HEALTH IS WEALTH! -- Exchange of Views

HEALTH IS WEALTH!

© October 2006


Note: This was written from scores of comments received when this missive, “Health is Wealth” was posted on my email. The missive follows this.

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My little epigrammatic pieces (such as this) come out of my life experience, but ultimately are written down as they surface during my daily walks. Sometimes nothing comes to me while I'm walking. I thought this day was such a case. But as I was entering the last phase of my walk, the earlier conversation I had with my doctor came into my mind.

I say epigrammatically because I dredge up abstractions and spin epigrams from the tapes in my head.

Since I was a boy, I've been able to recall conversations as if I, indeed, had a tape recorder in my head. They come to me clear as a bell. This got me in trouble in college more than once because professors thought I had copied their lecture notes, when I just recalled their lectures.

It also extends to reading. The words on a page read perhaps ages ago somehow come into my mind. It is why my da said my head was so full of s--- I didn't know whether I was coming or going. He should see me now. The disease is even more pronounced.

These comments are offered because I have gotten all sorts of responses to this little piece.

If I wrote these words in fiction, or in a memoir, as is the case with In the Shadow of the Courthouse, people would tend to take them less personally.

Yes, I confess to being a writer who is direct, in your face, hopefully with moral clarity if not moral authority. I also confess to the boring fact that I laud a disciplined life over the chaos of contemporary society. A counter-counterculture view of absurdism without leftist drill, a compassion and indictment of moral default.

That said my aim is not to change or shame but to dissect authoritarianism and mimicism, for what I see it to be, which celebrates so much detritus as America sinks into its own waste, crying all the time, "Not my fault."

I'm sorry if the most violent society on the face of the earth, and the most wasteful as well, wants to follow the Pied Piper into the abyss waving the flag while claiming God is only on our side. I won't be around when America joins Great Britain and France as great nations of the past. It need not be that way.

If people have a problem with that, they can delete or ask to no longer receive my little missives. Some have. My missives are to be taken personally (if it helps to clarify) but not defensively (which always muddies up the works).

Some clarifiers’ write: "I'm passing this on to my caged son."

"You are writing about the psychological state of your audience, which you already knew from your own experiments."

"Excellent, my parents are picture of health and practice the wealth that you share."

"Glad your checkup was good."

"Conversation writing is your best writing."

The peripatetic philosopher is a provocateur. That is his role. It isn't someone who has ever been deprived of anything, but has benefited from everything.

Not every writer has been so fortunate. Reading the latest book of James Ellroy, Destination: Morgue! he of famous noir fiction, I don't think I've ever read a more honest writer, and yet how he has triumphed over such horrendous odds is testimony the human spirit is capable of amazing things.

My life, on the other hand, has been easy and nearly trouble-free, as if instead of a silver spoon in my mouth, I had ego, energy and sensitivity to shield me from harm.

That is what my next two books are about, Confident Selling (an updated version of my 1970s book in the vernacular of today) and Confident Thinking (a kind of peripatetic philosophy 101).

Whereas Nowhere Man in Nowhere Land cannot find a publisher, these two books will. So, stay tuned; and take from the peripatetic philosopher what helps to define your own life, without becoming defensive, and carry on as best you can, as we all should try to do, remembering in time we will all become a matter of dust. And always be well,
Jim
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Health is Wealth

James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.
© September 2006



Health is the greatest of all possessions; a pale cobbler is better than a sick king.

Isaac Bickerstaff (1735 – 1812)
English Dramatist

I had my six-month check-up with my doctor today. During the interim period I had an MRI (head), EKG, treadmill test, sonogram of my heart, lungs and intestinal tract, a colonoscopy, blood tests, and an eye examination. It took me a period of three months to schedule and complete all these tests.

As I came into his office – my appointment had been scheduled for 8:30 a.m. and I had to reschedule it for 1:30 p.m. – I felt in an apologetic mood. Turns out he couldn’t see me until 2:30, but he did so then with a broad smile on his face. “How are you today, James?

