It turns out, Pearl Buck is a good writer. Of course you would expect this out of someone who’s won the Pulitzer for the novel, but I’m enjoying The Good Earth as much for the quality of the writing as for the subject matter. I’ve loved China for decades, and I find its 20th Century history absolutely fascinating. It began the century a mess, and ended it on the road to modernity and prosperity. I bristle at the thought of its government establishing itself as anything legitimate, and even more, I’m not encouraged — it’s current form has risen at a time when surveillance and control are becoming more prevalent and, sadly, inevitable. When a government can track your every move — your every purchase, your every foray beyond the boundaries of your home, your every interaction with others — along with the establishment of a system that penalizes and rewards its citizens with no means to “opt out,” their control of the population becomes complete.
We know without a doubt that the human heart is desperately self-centered and devious, so that the men “entrusted” with that system of government and whose lives are so intimately invested in its perpetuation will do whatever they can to remain in those positions of power.
And yet, if you read The Good Earth, perhaps you can see the usefulness in it. The absolute poverty of the early 20th century — one of the factors that contributed to the rise of the Communist Party and Mao in China — is crushing and nearly unimaginable in this day and age. But the necessity of resourcefulness in humanity is something in which we can take heart. Hundreds of millions died in Mao’s China, as they had in the China of the warlords and Qing before that. There’s no doubt that they’re better off now, but how long can it last? Let’s hope that somewhere, someday, we can all turn a corner. I’m not so arrogant or naive to say that the US system of government is the best the world has to offer, but we all must admit that it was under the beacon of that government that the world reached its lowest levels of poverty and greatest levels of prosperity. At what cost, we have yet to see, but I’m fairly certain that the China of “we’re still a third world country so many of the controls put in place to put the brakes on climate change don’t apply to us” isn’t helping along the way…
I’ve been so blessed to have had a full house over the past few days. A daughter and son-in-law visiting from Okinawa, and a son, daughter-in-law, and grandson making the trip from Texas for a full day and a half of overlap. The son-in-law flew back today, the daughter flies back tomorrow, and then the other three hang out in Korea for a couple more weeks (although they’ve spent the better part of this weekend in Busan). I look forward to the distractions from the routine, although I’m finding it hard in that I’ve become a creature far too accustomed to routine over the past few years. It’s odd. I’ve gotten out as much as I can over the years of Covid, and yet I feel I’ve lost something — like maybe the ability to interact with people. I’m such an introvert as it is, so Covid made things too easy for me. It gave me an excuse not to be around others, when I was already leaning in that direction as it was. It just pushed me over the edge.
And so now I’m finding it hard to socialize again. I don’t want to. But I have to. And it’s kind of like breaking a hard shell to get back at the softer (gentler) inside that can be comfortable around people again. Being with family helps, and of course it’s always nice being around people who just love you by default — who would never consider it any other way. Yeah, I have no option but to love and cherish my family (I realize I am fortunate in this), but even if there was, I wouldn’t take it any other way. I’ve witnessed others who do have the option in their arsenal and have exercised it enthusiastically. It’s hard to comprehend.
One of the disadvantages of the visitors is the requirement to eat lavishly. I’ve got to keep pace with my exercise regimen, and, although I know I’ll be eating a greater variety of foods that I would normally avoid, I’m also smart enough to know I can’t keep it up. I’ve only really pulled off the “Summer of Bob!” once (in 2021). I’ve got to turn it around though and get back to it this year. I’m officially 60 now, so I’ve got to do everything I can to prolong the ability to get out and move. I’ve said before, “life is cumulative,” and so I know it won’t magically get easier. I can only hope to maintain a decent level of quality, and I know that the primary factor in making that happen is to maintain a healthy diet.
My dear friend Marty has kept me in books and studies when it comes to eating right and how it affects health, but I’ve also found other sources — that contradict what Marty tells me in some ways while pointing to similar results. I’ve come to the conclusion though that there is one thing of which we can all be assured, and that is that one of the greatest enemies of healthy eating for Americans is their government. No matter which side of the research I see, they all agree that the US government’s foray into “healthy” eating has been disastrous for us as a nation. The food pyramid that was pushed so diligently upon us decades ago has been thoroughly debunked, and any kind of guidance given us by the “experts” has been informed by a) researchers who have been overly influenced by their desire for government grants and big money, and b) industries like big sugar and big ag who are deeply invested in us eating their way (as subsidized by the US government).
There’s so much more to say on this, but count this as step one.
Love the family photo Bob. So happy you had a chance to get them all together with you. We haven’t been able to pull that off since 2011, the year we exiled Andrew to southeast Georgia, well, he did come visit us over Christmas 2012. It should be easier fir us as we have yet to accumulate daughters-in-law and grand children. But we practically live in the same city with Andrew and rarely see him…thanks to three jobs in healthcare and being a full time graduate student at UF.
