Wubs Again

Wubs, Again

By John Taylor; 7 August, 2004 Revised 2007 Aug 23

Science fiction author Phillip K. Dick suffered the fate that over half of North Americans can expect, death by heart disease. He was well aware of his high blood pressure and mentioned this parlous health problem at least once in the tiny amount of his writing that I have read. To me, his imagination of the wub, an intelligent race of pigs, is a perfect metaphor for our present human condition. We are all wubs, fat, lazy, afraid of pain and depression, loading ourselves with fatty food and other pleasures while others prepare to feast upon us. What we call corruption, be it political pork barreling or the more subtle, insidious form of religious power-mongering, is just another kind of "wub-ship," another symptom of self induced slavery to our own passions and desires. Lacking an overall plan, we leave ourselves utterly helpless before the assault of our own indulgence.
I viewed yesterday a DVD called "Overcoming Cardiovascular Disease Naturally," and I recommend it to everybody, whether you have heart problems or not. Not that it is compelling visually, little else but talking medical heads. But what they say is all the more impressive for being a dry report of what mainstream science has discovered about the body in the past couple of decades. This is not fringe stuff it is commonly agreed scientific medical knowledge that should be common knowledge and unfortunately is not. It makes liberal use of big medical buzzwords, and even acronyms like LDL's and HDL's. Why cannot we make this material more visually appealing?
We are all bombarded by headlines and get pretty jaded by constant health claims. However that does not mean that there have not been real advances and major cumulative discoveries about the body over the past two decades. And almost every one confirms what Baha'u'llah says in the Lawh-i-Tibb. This video presentation makes no attempt to be newsy but I found what these doctors say revolutionary and startlingly new. It is especially good because it suggests specific, common foods that have been found to fight cardio-vascular problems better and safer than drugs or aspirin, foods like onions, garlic, cayenne and ginger. Inspired by this list, I have in mind cooking up a batch of my own invention, a dish I will call "Jet's Heart Charger Chile."
Actually, in view of my family history, I do not have much to fear from heart disease; cancer is our killer of choice -- cancer is the other major cause of death, by the way, second only to heart disease. Statistically, one or the other will almost certainly be our demise, especially if we are obese. The most important thing I learned is that cancer and heart disease are in direct balance. The fulcrum is the amount of cholesterol in the blood. If you blood gets too greasy the body will become overly primed to defend itself. It then goes overboard with inflammation.
Inflammation is a result of animal fats in the system. An imbalance towards inflammation allows for protection against bacterial attack. But it also puts strain on the heart and veins. This puts you in imminent danger of heart, stroke or other vascular problems. But if you go too far the other way and get too little fat from your diet, especially if the fat is of the "bad cholesterol" type, then your body loses its ability to defend itself. In that case, your blood becomes like that of a wub, passive, lackadaisical; the motto is, "What, me worry? Why bother about infections? You are going to die anyway." That is when the long-term danger becomes cancer, depression, or both.
The depression part struck a chord with me. When I think back upon when I had a normal weight and the best diet I knew how to cook for myself -- that was in the late 70's and early 80's, when I was in my twenties -- I recall that I was depressed most of the time. Not just minor depression, I was in absolute agony all day every day. I swung from migraine to the dumps and back again; unbeknownst to me, each was feeding upon the other. Sure, I had other reasons to be depressed. But now that I know this I think a big factor was a lack of fat in my diet. I tried to follow the general consensus on nutrition but it was not generally known even among professionals then that there are good and bad fats, that there is cholesterol that helps (HDL's) and cholesterol that hinders (LDL's).
In other words, I did not eat enough nuts.
In response to a recent study in the news I have gone over to nuts. It reported findings that there are not nearly enough nuts in our diet, and that though nuts are fatty that is a good thing; they are full of good fats. They are a form of concentrated nutrition that protects more efficiently and balances out the bad effects of an otherwise relatively low-fat diet.
