"Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood."– Marie Curie
Once again, many years later is a comment by Marie Curie, the famous French scientist that is similar to the one made by the philosopher Spinoza? Knowledge, information, and understanding are keys to knowing oneself, as well as knowing the world. The difficult part is dissecting the truth and not employing our defense mechanisms that distort the truth and reality. Spinoza, many years before Freud, acknowledged the role of the unconscious. With the unconscious, follows the defense mechanisms such as rationalization, denial, reaction formation, sublimation etc. to protect us against the painful affect associated with some disagreeable situation. One major task for us is to more fully understand how we operate which is easier said than done.
Today is a rest day from running, but not from a short workout that I do at home. Periodically, I use a dumbbell for curls and pull-ups varying both in the number repetitions, as well as the weight used. Repetitions may vary from 6 to 20. I do not use the same weights or repetitions because I want to stress my biceps, triceps, and pectorals muscles. I also change my routine by using six bands to perform curls and pull ups. My bands have handles on them, and so I put them on the balls of my feet. I do not have any more room to put any more bands on my feet. If I had bigger feet, I could use more bands.
The following was found in http:// US. Movember. Com/mens-health/ 11/3/2011 sent to me by my friend, Dr. Fisk. I am quoting the following: 1. The average life expectancy for men is five years less than women (77 years old compared to 82). 2. One in two men will be diagnosed with cancer in their lifetime compared with one in three women. 3. Evidence suggests that about a third of the 571,950 cancer deaths expected to occur will be related to obesity, physical and activity, poor nutrition and thus could be prevented.4. One in six men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in their lifetime. 5. 240,890 new cases of the disease will be diagnosed and 33,720 men will die. 6. Testicular cancer is most common cancer in American males between the ages of 15 and 34. 7. 8,290 men will be diagnosed with the disease and 350 will die.
Well men, so far this is not a pretty picture. Next week I will present more information about men’s health, and get into some specifics about what we can do about it. At this point, is easy to understand why we have a health care issue and problem in this country, especially with the male population. There is a crisis and only we can do something about it. Let us not rely on the pharmaceutical industry to solve this problem.
In my book, I wrote about, two of my friends that contacted cancer. One of my oldest and dearest friends Denny passed away last year. He was a psychologist that I met in the 1960s, while we were both teaching a class in psychology at the community college. He was one of my closest buddies and I miss him. Unfortunately for him, he was an alcoholic, a smoker, and in his later years put on a lot of weight. He had the strength to quit drinking, but could not tackle successfully the smoking and weight gain. I will tell you more about Denny next week.
0 comments:
Post a Comment