After a great conversation with one of the people I play with at the foot-camp today, I have quite a bit to say about control. I’ll try to make it as cohesive (and brief) as possible.
First, many (if not all) of our beliefs and ideas about control are myths.
The word “myth” means “story.” Human beings have used stories to relate things to one another, probably as long as we’ve existed as a species.
As a story, a myth is always a subjective storytelling. It is always perspectival – it is always based on the individual opinion or worldview of the person telling the myth.
The source of our myths, or what we accept as a “valid” mythology, has changed in different eras. However, there has almost always been an individual, or “type” of individual (an office, of sorts) whose stories we agree to believe unconditionally.
This office is different depending on our culture. It is culturally dictated. In some cultures, we only believe the myths our shaman tells us. In others, we only believe the myths told us by our politicians. In others, those told to us by warlords. In others, it is the scientist who has myth-telling authority. It depends on the culture you make yourself a part of.
You can probably have more than one official myth-teller in your culture, but the more you have, the more confusing things become. When you are part of a political-myth culture, but you have developed strong religious-myth beliefs, you have to find a religious-politician, or a political-religious leader, whose myths you can believe in.
Also, at times, we create our own myths about ourselves, and listen to no one else – “I am not good enough,” or, “I am better than everyone else,” or, “My nose is too big,” etc. Those are stories we tell ourselves.
All of the stories we tell ourselves, or choose to believe, serve a purpose. There may not be a single purpose underlying all myths – but on the other hand, there might. At least in the sense that all of the myths that we choose to believe, as individuals, define who we are or who we can be as individuals. Not only that, but they also usually define who we are or who we can be within the culture(s) to which we claim membership.
As I mentioned in my last post, much of the dietary information available today is mythology. It is storytelling, done, sometimes by scientists, but more often by “pop-culture” writers. Neither telling is the whole truth. As I mentioned above, any storyteller can only tell the story as they see it…which usually also means that they tell it as they want it to be – for them.
Coming up with solutions to perceived problems usually grants power in most cultures. One problem might be – “Where do I go when I die?” The religious storyteller solves this problem with their myth, and they are rewarded accordingly.
Another might be – “Why am I fat?” Here, the scientists or writer myth-maker tries to solve the problem. They offer their solution, in expectation of appropriate reward for their effort.
But the story is incomplete. It is a splinter from the log. It is the reflection off of a facet of the jewel that is the problem.
In the most recent Exuberant Animal blog post, Frank Forencich cites a report from Robert Sapolsky, noted stress researcher:
“In Scientific American, December 2005, Sapolsky writes:
‘individuals are more likely to activate a stress response and are more at risk for a stress sensitive disease if they…
feel as if they have minimal control
feel as if they have no predictive information
have few outlets for their frustration
interpret the stressor as evidence of worsening circumstances
lack social support’”
Indeed, this is much of what our mythmaking seeks to combat. It is actually the most important “risk factor” – unhappiness, stress, despair.
All disease is stressful. Stress, undue stress that we cannot deal with, is a disease state. For Sapolsky, stress is a primary concern. It’s what he studies. It’s his area of myth officialdom.
While all of these perspectives are important, valuable, and enriching, we need to make it a regular habit to step back from our mythologies and look at the gem itself. Even though we can’t take it in (because, ultimately, it is All That Is), we can move back and play with the interrelationships between the myths we’ve chosen to believe in.
In this sense, taken together, all of the risk factors we hear about – dietary cholesterol, fats, refined or processed (re-pro) products (for instance, re-pro products like high fructose corn syrup, or re-pro products like car exhaust), stress (of any sort that we cannot resolve – emotional, psychological, physical, environmental), lack of movement, excesses and deficiencies of any sort – are equally to blame, and play an equal role in mortality.
The degree to which we can mitigate those risk factors is the degree to which we can live a healthy human life. That life will go through developmental stages, cycles of growth and degeneration, of vitality and illness. That process includes birth and death, creation and dissolution. Depending upon how many of those risk factors that we have to deal with, over what duration and in what quantity, we’ll live, on average, 75-100 years.
This hasn’t really changed that much since the beginning of the human species. In Ancient Greece, for instance, Aristotle lived to be 62. He died in 322 BC. That was 2300 years ago. Sophocles, the playwright, lived to be 90. That was in 400 BC. Plato was about 76 when he died, in 348 BC. Cicero was 63, in 43 BC. Most of the “upper class” of Ancient Rome lived to be in their mid sixties or beyond – if they weren’t killed before then (cultural/environmental risk factors).
While the global averages for lifespan have increased in the past two centuries, thanks to the advent of available medicine and hygiene, the human lifespan has remained relatively unchanged. If we live in an area low in risk factors, we live a good while. The greater the risk factors, the lower our lifespan.
Most important is this – Understand that you choose the myths you participate and believe in. Then change the ones that aren’t conducive to your health, happiness and longevity.
Find an environment that’s not just “not-stressful,” but that actually makes you feel exuberant! Find a culture that supports your exuberance, and take part in it as often as possible. Understand your myths, and get rid of the ones that are harmful.
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