A book I shall be buying

Neuroscientists have recently shown that biases
in thinking are built into the very way the
brain processes information--all brains... In
a study of people who were being monitored by
magnetic resonance imaging while they were
trying to process dissonant or consonant
information about George Bush or John Kerry,
researchers found that the reasoning areas of
the brain virtually shut down when participants
were confronted with dissonant information,
and the emotion circuits of the brain lit up
happily when consonance was restored. Researchers
also showed that reading information that goes
against your point of view can make you all the
more convinced that you are right.
--Carol Travis & Elliot Aronson (2007)

Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me): Why We Justify
Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts


"Renowned social psychologists Carol Travis and Elliot Aronson take a compelling look into how the brain is wired for self-justification. When we make mistakes, we must calm the cognitive dissonance that jars our feelings of self-worth. And so we create fictions that absolve us of responsibility, restoring our belief that we are smart, moral, and right­-a belief that often keeps us on a course that is dumb, immoral, and wrong."

Don't get it - wait till you are nearing sixty

Gravity wins in the end. When one hits 60, denial isn't really an option anymore.

Insight and transformation can wash away years of resentment, bitterness, righteous anger, disappointment and other such stuff and change how we look but only transcendence can beat gravity. Transformation I have tasted. Transcendence is the stuff of miracles, way beyond my reach or comprehension.

But what about insight and its resulting transformation, is it within our reach - subject to our choice and decision?

I don't think so. It's more like a gift. When it comes it's a surprise.

If and when, for whatever reason, we move into truth and out of pretense, magical 'things', like insight, sometimes happen - that's all I know.

A prerequisite to insight (new knowing) is not knowing.

Insight is about truth in action not the imposition of what we may think, feel, believe and know.

Can we choose truth? I don't think so - insight is prior to it.

Catch 22!

Bugger.

But we can 'choose' to be our present truth - deliberately and consciously be the lie, the pretense - tell our loved ones our game.

Whoooops! Embarrassing! Yes but changing too!

Trick-cycling for beginners

Shiny Happy Person

SHP is a dissatisfied and stroppy junior psychiatrist working in the crumbling institution that is the NHS. She loves her job and gets very pissed off when she is prevented from doing it properly, which happens a lot.

Visit shiny happy person for some more NHS madness coming our ( NZ) way in the not too distant future.

The Gym bunnies

The Maori trust I have been working for funds some folk going to the gym - what a superb idea. I call the ladies who have taken this offer up the gym bunnies. They are not exactly a young thin lycra glad brigade. Their back sides are on the rather large side and their breasts ample. They are however a very happy bunch. The ones I have met have been inspired and uplifted by the experience - a new lease on life seams to be the theme for them all. Now this is money well spent. So much better than pills!

They uplift me when they come for their check ups. Even if they don't meet their targets this project will have been worthwhile - there's nothing like a little fun and laughter.

Reaching 60

Belated pressie from some friends - a couple of bottles of plonk with a personalised label.

That young dude over there is me, 30 odd years ago. Bloody hell!! I will, at max, only see 30 more springs - maybe with a miracle 40. More likely only 20 and if I die at the age my dad died, only another 16 wisteria spring time displays. It could be a lot fewer. I could have seen my last spring.

This ageing business is really weird.

Hang on while I get myself another G and T.

Grey hair, thin skin, bifocals, poor stream, less stamina and a belly that is a little protuberant. I am mortal. I will die.

Not too many years ago life felt like it was forever. Now I really know it isn't. I knew before but now I really know. This life isn't any kind of dress rehearsal. There is no coming back. This is it.

I have been told a few times in my life that I could do with getting my hands dirty - that is, getting out of my head and in touch with something real and actual - dirt. I have told myself the same thing many many times.

We humans spend too much time playing with and locked into mental abstractions - man made imagery and beliefs - shoulds, old hurts, future fears and other stuff. And in the process we miss out on life, reality and the enjoyment of being with self and others.

There may or may not be any point to life. There may or may not be any god or gods. Our beliefs are probably all off the mark. We are all sinners. We all struggle. In our negativity we are so boringly similar and hurtful.

Your opinions are yours and mine are mine - why fight over them. If we disagree, why not have fun heated discussions and leave it at that.

