At the time of writing this I have no serious medical or psychological conditions. Apart from attention deficit disorder in primary school, I have never been diagnosed with or suspected of having a mental condition. I take no medication regularly and have no serious or chronic conditions. I have never been hospitalised and medical check-ups have repeatedly shown the I am in excellent physical health. I don’t smoke or use illicit substances and though I do drink alcohol, I take fairly regular breaks from drinking, including for the entirety of 2018.
Why do I start a post by mentioning my medical history? Because at the moment I am compelled to take advice from many people who can not make the same claims.
The purpose of this post is not to insult anyone who does have medical conditions or disabilities. Accidents of birth and life as well as personal lapses can happen to anyone. I have not always been a careful steward of my body and I am blessed to have not suffered major health issues.
However, there are a great many people who purely by their own choices, have given themselves serious health problems. There exists an alarming amount of people who rely on prescription medication to control their mental health. There are also many who are addicted to illicit substances. It seems the amount of people who deliberately choose to mutilate and deface their bodies are ever increasing too. Many people who do one or many of these things have positions of authority in society. This includes people in the police force, politicians, public servants, nurses and I’m sure some doctors.
Sometimes when I go to the local shopping centre there are people standing at a booth from the local gym offering membership deals to attract new customers. Some of the people I see doing this are clearly overweight and certainly less fit than I am. I would see no reason to take fitness or health advice from people like this because they have not demonstrated by their appearance that they are able to follow it themselves.
For the same reason, I see no reason to take advice from anyone about my health when they demonstrate by their own appearance that they should not be listened to. What I am saying here could perhaps best be demonstrated by showing images of people I am talking about but I don’t want to do that. Suffice to say that if you look at picture of many politicians and health officers around the world who are making decisions, they do not look like people that should be listened to.
I would anticipate that someone would rebut pointing out that a fat GP can still diagnose you correctly and direct you to a suitable remedy. This is true but it is not the same as what I am talking about. I go to see my local GP chiefly when I am already sick — not when I’m healthy. I have been perfectly healthy all year and I haven’t spent months at home to keep that way. I have been out quite regularly and I even recently traveled interstate on an aircraft.
I do not see the need to take seriously the recommendations of most leaders and public officials with regards to my own health simply because so many of them are manifestly unhealthy themselves. This is without knowing how many are drugged for mental health issues or alcoholics. Many are simply outwardly unhealthy. Most of the people I see out and about in masks are also grossly fat. As I’ve observed earlier, these same people have not done anything to address major sources of bad health such as fast food and drug use. Both of these, among others have only increased this year on casual observation. The orders have also made nonsense of the well known health benefits of spending time outside and the most draconian have force people to stay inside for most of the day. Suddenly sunlight and exercise are bad for us too!
In short, you learn more by doing than by telling. This is fundamental to real learning. Not everything in this world can be reduced to theory and theory is never as good as practice. I keep myself healthy quite independent of those in authority and I see no reason why I should take their health orders more seriously than I would take a fat man’s. I also believe that anyone who has a diagnosed mental condition should be absolutely prohibited from any positions of power (and I mean any), no matter how well they claim to control it. The same should be true of people addicted to mind altering substances, whether licit or otherwise.