Words of wisdom and miscellaneous facts by Dr. Wysong and others.
This is an accumulation over several decades and the accuracy cannot be attested to.
97. END AND BEGINNING
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11/4/2019
Imagine driving on a mountain road, cruising right along enjoying the scenery. As you break over the crest of a hill the road takes a hairpin turn. Unable to react in time, you go tumbling down the mountainside. When you awaken, you find yourself in a hospital at the foot of the mountain. You're in the intensive care unit plugged into IV bags and monitors alongside other wreck victims. How relieved you are that medical technology is there to put you back together.
When your wits return you look out the window and see heavy equipment shoring up the hillside that you and others have excavated rolling down the slope. Looking down the street you can see numerous wrecked vehicles behind tow trucks all lined up waiting for repair. It's amazing what mechanics are capable of these days. You will have a long expensive recovery and your new car was nearly totaled. But you have insurance and there are special government programs to cover the rest. If that fails, there are fleets of attorneys who will sue the hospitals and garages. Sure, taxes are high, but social programs are the only right thing to do for all the victims who keep cascading over the cliff. Nobody is redesigning the road at the top of the hill, changing the speed limit, placing warning signs, or erecting crash barriers on the hairpin turn. All the money and resources are being consumed down at the bottom repairing the damage. Besides, if no more cars came crashing down the cliff, the garages and hospitals would go belly-up, people would lose jobs, and politicians would not have causes they needed more taxes for. Why, my goodness, a whole way of life would be changed. Can't have that. Such a scenario may seem ridiculous. Surely, people couldn't be that shortsighted. But they are, only on a grander scale. The whole world is beset with problems that aren't getting fixed. The lion roaring at the door catches our attention but the termites gnawing in the walls are ignored. We just keep attempting repair after the fact. Health, peace, the environment, economics, society, and politics are all cars tumbling off cliffs. At the bottom of the hill are political demagoguery, symptom-based medicine, environmental disregard, socialism, scientific and religious close-mindedness, capitalism without conscience, functional illiteracy (people can read and write but either don't do it or do it only for fun), dependency, and bigotry. We exert our best technology and drain resources to apply Band-Aids. Status quo is protected, short term gain prioritized, desire rules as king over reality, and real solutions go by the wayside. This sad state of affairs creates enough bad news to gladden the heart of any prophet of doom. As much as it may fill us with despair, it is nothing new. Notice how well Gandhi's seven deadly sins sum it up: Politics without principle Wealth without work Commerce without morality Education without character Pleasure without conscience Science without humanity Worship without sacrifice As bad as things may seem, there are glimmers of hope here and there. Love, compassion, heroism, and intelligence can be found. Unfortunately rationality is too often suffocated by the ever-present drone of the closed-minded masses, the enticing rattle of modern-age trinkets, the grip of deep-seated unexamined beliefs, and a greedy and selfish few who always seem to have far too much influence. Although we may sense that there must be solutions, we may feel too insignificant to make a difference and then allow ourselves to be swept along in the system. If we have permitted that system to influence us to any extent we will also have adopted at least some elements of the materialistic philosophy. Determinism, relativism, and fatalism are the most insidious of its irrational creeds and foster pessimistic, cynical, and hopeless people who have become like lands with no harbors. The companion volume on the "Big Questions" will root out and expose the nefarious materialistic philosophy as the pretender of truth it is. There it will be proven quite conclusively that we are not mere matter and that the choices we make and the efforts we put forth to be better people are important, even central to our life experience. But that is a long story and you need to learn about it from the beginning by reading that book. For now, at least leave room for suspicion that you are more than a machine and are not confined or doomed to its hapless machinations. As bleak as things may seem at times, we must realize that most of the woes that threaten or befall us are of our doing. We are our own worst enemies. But when we come to understand that every single bad idea that visits misery on the world begins with a single person, we should also realize that good ideas can begin the same way. No beneficial change has ever occurred that did not begin with an idea, from one person, who was willing to insist that it happen. Any one of us can be such a person. We can follow or we can lead. Following will only get us to where we are going. Humankind has the power to safely prevent and reverse most disease (but chooses not to), eliminate hunger (though we haven't), harness all the clean and renewable power we need from sun, wind, waves, chemistry, and geothermal (yet we don't), achieve peace (we fail to), and destroy all life (well on our way). A world of beauty, bounty, health, compassion, love, and peace is mere decisions away. Such a paradise may seem fitting only for hope or prayer, but the dream is entirely within the realm of possibility. All that is necessary is to come to the understanding that such a new world is not something we purchase or that can be given to us. Its potential is not out there somewhere; it is within. We find it by committing to truth, daring to be 'wrong' by departing from the crowd, and pursuing truth using the SOLVER principles: Self-responsibility, Open thinking, Long view, Virtue, Evidence, and Reason. When this is done—when we live life as if thinking matters—the wonderful possibilities are without limit. By way of reminder, a special website is in place for you to ask questions, make comments, and view any updates on the topics in these books. Go to: asifthinkingmatters.com
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11/4/2019
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Introduction
1. We Can Agree 2. Possibility Thinking 3. The Solver Principles 4. Our Owner's Manual 5. We Live in A Unique Time 6. Being Health Smart 7. The Illusion of Youth Health 8. The Good Old Days 9. Timing Life 10. Exercise 11. Hormones and Steroids - A Two-Edged Sword 12. The Female Hormone Problem 13. Growing Older 14. Squaring the Curve 15. Healthy Dos and Don'ts 16. The Medical Profession 17. The Greatest Threat to Health 18. Don't Surrender to Medical Care 19. But We Live Longer Today 20. Dollars Don't Make Health 21. Disease Does Not Strike Us 22. Germs Don't Cause Disease We Do 23. From Where Does Healing Come 24. The Best Food 25. Food Ethics 26. Healthy Weight 27. Healthy Eating Ideas 28. First Things First 29. Hopelessness 30. Depression 31. Memories 32. Addiction 33. Blaming the Parents 34. Surviving Tragedy 35. Touch 36. Music as Healer 37. Humor 38. Pets as Life Savers 39. Pet Keeping - A Serious Responsibility 40. The Myth of 100 Complete Pet Foods 41. Feeding Pets as Nature Intended 42. Industry vs. Earth 43. Population 44. Modernity's Deception 45. Animal Rights 46. Biophilia 47. Respect for All Life 48. Doing Good With Business 49. The Global Economy 50. The Power of Money 51. Financial Affairs 52. Work as Friend 53. Government 54. The End of Civilization 55. Freedom Is Not Equality 56. Sex 57. Being in Love 58. Marriage - The Union of Opposites 59. Divorce 60. The Family Nest 61. Having Babies 62. Children 63. The Empty Nest 64. Experience 65. Education 66. Life Is Uncertain 67. Things Mound Up 68. Murphy's Law 69. Life's Predictability 70. Finding Home 71. Learn From History 72. Shaping the Future 73. The Other Line Always Moves Faster 74. Little Things Add Up 75. Growing Up 76. Alone 77. Hope 78. Paying the Success Price 79. Change A Wonderful Thing 80. Being the Best You Can Be 81. Do Something, Something Happens 82. Change the World 83. Growing Good People 84. Words 85. Genius 86. Listen and Learn 87. Mind Over Matter 88. Looking Good 89. Protecting Yourself 90. Self Sufficiency 91. Life Is Math 92. Ethics 93. Conscience 94. The Long View 95. Being Real 96. Change 97. End and Beginning |