A Quiet Watercourse

I watched the recent furore over the US right attacking the British NHS with some interest and also a little head shaking.

Let’s be honest, it’s not a perfect system, but it’s there and it’s working and we’d be a lot worse off without it.  Many people, myself included, would not be alive today without the NHS.  I’ve yet to find a perfect system anywhere and to be honest, the criticism levelled at the NHS in the UK is a vital part of the process that refines it.  Such criticism is most useful if constructive and useless if done with ill intent.

It’s been instructive to watch the attacks, a certain US news mouthpiece proclaimed that if the scientist Stephen Hawking were British he’d be dead.  Hmm, slight problem with that is that he is British and also has received treatment from the NHS.  These people are so eager to attack, so full of vitriol that they can’t even do a basic fact check first.

I am honestly starting to wonder if this is the counter attack of the special interest lobby for US healthcare.  I just wish it looked to me like they actually cared about those less fortunate than themselves, because in my opinion they certainly don’t seem to.

This is an example of the sort of politics that we need less of, protecting the fatcats and special interests above all else.  It doesn’t actually solve any problems and when the system falls apart, as it surely will if abused and unbalanced for long enough, everybody loses – rich and poor.

A couple of people I know were talking the other day, one of them has just turned 24 and felt he was “getting old”. They were then saying that from mid-20’s to mid-30’s were the “best years, the prime, of your life”.

I’m thinking about blind acceptance of “common wisdom”, even when a little reflection will show it for the sham that it is. Surely, being in “your prime” is entirely attitude, there’s so much more to it than simple physical condition or age. In any event, our technology and extending lifespans are rewriting the rules as we go.

But even purely in physical condition terms, I’ve seen people at least 10 years older than me walk into the gym and match the younger gym rats in terms of performance.

Perhaps the notion of “prime of life” is inaccurate? I think it’s not the possession of a physical or mental condition, but its expression. It’s not what you’ve got but how you use it?

Well, after about 3 and a half months of vegetarianism, I’m eating meat again.  I tried, but it didn’t work this time.

After a period of stress and also the creeping of several aches and pains, I’ve been forced to conclude that Vegetarianism isn’t for me at this point in my life, so I have to put my health first and back off.

It was an enormously valuable experience and if you can make it work then you have my respect, I just couldn’t crack it this time, though I got a lot further than my previous two attempts.

At the moment I’m eating meat once per day, which is plenty.  This provoked a quick moment of thought.  From a Taoist/Chinese Medical perspective what is the advice for a diet?

Well, after some looking, I found that they recommend meat as only 1/10th of the diet  and eliminating all processed food (as far as you can).

I’ve linked to a couple of very interesting sites below:

Taoist Arts – Medicine and Diet

Seahorse Arts – The Chang Ming diet

This caught my eye on BBC News today, a simple of story of dehydration and older folk.  To summarise the article staff at a nursing home have found that if you make sure that older folk get plenty of water they stay healthier and more active and alert.  To quote the article directly:

“They report significant improvements in health as a result – many fewer falls, fewer GP call-outs, a cut in the use of laxatives and in urinary infections, better quality of sleep, and lower rates of agitation among residents with dementia. “

I’ve found that making sure I get enough water has had beneficial effects in my own daily experience.  I recommend it to everyone and this story simply confirms what I already knew, that the simple daily measures can be better than all the expensive drugs in the world.  Is it wrong of me to feel strangely vindicated as I type that?

You can find the original BBC News article here.