Mind-Body Connection

There are degrees of function, and maintenance of smooth functioning, responding appropriately to immediate problems, is basic, but imagining yourself in new contexts and perceiving the best opportunities leads to perceiving problems of different sorts. The ruling classes, at best, define the ability to work efficiently and willingly as good health for the population as a whole. Privately, they often recognize that freedom, novelty, meaning and beauty are necessary for good health. Maslow's loading Maslow, Abraham Harold... hierarchy of needs, from security to self actualization, was a broad view of health, that’s irrelevant to the powerless classes, as long as they want to adapt to things as they are. Comparing domesticated geese to migrating wild geese, degrees of self actualization have to do with what the organism is, what its existence means.

I have never seen evidence that they contain any principle of mortality, and in recent years the suspicion that we contain all the equipment needed for perpetual renewal, given the right circumstances, is seeming to be increasingly plausible.

If optimal means the best possible under bad circumstances, yes, otherwise, no. Optimal health requires optimal food, and a change of society.

Bucky Fuller's loading Fuller, Richard Buckminster... idea of doing more with less has always appealed to me. When I started Blake College, the idea was for students to learn what they needed to know, by centering on their own questions, and even “poor students” quickly realized that learning could be central to their lives; their internal resources were more fruitful than being guided by authoritative professors in billion dollar universities. I had read Adelle Davis loading Davis, Adelle... ’ books in the ‘50s, and in Mexico I had the opportunity to see how a dime’s worth of vitamin could do what the best hospitals were failing to do. The US Dept. of State believed it was inappropriate for draft age men to be in a college outside the US, if the college didn’t have a pro-war ideology, so they arranged to have the school closed, and that left me free to concentrate on biological issues. Much of my early nutrition investigation was how to get good nutrition at minimal expense, so that poor people could improve their energy and learning ability. The process of cooking corn in lime was discovered long ago, to get more nutrition with less expense. Getting ketoacids from potatoes is a similarly economical solution, that opens opportunities by improving functions while reducing expenses. Milk, rather than meat, is another ecological/economical alternative, that improves health, wealth, and longevity.

Having your own mind, a critical and constructive ability, makes you aware of possibilities and threats. The “go along to get along” attitude represents a denial of your mentality. Recognizing the reasons for the evils and obstacles is an intrinsic part of moving toward your goals. Without a realistic view of where you are, you can’t expect to go anywhere.

That’s one of its basic functions, but systematic cultural imposition of a certain mentality has made it usually ineffective when it’s attempted deliberately, because the inculcated view of the mind neglects its best components. In becoming acculturated, we fail to develop into part of our nature, and identify mind with the systems that we call voluntary. Occupying our so-called involuntary systems expands our mind.

There’s a trophic, supportive interaction between nerves and other tissues, so that there isn’t a place where a line can be drawn anatomically or chemically between brain and body. The wholeness of the body requires the functioning brain, and the ways the brain functions, its mentality, shows in the body, for example in the color of the skin, the quickness of reflexes, the rate of metabolism, etc. The barely explored fields around the body are expressive of this unity.

Many people feel positive emotions in their organ nerve centers, for example the heart plexus and the solar plexus. The good feelings go with good functions. When the nerves cringe because of the presence of authoritarians, the nerve supply to the organs is impaired. Thinking of the offensive person is enough to do it. Food, activity, and feelings about your surroundings go together, and it’s important to listen to your viscera, to really participate in constructive living.

There are biofeedback gadgets, some very simple, that can easily make the connections between thought and body function clear. Just a stethoscope to listen to intestine sounds is helpful.

Yes, there are scales or hierarchies of play, and they strengthen the organism to enter the world more generally with an attitude of play, desire in action.

It’s good to be surrounded by happy people. If you insist on being happy in the presence of authoritarians, you risk losing your job or being considered insane, or worse. One rigid person can freeze up a large group, but sometimes it can go the other way.

I think he was probably thinking of a certain kind of objectification or reification of a factor; I don’t think illness should be objectified—that’s something the medical ideology does. But the world is full of errors, so resenting and rejecting the right things is an important part of living. If you say no to the wrong people they might unravel you, but knowing what to reject and avoid is essential. Interference is rejected in the process of construction. Making something that works is a rejection of what doesn’t work.

The sensory nerves form an integrated picture of the world, including the body’s state. The trophic effects change cell behavior and enzyme activity, according to how the body’s place in the world is understood.

Making an effort to learn how to use techniques of food, hormones, light, activity, etc., is similar to the effort needed to work with a psychologist, and the effort itself is part of the therapy—the particular orientation of the psychotherapist isn’t what’s therapeutic, it’s the ability to participate in meaningful interactions, that is, the ability to provide a situation in which the person can practice being human. When people start thinking about the things in their life that can be changed, they are exercising aspects of their organism that had been atrophied by being in an authoritarian culture. Authoritarians talk about protocols, but the only valid ‘protocol’ would be something like ‘perceive, think, act.’

Always being ready to move ahead with problems that had seemed unsolvable is important.