Health and Resilience or Symptomatic Relief (BS001)

How's your health and how do you respond to illness? How do you respond to any physical discomfort for that matter?

Typically, especially in the modern context, people race for symptomatic relief in order to numb down the sensations — whether or not it actually leads to healing and your long-term resilience, the growth of your immune system.

I do not subscribe to that. And mind you, these thoughts by no measure constitute medical advice. Make your own decisions, but keep this in mind.

Evolution from Overcoming Challenges ¶

Unless you've grown in a sterile insulation chamber, your body does have a functioning immune system that typically can handle all sorts of minor ailments, infections. But it's not going to happen in 15 minutes, right? You need to give your body the chance to respond to what's going on.

Your mind too needs discipline, needs to be conditioned for resilience. If at every little pinch of pain, uh oh, I have to alleviate that, otherwise I become dysfunctional — then how fragile you have become. And when the day comes that you do not have access to your standard remedial measures that numb you down — then how lost you are, dysfunctional, vulnerable, ripped apart by the world in lack of your fallback plans.

I'm here fresh at the tail end of an outer ear infection. Started on the left side, fairly pervasive nerve pulls upward and downward, to my neck, and after returning from travel, I developed a parallel infection in the other ear that flared for a day and subsided. The left side is still sort of half-deaf but it's clearing up, the pain is subsiding and the nerves are normalizing.

I have not taken antibiotics for that. If it were not to subside over a certain period of time, I would certainly take further measures, but for now I trial, see what the body can handle, grow its capacity. If it overcomes the pathogen, then it has grown stronger, but if I immediately hop on crutches, then it is all the weaker for it. Let's evolve.

Potentials of Discomfort — Into Resilient Wellness ¶

And beyond that, the discomfort, the unease that you experience with an illness, is an opportunity. It brings you to a different frame of mind. It brings you to a different experience of your senses. Adapt, learn to overcome, learn to adjust, remain operational in all conditions. That is the path of freedom – not the path of dependency. Freedom is preferable.

In absence of illness, some people even go out of their way to generate a certain level of discomfort. Sleeping on hard floors, walking long distances, fasting, etc. in order to condition their bodies and to condition their minds to withstand whatever life throws at them. From there, strength and capacity arise.

But from running to mummy medicine at the first opportunity, without letting your inherent biological system handle it... coupled with overcoming the essentially spoiled mental urge to immediately race for relief of symptoms in a way that does not lead to your evolution.

Do not be reckless, but do not also be a little sensitive sugar cube. Learn to tolerate the conditions you encounter. Harsh climate? Yes. Difficult living conditions? Yes. Whatever that life throws at you, embrace it. Make the most of it. Learn to adapt, learn to survive.

If it becomes clear that your body really cannot overcome it, or if your mind really cannot handle it, if you become dysfunctional because of excess mental preoccupation with your condition, then take further measures, but do not let the mind make you fragile.

Do not spoil the mind. Discipline. Tolerance. It's not all about comfort and pleasure. It's about having strength, having capacity. It's about resilience, capacity development, your evolution to a physically and mentally independent living entity.

So be well, physically and mentally, and direct your life in a manner that leads to resilient wellness. Condition yourself to be well, independent of external crutches. Illness and discomfort are opportunities for our evolution, not disasters. Embrace them when they come.