Stop trying to change self and others.

Please let those you love be who they are - let them be! Let yourself be too! And while you are at it let everyone else be too! Yes lets lock up those that are a danger to themselves and others but please let us all be more understanding and less punitive. Revenge in the end destroys the revenge seeker. Those that do damage have a screw or two loose and we all have one hell of a lot less choice than we imagine we have and pontificate about. If you ain't one of the baddies stop imagining you are such a clever dick and feel grateful you are not so afflicted. Or is that nasty little righteous game you play your inescapable prison.

WE ARE ALL IGNORANT FOR GOODNESS SAKE!! THIS IS WHAT WE ALL HAVE IN COMMON.

Violence is on the increase so the TV announcer tells us - why are we so surprised?

The haves are getting more of the pie, super houses on hills and huge pensions. Walled and locked communities are all the rage. There is little sense of gratitude - just judgements about the worker bees who are rapidly becoming redundant in this new brave world.

If you were one of them, you would of course rise up and find your place on top of the hill and look down on them and fuel your 'smart arse' sense of self - wouldn't you?

There isn't enough hills for us all you idiot. If we make being on top of the hill what life is all about, there will be wars - personal and global.

Just another wee rave - too many G and Ts.

A change of pace.

This is my last week working as a locum doctor for a Maori trust in the far north of NZ. I have really enjoyed myself. I asked one of the practice nurses the other day what the essential difference between Maori and Pakeha is. You guys think you own the land - we think the land owns us. Maybe we Pakeha culd do with a drop of Maori blood.

The health game will not succeed while it's a top down affair - when those supplying the services are basically telling those receiving them what the story is. Health has to do with feeling in charge of one's life with being helped yes but with help that enables, uplifts and empowers - not an easy game to play when many unwell people are stuck in an apparent "can not be bothered frame of mind".

Of course its not really I can not be bothered - there's always more to it than meets the eye. Life is very very harsh for some people. Try being unwell with no resources, no money in the bank, rent due, eviction coming, cancer spreading and loved ones fleeing. Try geting out of any hole when its too deep and got slippery sides.

When both my legs are broken I can not walk you dumb bugger. Expecting me to earn a buck to pay you before you fix my legs is absurd!

Metaphorically speaking many of us have broken mental legs and these are not that easy to fix.

Polypharmacy is not the way to go - what an absurd waste of resources.

Forgiveness.

Powerful place to get to if you can - many real life stories here.


Restorative justice information and starting place

Human destructiveness

She is a 45 yr old diabetic with poor circulation to her legs. She is also a smoker. She presented today with two small punched out holes in one lower leg. Smoking in her situation is total madness.

Mrs Jones I want your permission to scare the living daylights out of you?

Why?

Because you know what I am going to tell you already and what you know hasn't changed you. I intend to get in behind your defensive words and shake your core.

Okay

Within a year or two the surgeons will start chopping off bits of your legs and over a year or so work their way up past your knees. By then it will be time to start on your fingers. You are only 45 Mrs Jones and by the time you are fifty you'll be chair bound with painful non healing stumps. I asked her what I had told her. I repeated bits she missed. I looked her in the eye and made sure she heard.

I think she let the image touch her but I doubt it was enough to change anything.




It seems as if folk like her just can not be bothered, that health is just a choice away and so it is. But that choice does not lie within her realm of possibility. It seems so obvious to the rest of us. However, I reckon we all have our 'can't be bothered' aspects. We see those of others and not our own. What's your addiction - it may not be drugs, it may be anxiety, worry, guilt and so on. Whatever it is, it will seem like you don't have a choice. However, when others look in on your world they'll see your addiction, which you don't even see as a problem, as a choice you should change.

Be nice to your doctors

It pays to be nice to your doctors and at the same time recognise they are human - that is, they have their bad days, their knowledge and skills are limited and for a successful consultation they need your help or in put. They aren't vets or clairvoyants. The person before you may have been a difficult individual and knocked your doc off his or her perch. Some people reacting out of fear, pain and frustration can be threatening, aggressive and angry - others can be manipulative, dishonest and unpleasant.

You want him or her on your side. He or she wants to be on yours. If this isn't so, then maybe both should call it a day.

