thousands of dollars) in medical insurance I and my family have never required, never used; I was subsidizing all the illness believers. I could go on about this endlessly I think, and will herein rant about it now and then as the bile requires. I wonder, though, if people don't perhaps in some way enjoy their illnesses. What else could explain it?