So, I am loading up on nuts. Along with dates and figs they have become my main snack food. I am finding so far that though my main meals have no meat, few milk products and are mostly low fat veggies and grains, I have yet to feel even a twinge of the sadness and discouragement that used to plague me. And of course, saying the Tablet of Ahmad first thing in the morning helps too.
I am writing about this today because ... well this topic is so important but we have so few resources defending the essentials. These are basic needs for everybody's body yet at best we see only dull talking heads spouting obscure terms and acronyms. That is our main defense when it comes to diet. How could that win out over multi-billion dollar advertising campaigns coaxing joe in the street to gobble down sugar and fat, which being cheaper is most profitable? There has got to be a way to save us helpless wubs.
That is why I was inspired by one speaker, a patient rather than a doctor, who at one point in the video talks about the progress of his heart problems. He recounts how he kept on going back to his doctors with worsening symptoms and they just kept saying, "Double the dose of your heart drug." At last he said to himself, "I have to take my health care into my own hands." That is the crucial turning point we all have to come to sooner or later.
As individuals we need a determined decision followed by organized, common development of everything essential and universal. If it is a health problem you do what this fellow did, you start improving diet, getting more exercise, etc. If it is a spiritual problem, you come to that point of taking control too, you gain your own life and truth through prayer, reflection, study, the search for truth. The program you come up with is the Baha'i principles, the Badi' Calendar, gates of entry into the Plan of God. Right now that Plan is the UHJ's 5 Year Plan.
If it is a problem with your car it is the same, you put it on a maintenance program similar to what manufacturers demand in a new car warrantee. Education is the same; all advanced countries long ago instituted compulsory public education for young children. Yet so important is education to a child's whole future that the wealthy are still willing to shell out for private schooling for their children. The essence cries out for system, for order.
Systematic planning and programming in every area solves the same basic problem, permitting growth and progress through freedom, allowing for creativity and individual initiative while assuring that essentials are kept up, that basic protection is established as far as necessary, but not too far. This fulcrum or point of balance mediates extremes of freedom and over-regulation, just like the fat levels in the blood.
All this brings me back to the wisdom of the Guardian that I cited yesterday. Here he offers what I'd call a "principle explanation" as to why we are not only allowed to vote for ourselves, we are positively obligated to do so, when conscience dictates. He says at one point,
"It is for every believer to carefully weigh his own merits and powers, and after a thorough examination of his self decide whether he is fit for such a position or not."
This calls for a superhuman level of detachment not only from one's own assessment of actual abilities but also potential powers, combined with a burning desire for sacrifice. Then Shoghi Effendi through his secretary offers a startling generalization.
"There is nothing more harmful to the individual - and also to society than false humility -- which is hypocritical, and hence unworthy of a true Baha'i."
In the case of our heart patient, false humility was when he turned over too much power to his cardiologist, the expert on heart problems. But the cure was not in the heart alone, it was in the whole of his life. Before, the patient was embroiled in hypocrisy because a responsible human being takes full control over body, mind and soul, all being aspects of one human spirit. Experts are consultants only, the ultimate holistic power over lifestyle is ours and ours alone. Shoghi Effendi rightly called this the "Age of Responsibility." The reason we bounce politically between license and dictatorship is that too many of us are resigned to being slobbish wubs of one sort or another. The Guardian continues,
"The true believer is one who is conscious of his strength as well as of his weakness, and who, fully availing himself of the manifold opportunities and blessings which God gives him, strives to overcome his defects and weaknesses..."
This is amazing. I'd like to meet a believer like that. I'd like to be a believer like that. But how does he or she do all that? He goes on,
"... and this by means of a scrupulous adherence to all the laws and commandments revealed by God through His Manifestation." (Shoghi Effendi, Light of Divine Guidance v I, p. 69)
Let us all pray to overcome the wub within and become true Baha'is.

John Taylor
helpmatejet@yahoo.com
Blog: http://badiblog.blogspot.com/