We Don’t Have to Be Sick to Get Better

Thanks to the readers who astutely pointed out that last week I mentioned an anniversary, but it wasn’t the one you expected.

I chose not to join the chorus of reflection on the anniversary of the COVID lockdown because it’s easy to get confused and depressed by the number of people who have somehow managed to avoid learning from the experience.

At the same time, I want to engage with the many intelligent, caring people I know who are once again asking profound questions about our health, like: What about the bird flu? What about mpox? What kind of a father, in a wealthy country with better-than-average health care, refuses to protect his six-year-old daughter from contracting a preventable disease that causes her to suffer and die?

I don’t have logical answers to questions like that. I don’t understand that man’s decision and I don’t understand why so many people seem ready and willing to pay tragically high costs to live in wilful, principled ignorance.

It’s easier for me to understand the motives of people who take advantage of that ignorance. The policy makers who endorse that father’s view – and who have accepted financial contributions and job opportunities as a condition of their fealty to brand name manufacturers & other parties who control wealth – continue to make misleading and outlandish claims that create attention-getting headlines. The moron currently masquerading as Health & Human Services Secretary responded to the measles outbreak and the girl’s death by saying that bad diets cause measles. Fact check: according to every licensed physician everywhere, and every research study ever conducted, and everything else we know and have conclusively proven over and over again about measles, measles is only caused by one thing: the measles virus. Furthermore, people can effectively defend themselves and their children from the measles virus by getting vaccinated.

As long as he raised the issue, though, whose fault is it that so many Americans have poor diets? How’s the obesity/diabetes/heart disease thing working out for the average American? Thanks to the cynical public campaigning of corporations who make and sell ultra processed food and soda – and alcohol, and tobacco, and no-stick pans, and other stuff that we don’t need but buy anyway even though it hurts us – most Americans have come to believe that consumption is a matter of individual responsibility rather than social health. But since individuals don’t have the power to compel companies to publicize research data that would decrease their profits, too many people believe the ads, drink the Kool-Aid, and eat high-fructose corn syrup all day.

The policy makers who get paid by Big (Food, Pharma, Ag, Tobacco, etc.) like it that way. They won’t protect us from poison, or guns, or bird flu, monkey flu, old-fashioned flu, or even health care costs that have made staying alive and well harder for us. That’s our problem. Policy makers are not living in the same world as you and me. Their interests are not aligned with our interests. So rather than complain or wait for them to change, we need to improve our understanding and our decision-making. That’s why I started teaching and developing the Open-Source Learning model in the first place.

Go ahead and argue with me – I’d love to change my mind if I get better information. In the meantime, as my students and clients will tell you, I call it like I see it. I don’t need endorsements or campaign contributions, so I can afford to be honest even when the news isn’t good. Sure, I stay positive because the alternative sucks and we have to find a way forward, but these days there is no sugarcoating the facts. In fact, coating anything with sugar is toxic.

Sugar is one of the best examples of “what you don’t know will absolutely kill you.” It’s just about the dumbest thing in the world to watch adults argue over sugar like so many toddlers fighting to keep their binkies. For decades we’ve known that sugar kills. And yet many Americans continue consuming sugar every day by the processed spoonful. Still more Americans fall for nonsense marketing concepts like “sugar free” (fun fact: when you eat something that contains artificial sweetener, your taste buds still register “sweet” and send a message to your pancreas to release insulin – this lowers the sugar in your blood by storing it in your cells, where it turns to fat, which is why all of us combined know exactly no one who has lost twenty pounds by switching to diet soda).

It gets worse. Not only do we not have the information or the training to differentiate what is nutritious from what is toxic, we are actually trained from the early days of our childhood to hate things that might be good for us. Just watch people recoil or get all snarky the next time you try to hand them a cookie that you call “healthy” or “gluten free” or – heaven forbid! – “vegan.”

Years ago in a high school classroom somewhere, in the middle of a discussion I took out a Sharpie and wrote nine words on a piece of paper that I stuck to the board: YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE SICK TO GET BETTER. At the time, I was thinking of motivation and kaizen, the Japanese business philosophy of continuous improvement, but these days I’m thinking we need to reclaim our literal health. It doesn’t matter what state you’re in today. You can improve. You don’t have to wait for it to rain to fix the roof — you can change or adopt a behavior today that will protect you against a heart attack or a neurodegenerative disorder in the future. In the richest civilization in human history, living a healthy lifestyle should be more than an aspirational luxury.