Doctors are pattern recognisers. It's their job to hear your story, clarify it, do tests and examination. If all this information produces a pattern they know, they can respond. If there isn't a fit - then they don't know what's wrong with you and so can not respond or treat you.

Many docs have very high IQs are used to knowing their stuff and feel they should know all the time. Not knowing isn't easy for them. Lots of docs are 'helpers'. They need to help. Now if you've seen a specialist and they haven't come up with a diagnosis either, there's a problem. Your doc is having two of his or her buttons pushed. They don't know and feel they can not help.

This makes for a delicate situation. They are a maybe a wee bit reactive and maybe you are too. After all you are unwell, in pain maybe, and you are scared about what might be wrong with you.

The doc may be wondering whether there is something going on in your life you aren't talking about. Maybe you aren't, out of embarrassment, telling him all your symptoms. Maybe your personal life is a bit of a mess and you haven't admitted this to yourself. You could be underplaying your symptoms or overplaying them. Your doc is probably concerned s/he might be missing something.

This is not an easy time for both parties. Your doctor doesn't want to upset you. He or she may be holding back because of uncertainty - what they are thinking might not be right. You could get all miffy and report him or her to the dreaded HDC.

Doc - please give me your honest opinion - don't hold anything back. Give it to me!

Be prepared to hear something you don't want to hear. Don't fight the opinion. Say thanks - let me think about it if it doesn't sit right with you. It takes courage from your doctor to be forthright and honest. Thank him or her for that!

If you don't have an easily diagnosable situation, the best policy is openness and a forthright expression by both parties. Your doctor needs your permission and encouragement. If you don't give it, you may not get to hear what your doctor thinks. It's too easy for both doctor and patients to avoid the difficult conversation and all too often patients ends up on a tread mill of investigations, specialists and treatments that don't serve them well.

Antipsychotics

The new antipsychotics increase the options of your doctor - however, they do not live up to the hype that you may have read about. Plenty links here to get you started. The chart see above could be really helpful.

Antipsychotics / Really Old School and New Stylee Mood Stabilizers.
lots of links

Lost In Translation: What We Really Learned From CATIE
Jeffrey Lieberman, M.D.

Government Antipsychotic Study Finds No Clear Winner in `Horse Race'

The Good, the Bad, and the Unexpected

The Wall Street Journal reported this morning that "Old Schizophrenia Drug Works As Well as Newer Treatments"

The CATIE Trial: It’s the Dosing, Stupid!

Hatred

What if our thought/feelings have more impact on our physicality than we think. What if anger, not fresh and clean, but putrified, old, unacknowledged and ancient anger, fuels ill-health in ways we as yet don't understand, how is this to be brought into the light, if the spirit of exploration and discovery is denied by political correctness, rules, regulations and tradition.




An old lady years ago in bed and a couple of weeks from dying took my hand and placed it on her stomach. Under the skin I could feel a cricket ball sized craggy hard tumour.

"What do you think this is doctor"

I shrugged not knowing what she meant. "I don't know, what is it?" I ask.

"Hatred", she said

Mental health

Schizophrenia Consumer Version
Panic Disorder And Agoraphobia Consumer Version
Depression Consumer Version
Deliberate Self Harm Consumer Version
Bipolar Disorder Consumer Version
Anorexia Nervosa Consumer Version

Click on the above. It will take you to Royal Australian and New Zealand thingie of psychiatrists. The above are 40 to 50 page PDF downloads. There are professional and lay versions. It looks like there isn't corporate funding but it's probably there somewhere.

These booklets are really good places to get started - plenty of pointers to other sources of information too.

The Bogey Man of Defensive Medicine.

In an article titled the Bogey Man of Defensive Medicine the HDC commissioner 's message is pretty much harden up docs. We are doing good work and you should appreciate it. The HDC for some folk is a government appointed guardian of health consumers' interests - a white knight. Others, like myself, don't see it this way.

Change EXPERT to HDC and this cartoon pretty much catches how I felt after the HDC had finished with me 8 years or so ago.

It was a learning experience all right. I've learnt to judge others less. I've learnt that free will, being able to choose my thoughts and feelings, is a fine idea in theory but far from easy to apply in reality. I've learnt that words for the unenlightened, like myself, can hurt and the damage can last for many years. I've learnt, as with the body after trauma, there is emotional scarring.


