Ornish questions why our society considers it the more attractive choice to crack open someone’s chest and inflate a balloon in their veins—as opposed to putting away the butter and salt, and picking up broccoli or a grapefruit!
In the book How Doctors Think, Dr. Jerome Groopman states that physicians will not propose a treatment as “drastic” as Ornish’s to their patients because the medical establishment is educated to believe there is no chance a patient would follow through. People talk so often about the arrogance of doctors—isn’t this the most horrifying illustration?? A doctor decides he knows his patient SO WELL that it is not even worth mentioning this treatment option because the patient would fail to make the necessary changes.
Also in Healing and the Mind, Moyers speaks to a meditation expert who questions whether we have actually ever EXPERIENCED eating a raisin—or whether we just shove handfuls of them into our mouth, while running the kids from this soccer game to that. Renowned psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi spent much of his life working in this arena—the idea that people are so detached from their own experiences of consciousness that they seek anything and everything to fill their time—all in an effort to avoid being alone with the quietness of their own mind. TV fills the time, food fills the time, alcohol, over-scheduling the kids as some sort of vicarious experience for the parents.
In taking all this to heart—over the past year, I’ve aimed to give up TV watching, even listening to music—I find it takes me away from experiencing the beauty of the landscape around me as I drive. Let’s be honest. Internet is a HUGE time-waster as well. But approaching it in a very task-oriented fashion allows you to do only what NEEDS doing, and then move on. In that spirit... THE END. :)
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