“No matter how far you my dig into the the depths of your soul, eventually you will come out an asshole” -Norman Mailer
This is a good starting point to what I am about to share with you.
I live with a disease. Most of you reading this most likely know this about me. My feelings about life with a disease can be summed up in two words: nothing special.
We live in the age of compromise where we all carry the weight of diseases. It is nothing special; honestly it's akin to a time when making it through the winter was a hit or miss experience.
Every generation carries the sins-of-life. Our generation has disease.
Your disease may be self-inflicted, you may have smoked and cheeseburger-ed your way to disease or maybe the air and water carried the disease into your bloodstream.
Disease is the product of the past fifty years. Corporations have been built as temples to the grandeur of illness. Disease is economics. Get a disease someone will profit from it. Someone will dedicate their life to the study of that disease. Someone will give up and sit on the sofa waiting for death to come.
What can a disease teach us about us? It is an "us", it's not a "you" or "I". It's not even a "we"; it's an “us.” Disease is now a social thing. There are clubs, groups, organizations, companies, schools, restaurants, chat rooms, social media sites, tour groups, cruises and vacation destinations all built to serve the ill. Disease is an industry. That may seem too hard to accept, nonetheless it seems to be truth. Can you argue my point? How many jobs would be lost if disease went away?
Want to dip your toes into the cosmic quagmire? Google “seed, antibiotic, lobbyist” and see how many companies produce seeds to grow food and the very same company produces the antibiotic to cure the disease that may arise from the seed. Circle of life, circle of cash flow, sins of now.
Life is filled up with simple solutions, this has been my lesson learned. Look for the obvious. Walking and water, breathing and smiling...these have been by far my most favorite solutions.
Recently added to the list (forgive the subtle use of words to come next): if your shit stinks that means you are not well. Eat better food.
Simple solutions. Notice how we will stay away from anything that stinks accept for what we produce. Take the time and notice your bodily waste. The body can cure us if we only listen to it (or in this case smell it). Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's gross, I get it. But do you want to escape a life of disease? Truly we can exit the matrix. At this point, please refer to my opening quote. It has deep meaning on many levels.
Simple solutions arise if we only take the time to notice. If you put things in your body that create stink, it creates disease. If you place foods into your body that create an odorless passing, that creates good health.
When I am a healthy person living with my disease in a state of optimal health I feel like a prophet who will preach to anyone who will listen to the message. When I am struck down by the disease I feel as if I am a fake; a person who could not live his truth. Then I came to understand that the word "truth" should be replaced with the word "task".
Let me go off-subject to paint a picture about truth & task.
Replace the "truth of” living your beliefs with the “task of" living your faith. This simple flip of words opens up a new way to think about old ideologies.
"Truth" is someone else's idea on how we should live. But "task"...living with a task can give us purpose to live life with effort. Having a disease is nothing special but it is important work if you choose to do it well.
With the flip of these words it will help us to create less harm in the world. It will help to teach us to live in this age of compromise. Disease is a product of this age but for those of us that live with a disease, we can not only live in the truth of not slowly dying from our illness but also the the task of showing others how to live with optimal health.
My task is to help others lead a life filled with health, creativity and simplicity infused with the “heart of a servant” and the “strength of a fighter”.
And that takes practice.
We need to do the work in the soil before we can ever part the clouds.