Sometimes the scarring is keloid in nature and at other times it's almost invisible. I now react in ways I didn't used to - once burnt twice shy as they say. I operate more defensively and I do not interact with patients as openly.

The HDC's promise, intention or claim is that it's job is the fair, simple, speedy and efficient resolutions of complaints.

Resolution is the act or process of resolving. Resolving comes from re- + solvere to loosen or release. There is the meaning here of dissolving or melting, of dealing with something successfully, of clearing something up. This is the soft view of resolution. In this view parties to a dispute expect to be involved in the process and end up experiencing resolution - completion.

Then there is the meaning of an opinion being reached and resolution being a matter of the declaration of that opinion. Here the protagonists are sidelined to one degree or another. They are subjected to the opinion of others. These opinion makers may think the situation has been resolved and that it was resolved fairly, speedily and effectively. The protagonist may not. Who are the HDC's customers? Have they ever been independently surveyed with regards to their level of satisfaction?

From a providers point of view the HDC's job is come up with opinions. The commissioner can keep people on tenter hooks two years or more. He decides on whether or not providers have breached any codes and he comes up with recommendations or 'punishments'. He, in effect, lays charges, decides on what evidence to hear, hears it and passes judgment. He is policeman, attorney for both sides, judge and jury.

Speedy, simple, fair and effective resolution - sounds so soft and cuddly doesn't it. It's mostly firbies. All these words are defined by the act and the commissioner. They do not speak to the the complainant or provider's experience or definitions. It's within the HDC's commissioner's power to impose an opinion but its not within the ability of any third party to resolve anything between me and another. Yes the HDC could help, if asked but how can any of its workers possibly believe that the passage of their opinion will really resolve anything. This is imposition - not resolution. It's crazy thinking.

The quality of these opinions will depend upon the investigating officers level of interest, prejudices and motivations and on the funding of the HDC - maybe even the mood of the commissioner. It may even depend on who whispers in his or her ear. How are we to know? The rules of evidence are as lax as he decides. Providers have no rights to be heard, to see or hear evidence as it is gathered or respond to it. Providers simply wait in ignorance unless the commissioner feels like acting differently. Providers may think that once the opinion has been passed and they have done their 500 hail Marys that it's all over. Well maybe it's not. The commissioner can later change his or her mind and refer a provider for prosecution.

If a provider is referred, ends up in front of the Medical Disciplinary Tribunal and is not found guilty of anything, what happens to the HDC opinion? It stays on the provider's records. Even if it is factually wrong this is so. There is nothing that can be done about this as an HDC opinion can not be appealed. You can ask the medical council to remove it and they will say they can't. When you ask why not, they'll say because of patient safety!!!!!!!! More crazy thinking.

Injustice enrages people Ron. Unfair processes also anger people. You may think you are a fair man - you may well be a fair man, but you don't seem to have an inkling of how unfair your process is to experience. You don't lack intelligence - so why don't you see this. Maybe you can't afford to.

Is the HDC adding to the health of the nation - what are it's benefits and harms - what does it cost? Was it birth based on evidence or agenda?

Does it practice what it preaches? Did I feel respected or treated with dignity - you have got to be kidding. Was I fully informed - of course not.

What about complainants does it work for them? Who knows!

So what's the point of the whole exercise? Who gains from its existence?

Stockholm Syndrome

Click on cartoon to read small print.

We humans have an incredible ability to hang onto what's hurting or harming us, argue for it, rationalise it, make it look good even and have little to no awareness we are so doing. So when we come across a glaringly obvious form of the Stockholm Syndrome we are flabbergasted. We've all done it, the S.S. and probably are doing it to one degree or another. It's so easy to see this in others. There's a theme. We've heard it all before. There are stated intentions. I will change. I will stop. Nothing of substance changes except for maybe temporarily.

Here's another one

I can not sleep or eat.