Your insights into the effects of the lockdown on your introversion ring true with me as well. I was shockingly comfortable not going to church, not getting to no neighbors in the new neighborhood (except through social media), and some of my doctors have never seen my face. But in the midst of the pandemic is when I also found myself wondering if I would live to see tomorrow on almost a daily basis. My dietary lifestyle trying to stay true to the Keto way of eating wasn’t working for me and I had developed two partially blocked coronary arteries and a diagnosis of heart failure to go along with my AFIB and Chronic Angina. Poorly controlled diabetes had ravaged my eyes, at their worse, my visual acuity was 20/70 left and 20/400 right – not correctable due to issues with macular edema and that was with bimonthly injections in both eyes. I worried about my stage 3 chronic kidney disease worsening and facing the prospect of needing dialysis. I felt terrible, had painful joints, frequent gout in my knees, brain fog, bloating and constipation, fatigue and an inability to drive longer than an hour or so without falling asleep – and not at all at night due to my terrible vision. Then I saw something that made me think Gid has already answered my orayers, I just need to listen to the answer. Cleveland Clinic Surgeon and head of their department of Heart Disease Reversal, Dr Caldwell Esselstyn, Jr., said you needn’t ever have Coronary Artery Disease because it is a food-borne illness caused by eating a Standard American Diet (SAD, ironically) . He prescribed his heart patients follow a dietary regimen clinically tested at the Cleveland Clinic and proven to reverse the underlying cause of heart disease, chronic inflammation… I studied inflammation and discovered it isn’t just swollen knees or stiff hands, but it is the result of our natural immune response to infection and all manner of cellular damage. The greatest source of this cellular damage is the processed diet of manufactured calories pushed on us by an industry bent on market share and telling us it’s good food. They deceive with the same guile as the serpent. And speaking of the serpent, I was drawn to notice he is always against the will of God, and God, in Genesis 1:29 (paraphrased) said I put plants here for you to eat. I felt as though this was not a coincidence.
So I began my Whole Food Plant Based no Sugar, no Oil, and little to no added Salt (SOS Free) way of eating on April 27th, 2021, about two months after the devastating news from my exploratory cardiac catheterization. I followed the simple guidelines of an unprocessed Whole Food PLANT Based way of eating and immediately began to notice a difference. The angina went away, blood pressure dropped and I had to have meds reduced or stopped. By January 2022, my doctors at the Mayo clinic advised me to stop injections I was taking for cholesterol because my LDL was only 20. The Endocrinologist took me off the two different insulins I had been injecting daily because my glucose levels were now in the normal, non-diabetic range as measured over time (HbA1c was 5.2). I stopped having gout flare ups in 2022, resumed biking and started hiking every day and before you know it my weight is down 110 pounds from 283 to 173. Throughout this time my eyesight was improving too. My opthalmologist said I no longer needed periodic injections to keep macular edema in check, because the swelling was virtually gone. My eyesight was now correctable to 20/25 in both eyes. My son asked me to help him drive from Jacksonville Florida to Monroe Louisiana for a surgical procedure he was to assist with. I had never in recent history been able to drive more than about 3 hours without dozing off at the wheel and needing sleep, but he was sleep deprived too as a Critical Care Unit nurse working at a busy Jacksonville Hospital. I drove while he rested and I never once felt fatigued, driving straight through almost 9 hours.
I can’t argue with the results. I probably wouldn’t be alive today if I hadn’t changed my diet. My lab tests are the best they’ve been in 20 years, I’m down from 12 medications a day to just 4 (less nasty side effects as a result, and nothing needed for lipid or blood sugar control). My follow up echo-stress test at cardiology showed no signs of blockage, and the ejection fraction, a metric for heart failure was again normal having improved from 48% to 68% (over 60% is normal). Most surprisingly, Nephrology labs show I no longer meet the criteria for Chronic Kidney Disease with protein levels no longer elevated and a glomerular filtration rate greater than 90 my kidney function is again normal.
Countless doctors and tons of studies agree that a plant based diet is the most nutrient and antioxidant rich diet. Our bodies function best by design if they are metabolizing whole foods and not preservatives, refinements, added chemicals that our cells don’t know what to do with. Ultra highly processed “Frankenfoods” have been proven to cause damage and premature death of cells throughout our bodies leading to more rapid aging, inflammation, an overwhelmed immune system that struggles to clean up oxidation and keep cancer growth in check. It is the underlying cause of the western world’s number one killer, heart disease, and it is estimated as much as 80% of cancers are due to the SAD diet. Recommended: Movies, “Forks Over Knives,” “The Game Changers,” “What the Health.” Recommended: Books, “Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease,” “How Not to Die,” “Fiber Fueled,” “Mastering Diabetes,” “Unprocessed 10th Anniversary Edition: Revitalize Your Health with Whole Foods,” “Healthy at Last.”
Internet Resources: PUBMED – A searchable database maintained by the National Institute of Health of scientific studies on Nutrition, Health, Disease and much more; Google and YouTube: Dr. Michael Greger, Dr. Dean Ornish, Dr Neal Barnard, Dr. Michael Klapper, Dr. Brooke Goldner, Dr Caldwell Esselstyn, Dr Kim Williams, Dr Alan Goldhamer, Dr Milton Mills, Dr John McDougall, Dr Columbus Batiste.
Have you read any of Michael Pollan’s books.? One of his rules: (I may be paraphrasing) Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.
Its funny to hear you say your an introvert friend. I always found talking to you on Sundays quite natural and fascinating. Don’t keep that lovely experience to so few, you are a friend worth having to someone in your neighborhood. I am so thankful for you. 😊
Yay Marty 🙌
Hoping one day to introduce you to my family too Bob.