“I’m fine,” I said, “I apologize for missing my appointment. My 2000 Taurus wouldn’t start. I’m apparently in better shape than it is.”

He laughed so hard he couldn’t control himself. “Now, that makes my day!”

Then he proceeded to go through all my tests with me. “Do you know, James, you have the body of a 40-year-old, do you know that?”

“No.”

“I’ll tell you why. I see all kinds of people. I was born in a small village in India. People here just don’t appreciate what they have. There was no welfare in my village. Your family took care of you or nobody did.

“I’ve got people half your age who can’t pass the treadmill test. I got people here that say they can’t quit smoking and they’ve got emphysema. They want somebody else to quit for them.

“I’ve got people here who can’t pay their bills, and it’s not their fault. They want somebody else to get an education, somebody else to compete for a good job, somebody else to see how hard they’ve got it, and to give them a hand out to get out of their mess.

“I’ve got people here that are obese and have diabetes, and they say it’s not their fault. They can’t exercise because they can’t walk very well, bad backs and bad legs and all. They don’t have any choice but to sit in front of the television all day and eat. They want somebody else to walk for them.

“I’ve got people that are having retarded children and they themselves are retarded. And they want for me to find some agencies to get them more benefits.

“I’ve got people who come here with blood work that indicates they’ve been promiscuous. I won’t treat them. I have no time for them. Society can do all they want for them, but I draw the line because there is no place where it says I have to treat them.

“I’ve got people coming in here who have all of these different ailments. They’ll say the reason I can’t get ahead is because my brother’s in jail and I have to take care of his kids. I can’t get a job. Besides, I ain’t got no education.”

At this point, I interrupted, and said, “You hear it all.”

His head slumped down into his shoulders, “Yes, I hear it all.”

I said, “It’s sad.”

“Yes, it’s very sad. People here just don’t appreciate what they have. I don’t know what the answer is.”

“Do you tell them?”

“Do I tell them what?”

“Do you tell them just what you told me?”

“Do you think it would do any good?”

“Oh, I don’t know, doctor.”

“No, I don’t tell them. Am I a coward, James?”

“No, you’re not a coward, but I agree with you it is sad.”

“James, I don’t know what America is going to come to. Nothing seems to get through to these people.”

“Doctor, you probably see every kind of lifestyle disease there is.”

“Yes, and then some.” Then he added, “It’s not only that. It’s that they don’t think any of this is their fault. There is not a one of these people, that I’ve mentioned, that have failed the treadmill, that have several things wrong with their hearts, that have emphysema and can hardly walk to the end of the block, and some of them are in their forties.

“And that is my fault? That is society’s fault? It’s not their fault. When I say to them, why do you drink? They say, to forget, I’ve had a lot of pressure in my life. Why do you smoke? To calm my nerves. Why do you take drugs? To put me in another place. Not one of them says, I do it because I’m stupid. Not a single one.
“So they come to me, a tall, dark complexioned Indian doctor, who they feel superior to, because I’m a foreigner and I have an accent, and what can I tell them about America? So, I don’t tell them anything.”

I said, “Do any of them get better?”

“You want a truthful answer?”

I nodded.

“No, they don’t get better because they want somebody else to get better for them. You see, that’s the problem.”

Smiling, I said, “Are there many more like me?”

He looked at me steadily. “Well, James, I have all those people out there in the waiting room. I’ve been here since 8:30 this morning. And I’ve been talking to you now, for what, twenty minutes?”

“About.”

“That should be your answer. No, there aren’t many like you. Tell me, why are you like you?”

“I don’t know how to be any different.”

“See, there you have it, nor do I. Good day, James. You’ve put a little light in my day.”

And with that I left.

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Check out Dr. Fisher’s website: www.fisherofideas.com

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Posted by The Peripatetic Philosopher to The Peripatetic Philosopher at 9/28/2006 07:38:00 PM