Pleasant Medicines

What we all need to do is find pleasant medicines. This is a little north of the whole idea of a spoonful of sugar helping the medicine go down. The things that are good for us can be pleasant.

People have found this, but very few talk about it. Devoted runners, for instance, almost always love running. Some athletes are forced to run for their sports, but runners do it out of love for the process.

But I hate running.

I also hate lifting weights. And most other forms of physical exertion. So, not pleasant medicines.

I was inspired to write this as I finished my last sip of cold green tea a few moments ago. I brew it each week and I drink it throughout my work day. Since I started this, my weight loss per week (something I have been working hard on) has doubled. The health benefits of green tea are almost universally supported by research. And I like it. Pleasant medicine.

I have also been practicing yoga. It is making me stronger and more flexible. I could get stronger and more flexible in a million unpleasant ways, but yoga actually feels good when I am doing it. I look forward to it each day. I have never looked forward to any form of exercise. WhemI was an athlete, it was just something that came with the territory, as it were. I did it because I was forced to.

Can't we all find pleasant things to do that make us more healthy? I sure can't be easy, because it took me forty-nine years to latch on to a mere two "pleasant medicines." But I intend to look for more ways to do things that are good for me that I actually enjoy.

Everyone talks about healthful living as if it is a burden. It really does not have to be. But, as I find with most things, you need to be philosophical about it to be happy and consistent.

Fearing the Way

These things seem true to me, regarding sexuality:

1) It is one of the most profound things in human existence.

2) It is so profound that it frightens many of us.

3) That fear causes some of us to hide from sexuality's profundity.

4) That drive to hide from sexuality often makes us behave illogically.

These things seem true to me about traditional wisdom:

1) Self-control is held in high esteem. 

2) Self-control is often regarded by students and teachers alike as a constant need, rather than a thing that may be let-go, under the proper circumstances (which, in itself, is a kind of modified control).

3) Therefore, any abandonment of control is regarded as failure and, sometimes, immorality.

Because of the truths above, many a bride -- and perhaps many a groom -- over the course of time, have fellt guilt over their pleasures with their spouses, even if they followed the rules of her religion and "waited." Why? Because the act in which they engaged felt like a loss of self-control; like an abandonment of everything they were taught. They stood too close to the doorway to Tao -- that place where all of our morals, all of our logic, and all of our social graces evaporate into the vapours of all creation . . .