Last year he was living with his partner, her three kids and one of his. He had a job - things were pretty good. He bought a supply of tinnies for a party. The party didn't eventuate and so he sold them to get his money back. How many tinnies - three!! Who - an undercover cop. He ended up in jail - spent a month there. Is now on home detention with an ankle bracelet on. He has no partner - she has left him. He has lost the kids that know him as dad. His family are not supportive. He has no money - he and his daughter are surviving off food parcels. Welfare say a benefit is coming. I came out of jail a fighter - I wasn't before. This guy's life has been turned upside down all over 3 tinnies! He's been hurt - lost any innocence he had and also some esteem and self worth. He's been brutalised by the state as far as I am concerned. The police did him for being a commercial seller. I have no way of checking his story out.

How cruel vindictive and nasty we are. Have we created a revengeful criminal here? How many 30 year olds have had a few tinnies in their possession. The hypocrisy of it. It stinks. I hate this stuff. It makes me angry. I can not believe in these times we still believe in punishment - IT DOES NOT WORK!!!

A few weeks back a 60 year told me she was going to jail for being a seller of P. If her story is accurate there is rot in the system. Is it accurate - we will never know. But sending this older woman to jail is totally f'ing crazy. For what purpose. She had supplied an undercover cop with a joint at a party. He visited her and kept asking for P. She said she didn't know where to get it. He visited often. Had coffee with her. He befriended her. Pleaded. Finally she said she'd find out for him. She made enquiries got some and sold it to him. He arrested her.

Both these people deserved better. I worked nights in a poor part of a city for two years. If the powers that be behaved in the smart end of town in the same way they'd be out of a job. After two years I knew that some of the stories I was hearing were accurate.

I saw a platoon of cops ready to do battle at my daughters 21st. One of them was trying his best to goad a bit of action and his mates were not stopping him!!

Being poor and on the bottom rung makes one an easy target it seems to me - one who has few resources to fight back.

The righteous and judgemental folk are greater sinners in my book!

I know a barrister who would have got both these folk out of the courts and back home, safe and sound. The only problem he costs thousands and thousands.

Fighting to die the cost of living is too high

A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it. ~Max Planck, A Scientific Autobiography and Other Papers, 1949

When enough significant anomalies have accrued against a current paradigm, (world view) the scientific discipline is thrown into a state of crisis, according to Kuhn. During this crisis, new ideas, perhaps ones previously discarded, are tried. Eventually a new paradigm is formed, which gains its own new followers, and an intellectual "battle" takes place between the followers of the new paradigm and the hold-outs of the old paradigm. Wikepedia

One of the weird things about humans is their dogged determination to hold onto ideas, beliefs and points of view even when the cost of so doing is broken relationships, stress and sometimes even death. It seems other people are impelled, propelled and compelled - the less fortunate. But us fortunate ones - we have free will.

Arthur Schopenhauer put the puzzle of free will and moral responsibility in these
terms:

Everyone believes himself a priori to be perfectly free, even in his individual actions, and thinks that at every moment he can commence another manner of life... . But a posteriori, through experience, he finds to his astonishment that he is not free, but subjected to necessity, that in spite of all his resolutions and reflections he does not change his conduct, and that from the beginning of his life to the end of it, he must carry out the very character which he himself condemns...."

In his On the Freedom of the Will, Schopenhauer stated, "You can do what you will, but in any given moment of your life you can will only one definite thing and absolutely nothing other than that one
thing." Wikepedia

Fighting to die the cost of living is too high

All of us - well most of us - have destructive tendency or habits. Some folk are addicted to smoking. Others are addicted to worry, guilt, self pity and other thought/feeling patterns. Some addictions make us outcasts others make us caring people. Worriers think they are ever so caring. Ask the people they worry about whether they feel cared for or not. The point is most of us will rationalise and justify our destructive tendencies when asked about them and we will when cornered fight for them

We will fight for them even though they may be destroying us. It seems that either the cost of change is too high or we don't have the level of free will we like to claim we have.

Kids visit

She lives in LA and he in Dunedin. They came to stay. I took a bit of time off work and we had some fun in the north of New Zealand.


Te Paki Stream - it is part of the roading system. It takes you down to the top of 90 mile beach which can be driven on for most of its length.


These are the sand dunes/hills above Te Paki stream.


This is our kids racing up. Having them with us for four days was a real tonic. Better than any drug. To what extent are folk unwell because of the air of tension that fills there homes and places of work? How relaxing is having fun and being with people you love and who love you.

