common sense, but how many “traditional” doctors prepare their patients so completely before attempting a cure?
This witch doctor found a way to “detach” his patients from their cortexes. He didn’t bring out medical texts or send his patients to WebMD to read up on their diseases. Instead, he appealed to their reptilian brains. The witch doctor convinced his patients that he could help them survive—as long as the patients wanted it enough.
I’LL TAKE THAT LIFE TO GO
When Procter & Gamble hired me to discover the Code for health and wellness in America, I saw this as a very exciting opportunity because health is, of course, one of the primary archetypes of life. I therefore expected to uncover a Code that spoke to the essence of what it meant to be alive in this culture.
Americans are doers. In the words of that great American philosopher Nike, one can boil the American agenda down to three simple words: “Just do it.” Our champions are athletes, entrepreneurs, police officers, firefighters, and soldiers—all people who take action. We may respect thinkers, but we don’t celebrate them nearly as much as we do our action figures. It isn’t accidental that, for years, at the top of the stairs of the Philadelphia Museum of Art—a repository of great works of intellect and imagination—there resided a bronze statue of a famous cinematic boxer. Can one imagine a monument to Jackson Pollock standing outside Yankee Stadium?
This culture-wide call to action informs the way we look at our health. Few of us find it important to maintain the conditioning of a Navy SEAL or a marathoner (in fact, given the obesity figures in the previous chapter, many of us seem to find little need to maintain any conditioning at all), but we strongly believe that we need our health in order to
do things.
During the ten discovery sessions I held over the course of this study, I received different kinds of stories. There were those that told of illness:
When I was eighteen, I learned that my grandmother, who had raised me and always taken care of everyone, was dying of lung cancer. This just didn’t seem possible. She was eighty years old, walked several blocks every day—to the doctor, to the grocery, anywhere she wanted to go. She was the strongest woman I’ve ever known. She lived almost eighty-one years and for all but the last two weeks, she wasn’t dependent on anyone.
—a forty-six-year-old woman
When I was eight, the doctor told me I had a lack of calcium in my left leg and couldn’t put any weight on it. My mom and dad had to carry me everywhere. Every month, the doctor looked at my leg through a fluoroscope and my mother looked over his shoulder to see how my leg was coming. I hated that my mother had to carry me everywhere.
—a sixty-five-year-old man
I remember being ill when I was five. I had to stay in bed in a darkened room. The curtains and venetian blinds were closed to keep out the light. I had to rest my eyes, which meant not reading books or watching TV. I was so very bored. Being declared well at last was like getting out of jail! I couldn’t wait to go outside.
—a woman in her forties
A few years ago, I contracted a case of gout—imagine that; a person supposedly in the prime of his life who stayed in good shape and was careful about what he ate suddenly getting gout. My right big toe swelled enormously and every step was painful. I hobbled around like Walter Brennan and I felt like I was a hundred years old.
—a forty-seven-year-old man
There were those that told of recovery:
When I was a child, an accident left my mother paralyzed from the waist down. The doctors told her she would never walk again. She spent sixty-one days in the hospital trying to deal with her paralysis and how to care for four children all under the age of six. After she got home, she was depressed all the time, but one night my grandmother took her to church and a preacher told her God was going to heal her. She
This witch doctor found a way to “detach” his patients from their cortexes. He didn’t bring out medical texts or send his patients to WebMD to read up on their diseases. Instead, he appealed to their reptilian brains. The witch doctor convinced his patients that he could help them survive—as long as the patients wanted it enough.
I’LL TAKE THAT LIFE TO GO
When Procter & Gamble hired me to discover the Code for health and wellness in America, I saw this as a very exciting opportunity because health is, of course, one of the primary archetypes of life. I therefore expected to uncover a Code that spoke to the essence of what it meant to be alive in this culture.
Americans are doers. In the words of that great American philosopher Nike, one can boil the American agenda down to three simple words: “Just do it.” Our champions are athletes, entrepreneurs, police officers, firefighters, and soldiers—all people who take action. We may respect thinkers, but we don’t celebrate them nearly as much as we do our action figures. It isn’t accidental that, for years, at the top of the stairs of the Philadelphia Museum of Art—a repository of great works of intellect and imagination—there resided a bronze statue of a famous cinematic boxer. Can one imagine a monument to Jackson Pollock standing outside Yankee Stadium?
This culture-wide call to action informs the way we look at our health. Few of us find it important to maintain the conditioning of a Navy SEAL or a marathoner (in fact, given the obesity figures in the previous chapter, many of us seem to find little need to maintain any conditioning at all), but we strongly believe that we need our health in order to
do things.
During the ten discovery sessions I held over the course of this study, I received different kinds of stories. There were those that told of illness:
When I was eighteen, I learned that my grandmother, who had raised me and always taken care of everyone, was dying of lung cancer. This just didn’t seem possible. She was eighty years old, walked several blocks every day—to the doctor, to the grocery, anywhere she wanted to go. She was the strongest woman I’ve ever known. She lived almost eighty-one years and for all but the last two weeks, she wasn’t dependent on anyone.
—a forty-six-year-old woman
When I was eight, the doctor told me I had a lack of calcium in my left leg and couldn’t put any weight on it. My mom and dad had to carry me everywhere. Every month, the doctor looked at my leg through a fluoroscope and my mother looked over his shoulder to see how my leg was coming. I hated that my mother had to carry me everywhere.
—a sixty-five-year-old man
I remember being ill when I was five. I had to stay in bed in a darkened room. The curtains and venetian blinds were closed to keep out the light. I had to rest my eyes, which meant not reading books or watching TV. I was so very bored. Being declared well at last was like getting out of jail! I couldn’t wait to go outside.
—a woman in her forties
A few years ago, I contracted a case of gout—imagine that; a person supposedly in the prime of his life who stayed in good shape and was careful about what he ate suddenly getting gout. My right big toe swelled enormously and every step was painful. I hobbled around like Walter Brennan and I felt like I was a hundred years old.
—a forty-seven-year-old man
There were those that told of recovery:
When I was a child, an accident left my mother paralyzed from the waist down. The doctors told her she would never walk again. She spent sixty-one days in the hospital trying to deal with her paralysis and how to care for four children all under the age of six. After she got home, she was depressed all the time, but one night my grandmother took her to church and a preacher told her God was going to heal her. She
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