What is well-being? is it simply the absence of disease or is it something more? This is a typical question we are confronted with from time to time. Well-being is not a term that is ascendant in western cultures. We have a very materialistic outlook on health within our culture.
The world, and by definition us as part of it, was assumed to exist in a state of “reality” which could be objectively defined without regard to individual perception or perspective. Per Einstein et al, time and space exist relative to the observer but somehow our physical bodies are a reality constant?
In such a world, optimum existence, or health, is a function of our physical state aligning with the measurable expectations of what it “should” be. What it should be was just a range of values around an average value for people with no complaints. If you were ill it was because something was outside its normative range and that “problem” needed to be corrected to restore health.
This is certainly an objective view of well-being but is it satisfying? It is the absence of disease defined by the alignment with “normal”. So, how do we determine normal? Quite simply, normal is a number. We love numbers. We can categorize things with numbers and we can track things with numbers. You can’t feel numbers and well-being is, despite our obsessions with quantification, a feeling.
We are not well unless we feel well. Of course doctors would disagree. If you don’t feel well but all your tests are within range then you must be a hypochondriac. If you run all the tests in the world and observing the absence of known disease, can you go about your way as if you are well? That’s pretty much what we do and, to be fair, it does work if you have a defined disease.
If you just don’t feel well then what should you do? On the other hand, if you have a test that falls outside of the “normal” range but you feel fine, are you well? What should you do? Of course, the answer is: “There’s a pill that will drive that test metric to the appropriate value”. Now you are healthy again right?… but you may need another pill to counter the effects of the first. What if you still don’t feel well? “Shake it off…”
Western medicine has produced miracles over the last century. We have eradicated many environmental threats which were previously fatal. We’d like to think that we have increased lifespans but those are only averages.
Once again, we rely on numbers but they are just averages. We don’t have longer potential for life. It’s just that, absent the premature deaths from environmental threats, more people are living to our theoretical lifespan. What we have created in the place of external threats are internal vulnerabilities. Millions of years of evolution had worked to filter out vulnerabilities, but in the span of a century, we have reversed the work of evolution.
The number of systemic and chronic illnesses accelerates geometrically if not exponentially and there appears to be no incentive to change that. After all, chronic illness is very profitable. With all of this the industry still routinely promises future immortality. Talk about hubris.
There is an interesting technology around phototherapy and I’ve found it indispensable my wellness routine. To be clear, it makes no claims of cure for any disease but my experience of it is that it stimulates the body to function better, much like acupuncture only less expensive. It also makes no claim toward immortality.
We will all age and we will die, but well-being is not about whether or not you die. It’s about how you live. I choose to live with Lifewave. It is truly an amazing product line.