Intimacy - meaning closeness, tenderness, vulnerability and safety - is a powerful de-stressor. It enables emotional honesty and expression. Emotional honesty and expression with loved ones brings more intimacy. Intimacy brings an end to or greatly lessens anxiety, worry, fear and anger. With intimacy comes peace and mental stillness.

Physical fitness and intimacy are magic makers! Both generate great feelings of aliveness and energy. Now if a drug company could bottle this combo what would happen to our health stats.

Health

Human beings have a physical existence and an inner thought/feeling experience. They have intimate, family, friendly and not so friendly relationships. They have roles. They may be earner, carer or both. They have interests. They are born. They grow up. They may or may not have kids. They go out into the world and do stuff. They get old. They die.

Some get wiser as they get older and some don't. Some are flexible and some are inflexible. Some have personality and others have schizo affective disorders. Some are psychopaths - they have no ability to empathise. They do violent things to others and to them it's no different to kicking a car. Some of us are wired to behave in ways that make no sense to the rest of us.

Some of us cruise through life. We find it easy to be with and deal with others. People warm to us and opportunities come our way. On the other hand some of us seem to have no luck whatsoever. We may be intelligent but don't feel we are - others end up treating us as if we aren't. Not so good things tend to fall into our laps. Some of us have little in the way of illness. Others have many diagnostic labels thrown at them.

Some people reckon they have it all worked out and when they get cancer they can not stop thinking about how unfair it is. Some very fit people have heart attacks and they too feel its not fair. Some smoke, drink and burn the candle at both ends and live long and healthy lives.

Life is not fair.

The danger with imposing your or my idea of health is a frightening prospect!

When you reckon you can change the world for the better realise that you are a tyrant in the making! Yes you may be an awfully nice person but the thing about nice people is that when they turn nasty they can become unbelievably nasty especially to those that challenge their genius.

Health again

Health is a tricky subject to talk about. To state what it is, to define it, is to exclude folk who do not fit that particular definition. To not define it is to end up with a word which carries little meaning.

There is in a person's life a spring, a summer, an autumn and a winter. A person in the spring of life bursting with energy epitomises good health according to the media and our fantasies. But what about a person in the winter of their life. Their body may be failing them. They may have aches and pains. Yet they have a twinkle in their eye. They feel love and are loved. They are content. Their opinion is sort after. Can they not be healthy too?

What is good health differs depending on the stage of life a person is at. It also differs on a personal level.

Some of us are geniuses, some of us are handicapped, some of us are average and ordinary, some of us are talented and some of us are seriously afflicted. Luckily we are all different, unique even. Can not old and disabled people be healthy too?

Some of us think we know what is 'right for me'. All too often there is a rude awakening and we realise we didn't know - we were wrong - our whole attitude was unhealthy. With insight often comes a sense of release and well being - of openness to newness.

No one can know for sure what's right and best for you or I and all too often we don't know either.

When we are certain, life is or can become constrained, constrained within what we know. When we don't know and are willing to learn, when we are willing to move on and explore, interest, enthusiasm, curiosity and aliveness enter our experience.

A life of not knowing may be scary but with it comes that something which is missing in a constrained life - an energy which we and others sense and which brings a lightness to our step and eyes.

For me this indefinable something is what we are trying to point to when we use the word health.

Health is a bit like love - impossible to catch with words - but we know it when we are it.

Stress Health - Health Delivery.

In his book "The Stress Myth" Serge Doublet suggests that stress is an abstract concept in search of a reality - that is, it doesn't exist. He relates how the inventor of the idea in the medical sense, Hans Selye, changed his definition of stress throughout his life. He never found it!!

This is not to deny that we experience something when we complain of stress. But what is this something? Is your something the same as mine - as everybody else's? I don't think so. Can we locate it? Can we measure it directly? As we can not, of what use is this concept? In social chit chat, we sort of know what is meant by it - well, we think we do.

Actually it's a minimizing or cop out term. It's a polite way of saying I am losing control or not coping - my expectations and reality are clashing. With it we get to stay on the surface of our experience and avoid digging into what is actually going on. We get to avoid being vulnerable, truthful and expressive - looking foolish, weak or incapable.

