thinking for oneself

It's a sad irony that some of the reasons for people being sick and miserable rest squarely with the specialists trying to "help" us.  We're malnourished due to the efforts of food purveyors, we're in debt to the eyebrows as a result of banking practices, and we're obese, diabetic, heart-diseased and mentally out-of-kilter thanks to the doctors and researchers who perseveringly prescribe the wrong diet and exercise advice.

We're dissatisfied with our lifestyles and love-lives as a result of the entertainment industry -- what is designed to be a distraction effectively brainwashes those who watch it, to make them think this is "normal" and that in whatever way the watcher's experience varies, that way is ABNORMAL, an undeserved deprivation of what should be a RIGHT.  ...Interspersed, of course, with commercials showing thin and beautiful people downing whole pizzas, beer, and quarts of ice cream.

People need to become far more critical of the messages they accept as "truth."  If a visibly sick and overweight doctor tells you that all you need to do is eat less, cut the fat and exercise more, why would you believe him?  Because he's "too busy" to follow his own advice?  He knows what his own obesity is doing to him, who could have more incentive to do things right?  If you HAVE followed his advice, and you're still overweight, why would you assume that it's YOUR FAULT, rather than suspect that the whole paradigm is incorrect?

The whole "n=1" concept floating around the blogosphere is a healthy development, i believe.  Sure, the physicians on my blog list look at it with healthy skepticism -- that's good.  Just because Supplement X has been very beneficial for me, doesn't mean that it'll do good for EVERYONE.  However, if i'm getting good results from it, the evidence is THERE, and the blanket recommendation that "nobody should take it" is arrant BS.

I'm honored that i have readers in demographics different from mine (young, and male) -- i STARTED OUT to principally address others like myself, middle-aged, female and difficult-to-reduce.  I think THIS message, though, is pretty much universal:  no matter how many people believe in an idea, if it doesn't work for YOU, then it isn't "truth" as defined by a logician.  If it DOES work for you, not just in the short term but also down-the-road, THAT is an idea to hold onto.