To put it even more bluntly: We are a sick society. As a group, we are fat, tired, and riddled with diseases that could easily be prevented. (Note to those who would say, “Hey David, ease up man, we have enough negativity and it’s not ok to say ‘fat!’” Those responses also learned behavior, and they’re not helping anyone feel better. I’m not shaming or picking on anyone. I know people are suffering. But none of the causes of that suffering are related to honesty or hurt feelings. Gym memberships are up and we all hear about American healthcare technology, but almost half the country is obese, and that number has increased 10% in the last 20 years. The dictionary definition of the word “obese” is “extremely fat.”)

Our leaders don’t care if we get sicker. Their policy recommendations: Eat meat full of antibiotics and growth hormones. Eat ultra processed packaged products that don't meet the dictionary definition of food. Smoke if you want. Carry guns wherever you go.

Pierre Eugene du Simitiere borrowed “E Pluribus Unum” as the motto for the Great Seal of the United States of America from Cicero, who paraphrased Pythagoras in his 44 B.C. treatise of how to live, behave, and observe moral obligations. That’s a badass lineage of thinkers. And the concept itself is how I learned to understand my country: “Out of many, one.” Even with all the challenges we face in America today, I still think the concept ages better than, “Eat Shit and Die.”

So, yeah, the pandemic happened too. And it brought a different kind of tsunami. We have to figure out ways to get along. We have to demand accurate information. We have to take our lives and decisions back and remember that we are the heroes of our own stories. Health first.

We have to get better.

What’s your favorite after school snack? Drop me a line – I’m curious!

Curiosity is worth practicing. That’s how we get better at it. When it’s done particularly well, curiosity can be elevated to an art form. Curiosity makes life worth living. I am literally Curious AF. And now you can be too! Click HERE to unlock your free membership subscription.

Here is a taste of what I’m reading, watching, and thinking about.

Circular Logic –

Since I also missed Pi Day last week, here are the first million numbers and a brief explainer of pi’s importance, history, mystery, nature, and overall sexiness: From piday.org: “Probably no symbol in mathematics has evoked as much mystery, romanticism, misconception and human interest as the number pi.”

This Week in School –

The West Ada School District in Boise, Idaho demanded that a teacher remove two signs in her classroom. What, you may ask, did the offending signs say? From what evil harm did administrators protect young people? Via boingboing: “West Ada School District in Boise, Idaho wants signage indicating that all students are welcome to be removed. Teacher Sarah Inama at the Lewis and Clark Middle School was told to remove two signs from her classroom as they were not content neutral and were out of alignment with district policy. ‘I was told … that everyone is welcome here is not something that everybody believes,’ said Inama, who disagreed, ‘I feel like this is the basis of public education.’ The school district used weasel words and a bad sports analogy to demand staff fall in line.”

What I’m Reading –

Good friend and Digital Accomplice / video maven Dane Frederiksen recommended Building a Storybrand 2.0 by Donald Miller. I’m about halfway through the book and I’m finding it brilliant, inspiring, validating, and ultimately infuriating. I love sharing ideas, and I love good stories, but sometimes I wish that people weren’t so easy to persuade through entertainment. From the book: ”Alfred Hitchcock defined a good story as ‘life with the dull parts taken out.’ Good branding is the same. Our companies are complex, for sure, but a good messaging filter will remove all the stuff that bores our customers and will bear down on the aspects of our brand that will help them survive and thrive.” Miller – and Hitchcock – are absolutely correct, and the customer (in my case, the learner) is truly the hero of their own story, but… I’ve never been at ease with the way brand advertisements oversimplify life. Sometimes the hero has to sit with the bills at 2:00am or research assisted living facilities or deal with an unexpected car repair or shop APRs or update their resume or a thousand other things that don’t capture the attention of a storytelling audience. I know how to tell a good story, but I’m wary of the bait-and-switch. One reason I never got into politics.

Quote I’m pondering —

This one deserves some context. In 1974 Muhammad Ali spoke at a pre-fight press conference in London for 40 minutes straight. Promoters wanted to cut him off, but Ali had the last word:

If a man looks at the world when he is 50 the same way he looked at it when he was 20 and it hasn’t changed, then he has wasted 30 years of his life.

Ali reminded everyone of his idea and added to it in a 1975 interview with Playboy – 50 years ago. The man promised big and almost always over delivered.

You listen up and maybe I’ll make you as famous as I made Howard Cosell. “Wars on nations are fought to change maps, but wars on poverty are fought to map change.” Good, huh? “The man who views the world at 50 the same as he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life.” These are words of wisdom, so pay attention, Mr. Playboy. “The man who has no imagination stands on the earth—he has no wings, he cannot fly” Catch this: “When we are right, no one remembers, but when we are wrong, no one forgets. Watergate!”
– Muhammad Ali

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