There's the concept - a mental abstraction - a non-existent - a mental map. We end up giving more weight to it, our ideas, definitions and explanations, than we do to what's real and actual - our experience. What is real is negated by our mental gymnastics.

Commitment

Until one is committed
there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back,
always ineffectiveness.
Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation),
there is one elementary truth,
the ignorance of which kills countless ideas
and splendid plans:
that the moment one definitely commits oneself,
then Providence moves too.
All sorts of things occur to help one
that would never otherwise have occurred.
A whole stream of events issues from the decision,
raising in one's favor all manner
of unforeseen incidents and meetings
and material assistance,
which no man could have dreamt
would come his way.

WH Murray Scottish Himlayan Expedition

We can all sense what this poem is about - the power of commitment. It's awesome.

The committed person doesn't comment on whether they are committed or not? They are not trying to be committed - they simply are. They are too busy being and doing. Others notice. They see its power. They want some of it. If I do commitment, the actions of it, I'll be it. This mimicry doesn't work. They develop ideas about what they think it is. This doesn't get them any closer to it.

What is commitment? We think we know what it is but do we don't. We know how it presents and our ideas about it but we do not know it. If we don't know it, we can not consciously set about manufacturing it. It's not a product of manufacture. It's got nothing to do with our egos. It is if anything an egoless state.

Commitment and stress are abstract concepts. We know what they are until we stop, really stop, and think. When we do, we find we can not locate either of them. We know our definitions and explanations. We may be able to say an awful lot about stress and commitment but we don't know either in an objective measurable way. There is no recipe for commitment. It can not be manipulated into existence.

Does this matter? Yes it does. Knowing the difference between an abstract concept and a concrete one makes navigating life a little easier. A concrete concept refers to an actuality - something we can point at. An abstract concept refers to a non existent. We feel something in our bodies and we say stress caused it. We see someone with single minded attention and say behind this is commitment. Neither commitment nor stress have ever been observed. Your and my ideas about these non existents are of as much value as your or my ideas about santa Claus.

If you and I sit down and nut out what we mean by commitment, carefully define it, then maybe we can have a productive conversation as long as we realise our talk is about abstractions not reality. It's about 'maps' which may or may not cohere with reality. The world is flat works as an idea when our horizons are small but it's not the truth - it's not reality. It coheres until our horizons expand.

Now what about health?

One widely accepted definition of health is that of the World Health Organization (WHO). It states that "health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity" (WHO, 1946).

Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being. This is a circular definition. Well being = health. We are none the wiser. And anyway what on earth is a state of complete mental well being, for godsake? This definition gives us nothing - nothing to act from or with. It's hot air - jibbe jabba or to be blunt B.S.

Health is even more abstract and hard to pin down than stress or commitment. We know stress by feelings and bodily sensations. We know commitment by people's actions. When we stop and consider health we realise that the concept and all our talk about it, isn't the reality. What is the reality? What are its consequences? Your idea of the signs and symptoms of health will differ to mine and those of others.

We assume health exists because we experience its consequences - well we think we do. We see a person full of energy and aliveness. That's a healthy person we say. Health gives rise to aliveness and energy. Health however, cannot be located or known. We actually haven't a clue what is going on. Using the term health protect us from acknowledging our ignorance. As we can not know it and we think we should be able to, we start guessing and out of these guesses we generate definitions. We make them up out of thin air. Health is ........

Whose definition shall we use? Is there a definition that is the one and only - direct from God - the truth? If there isn't, then we need a definition which almost all can agree on. We know this will never happen. What we are left with is various groups with their differing ideas vying for the power to impose their beliefs on the rest of us - good intentions leading to tyranny.

What's the answer? The answer to pot of gold hunters isn't in finding a way to the end of any rainbow. It's too wake up and realise there are no pots of gold at the end of rainbows. There is no end of a rainbow. There is no rainbow. This realisation releases the pot of gold hunter from their fruitless search. Once released they have more time on their hands to enjoy rainbows and more energy to put into planting a garden or whatever. And with regards to health no inclination to impose on others.

At this point watch that little voice inside, the voice of the helper - well we can still facilitate others - enable them to be healthy. Whose idea of health are you on about now? And how will you know whether you are facilitating health? Yes you may be able to help but who determines what is helpful and what isn't? Not you! Well not for me you don't.