My last post was getting uber-long and on other sites you get auto-signed out sometimes so the worrier got to me and I posted so to not lose it (though I had it copied anyway, ha).
Phil,
Thanks for the tips. I didn't think too much about the importance of sunshine until recently reading the forums here. The sun has always made me feel better and even as a child I would remember needing to go outside to "cure" my headaches. I'm rather dark (mediteranean blood) and so perhaps my sun requirement is slightly higher than normal. Its winter now but luckily I live in Houston, where there can be decent sun year round.
As for positivity, I completely agree, but still find it a challenge to be positive right now. It seems so much easier to be negative and my humor for the most part has been geared towards bringing down people, sometimes just to get a reaction. This is just another thing I need to try and catch in the moment before letting the thought spread.
Other things I plan on doing for health are walking barefoot as much as possible, defecating in the natural squat position, possibly sleeping on the floor (I've had some intense dreams when I tried this in the past) and hopefully more when I find out about them. Also will be doing my deep breathing daily as well as other realation techiniques.
Tyler,
I think grass fed meat is going to be much better in the long run than grain-fed. Its rather sad that the zc group seems to believe that the impact of grass vs grain is minimal at best. The true effects might not be seen for 20 or more years. It could easily be one of the reasons the bear got cancer. I ordered 15 pounds of slankers ground beef in the past and will be ordering some soon again.
William,
Thanks for the link, I've actually read just about the entire bear thread as it originally was. The guy is the ultimate guru, though he never learned how to quote which was probably most surprising of all.
Also, Phil, I am going to repost here a post you made last month that should get some serious consideration for post of the year. You basically summarized my philosophy on what is taking place in modern society with respect to science. I've read "fooled by randomness" and have never agreed with someone so much and like you I don't really like it when I agree so completely but then again it was refreshing to see someone think very similarly to me, just quite a bit more elegant.
Over the years as I've investigated the derogatory claims of Moderners (among whom I don't include Tyler, though he has cited research, opinions, etc. from this school of thought--which I am grateful for, actually, because he has provided a very useful counterpoint to posit my speculations and ramblings up against without having to deal with the really harsh critics like PETA-type folks) about the Stone Agers and HGs in general I've found that most of them are based on false assumptions, fictions, and falsehoods. Manthropology is just the latest compilation of revelations about the fallacies of the Moderners, revealing that the abilities of even recent HGs were superior in multiple ways to moderners. The usual knee-jerk response is to engage in ad hominem and claim that the scientist or layman who reports these phenomena is just promoting the "noble savage myth" or longs for a primitive utopia.
What never gets mentioned is that the critics (and their claims that others cite) are sometimes influenced by a utopianism of their own, often unbenownst to them, that infected academia decades ago, which is a sort of Utopian Progressivism. It's dogma is endless progress, man as machine, and the perfectability of man. That which is new is considered "improved," and that which is old is assumed inferior unless widely publicized mountains of evidence make it impossible to ignore the obvious. The dogma of endless progress is far, far, far more common than noble savage mythology (how else explain the endless advancement of "new and improved" technologies, foods and drugs, almost without restraint?). It claims to be scientific, but much of it's original source material comes from fictional or misguided sources like Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes and it seems built on scientific reductionism and consensus. Assumptions are rarely questioned; instead, the same old fallacies (such as "the diet-acne connection is an old wives' tale") and faulty studies (such as the bogus 1960s study that claimed to refute the diet-acne connection) get cited over and over again ad nauseum and then Modernism's defenders point to the piles of rehashed articles and say "See, there is a scientific consensus backed by the weight of the evidence," when in reality it all teeters precariously on one or two bogus studies or maybe some snippets of 17th century philosophy.
"But wait a minute," you say. "Hobbes was a Monarchist, not a Progressive." True, but some of his concepts made an impression on the masses and were misinterpreted and reshaped over time (such as the "nasty, brutish, and short" quip, which Hobbes used to describe agrarian Englishmen, but which was transformed into an archetype of the HG) eventually infecting academia and the Progressives, deep into their psyches like an invasive cancer, probably setting science back several centuries. Plus, some Progressives replaced the despotism of monarchy with a new form of despotism: an all-knowing Mother Culture led by a cultural elite that sought to "help" the "savages" and "underclasses" by "civilizing" them.
Luckily, there have been and are reformers amongst the Progressives and the academics who have recognized where things went wrong and have been shedding light on this, such as Margaret Meade, Richard Leakey, Daniel Quinn, Jared Diamond, Art De Vany, Boyd Eaton, Loren Cordain, Michael and Mary Eades, and Nicholas Taleb. These and other academics, intellectuals and Progressives put various pieces of the puzzle back together that make up the ancient storehouse of knowledge and experience: man is not perfectible, everything new is not necessarily improved, many of the assumptions on which current scientific consensus is based are faulty, and beginning around 10 thousands years ago there was a "Great Forgetting," as Quinn called it, about ancient knowledge that we have only begun to re-learn within the past century or so.
Assumptions are being questioned, studies re-examined, paradigms shifted, and we are witnessing the dawn of a scientific revolution. I call it The Great Remembering.
"But hold on!" you say. "You did what you criticized others for doing--engaged in ad hominem about Progressives." Not all Progressives. Many would call me one, actually (others might claim I'm a Positivist or Libertarian--I don't think I fit neatly into any philosophical or political slot at present). Notice also that I didn't single any one out and was careful to explain that I'm not including Tyler in my critique. It was more of a general critique of the basic school of thought that seems to underlie the source materials that critics of RPD and HGs have relied upon, based on an impression I've garnered from years of watching Paleo dieters and advocates get attacked. Notice that I instead singled out some Progressives and likeminded academics for praise. I hope that I've managed to critique the message and its underlying underpinnings more than the messengers.
One thing I also try to remember is that all variations of Paleo diets, raw diets, and low carb diets are regarded as heresy worthy of ridicule by the powers that be. Based on their criticisms, they apparently regard us all as idiots or devils to be straightened out or silenced. So I try to remember not to criticize too harshly folks from similar ways of eating, but like a dumb, dumb I sometimes forget. So I apologize to any such I have offended in the past, and proactively apologize to the folks in the future I will likely also offend when I let my words get ahead of my brain.
For ten thousand years we have been blinded by The Great Forgetting. The Great Remembering has only just begun. Imagine what amazing revelations await.
Good luck and good eating.
http://www.rawpaleoforum.com/hot-topics/are-we-meat-eaters-or-vegetarians/msg19668/#msg19668
