Zen and the Art of Human Maintenance
Understanding a machine is important for optimum performance. Our body is our most important machine. Proper care will make it perform a long time.
Our bodies are stunningly complex machines. We're taught some of the basics for maintaining good health from childhood. Don't eat dirt. Do eat your vegetables. Go outside and play. Some of it works, and if we're reasonably careful, it will keep us going for 78.7 years, according to the CDC. Then we die from some ailment derived from accumulated mistakes for those 78.7 years, which CDC purports to "control." Some do it better than others, or are just lucky, and last a little longer. Some consider it just "our time" and accept our demise fatalisticly. We can all do better.
We're just machines, and like any machine, sufficient maintenance can keep it going longer. Even indefinitely. We often see "antique" cars and other devices maintained perfectly, long past their expected lifetime. The human machine is much more complicated, and correct maintenance is not as well understood -- but we're learning fast. Despite claims of wisdom by self proclaimed medical experts, we continue to expire after about the same lifespan as our ancestors through recorded history.
We must be doing something wrong.
A popular book from 1974, "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance," followed a metaphor of maintaining your own motorcycle as the key to success. Most of us take a "romantic" approach and hope for the best. We rely on professional mechanics to repair failed components when our hopes eventually fail. We lose time waiting for the repairs, money paying for them, and we don't learn to recognize the signals the machine provides regarding its health which can prevent many failures. And some failures undermine the whole machine, and its prospects.
The Declaration of Independence promises "unalienable rights" of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I seek independence from the medical profession regarding my health. I believe I can improve my life, and lifespan, and thus my happiness by performing maintenance beyond what is provided, and recommended, by orthodox medical practice. You can too. I'm not an evangelist, but I invite others to consider the practices I'll describe here, which seem to work for me, and share maintenance practices they have found useful.
I'm not anti medical industry, any more than I'm anti government or anti motorcycle mechanic. They all have value, and can often be useful. But over dependence on any of them jeopardizes our lives, our liberties, and our happiness. We can do better.
We need to be honest: we don't understand how most medications and supplements work. We can see the result, and make a leap of faith that the result comes from the medications and treatments, or procedures, but that is faith. I know that for most viruses getting outdoors is a huge help. Exposure to sunlight triggers the body to do many things. Some are good and some are bad.
I have prescribed hypnosis and acupuncture for pain relief, without having a clue how they work. Well, that's not entirely true, I do understand quite a bit about how hypnosis works, but know nothing about acupuncture except that it works. The same was true for a long time with dental anesthesia gas; there was no anesthetic effect from the nitrous oxide, it was simply depriving the patient of oxygen.
We eat healthy for the most part, it is a good habit to get into.