From Early Indications (& Admittedly THAT'S ALL At This Stage) It Looks (& Sounds) As If The Lunatics May Well Be About to Be Re-handed the Keys to the Asylum (Commonly Known as the U S of A)...

 God Help Us All!

So How About That, The Re-Emergence (Going On Early Reports) Of An Out-and-Out BULLY For a (America's) 'Bully Pulpit': The Re-Dominance Of Someone (With Plenty of Intellect, To Be Sure, But Patently) Without Real Emotional Intelligence - At a Time In Which Both are Very Much Needed, Perhaps Much More Desperately and Acutely, Than Ever Before...

Convinces Me That I Can Be About as Healthy *As I Make Up My Mind to Be

 

*All due acknowledgments to my own blogpost herein (on March 30th, 2020) which evidently said as much, except that I therein was discussing happiness as opposed to health as such. But of course the selfsame principle applies - and with knobs on, as they say...

Would Suggest That It Would Be Near Impossible to Discuss Anything Herein Related to the Momentous (If Not Entirely Unanticipatible) Death of Elizabeth Windsor (As I Seek to Include All My Nine Blogsites This Evening in A Health-Depleting! Bid to Pay Tribute to Someone Standing Head & Shoulders Above Your Run-of-the-Mill World Leader)...But I've Found A Way (In What Will Be My Final Blogpost Herein For the Foreseeable, Possibly Even For Good): As With the Untimely Deaths/Assassinations of All Manner of Famous Folk In Times Gone By - Thinking In Particular of the Likes of JFK & Princess Diana (Due to the Incredible, World-Stopping Effects These Happenings Had Upon So Many Throughout Our World): May the Coming Days of Reflection & Readying for the Next British Monarch Be A Much-Needed Blessing in Disguise (For Our War-Weary and -Wracked, Covid-Consumed World) As, In a Complete About-Face For the Media-At-Large, they Focus For Once Upon Such Much-Neglected, Timeless, Eternal Values as Selflessness and Self-Sacrifice

And don't you tell me that such values/virtues cherished in the heart and expressed in the life don't have the profoundest effect upon us and our health as human beings, whether individually or collectively...

Wouldn't Actually Contradict the Fact that Just Occasionally It's Better to Utilize the Odd 'Drug' (So-Called) Than Go On Suffering in Silence...Say, From Ongoing, Seemingly Never-Ending Sleep Deprivation...

Convinces Me That The Human Body Has, In the Words of the Sweet Psalmist of Israel, Been Fearfully & Wonderfully Made...And So Please, Oh Please, Would Politicians Stop Messing With Our Body Clocks and Circadian Rhythms By Their Annual Back-And Forth of Clocks Forward & Back, Back & Forward: Choose 'One Or T'Other', Pretty Please, and Be Done With It For Once & For All (TIME)

Reinforces the Truisms of *Sacred Scripture, F'r Instance: the Preeminent Value of Gratitude & Joy In Maintaining Good Mental and Emotional Health...

And in this (coronavirus-saturated and -obsessed) day and age of uptight, anxiety-ridden, terrified citizenry 'ably aided and abetted' by fearmongers seemingly on every hand, what a boon that clearly is!

*Which declares, for example, that humanity has no 'comeback' in (either) the (present-day or future) Day of God's wrath:

Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them.

For the invisible things of [H]im from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even [H]is eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse;

Because that, when they knew God, they glorified [H]im not as God, neither were thankful...

Yes, ultimately that basest of all human failings and sins - sheer ingratitude - led us all astray, away from God, into the resultant quagmire of our own futile self-idolization and apostasy...

And, whether you believe the sacred record or not - just open your eyes, people, and smell the roses (here, there and everywhere) - it's been downhill with homo sapiens ever since...

As For Former Rugby (& Football) Players Now 'Presenting' Here, There 'N Seemingly Everywhere With Signs/ Symptoms of Early Onset Dementia... Evidently As A Long-Term Consequence of 'Sub-Concussive' Injuries Sustained Over the Decades Whilst Engaged in Said 'Sport' - One I've Ever & Anon Heartily Detested & Loathed: Far As I'm Concerned, Speaking From My (Armchair Critical) Perspective As A Sports-Hating, Rugby-Detesting 'Wimp'/Nerd (From My Own High School Years), You'd Have Had To Have Been (Partially/Completely) Brain Dead NOT TO HAVE REALIZED That Seriously Flirting With New Zealand's *One-Time National Religion Would Ultimately Bring You Unstuck, & Lead to the Sort of Stuff Now Being Witnessed Around the World...

Technically (i.e. strictly) speaking: rugby, racing & beer.

Postscript (Necessary Disclaimer):

But as for former (now permanently incapacitated) rugby stars/players now rather belatedly seeking to sue/bring class actions against their former teams/coaches etc etc etc...

I see it a lot like former smokers doing the same...

Hey, folks, it's called opening one's eyes a tad and seeing the roses...elsewise known as taking a modicum of 'personal responsibility': i.e. you'd have had to have been living in ye proverbial cave/under a rock NOT TO HAVE KNOWN/been aware that the stuff has ever been seriously problematic... 

Has Had to be Learnt and Re-learnt Time & Time Again, As, "Being Human" - Though Not Citing THAT As Any Kind of Real Excuse As Such - Means I'm AS FALLIBLE As the Next Fellow (& Gal); And So Often Prove Myself Untrue to the VERY PRINCIPLES I At Heart/In My Very Heart of Hearts Nevertheless Deeply Subscribe to...

Inconsistent indeed, but I'd argue that doesn't necessarily make me an (out-and-out) hypocrite (as such)!

Would Readily/Quite Easily Fill A Smallish Home Library Or Several...

Confirms the (Really Self-Evident) Truism that...God's Natural Law is As Indelibly Inscribed Upon Every Sinew, Muscle, Bone and Tissue of Homo Sapiens As His Ten-Commandment Moral Law, the Decalogue, Was Engraved By God's Own Finger Upon the Two Tablets of Stone Entrusted to His Long-suffering servant Moses

Invariably Proves the Old Adage Still Rings True: An Ounce of Prevention Now Will Save A Bucketload of Hassle Down the Line

But 'In (i.e. FOR) Such a Day As This', Did Not Someone Once Say/Declare...

Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid...

Peace I leave with you, My Peace I Give Unto You...

[Yes, verily] In this [present] world you will have tribulation,

but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world!"

(Exclamation supplied.) 

The Values of Intermittent Fasting...are even now, at long last, being recognized by all and sundry (including, if ever so obliquely, that great paragon of healthful living/heath consciousness, New Zealand National Radio itself! -Will wonders never cease?!?!?)

Hey, I Dunno Much About Health - Some Would (Wrongly) Suggest - But Please Tell Me THIS: If New Zealand Inc. Has - As So Much Trumpeted Both Here and Especially Overseas - ERADICATED/ELIMINATED The Dreaded Scourge of Our Day, the Coronavirus or Covid-19, And 75-Plus Days Ago (And Counting) Now, And THAT According to No Less A Personage Than Sir Ashley Bloomfield, Esquire, Himself, Then How Come We Still Need to Test the General Populace/Population for the Same (Excepting, Of Course, Those In The Vicinity of Those Odd Sods Who've Been Periodically Breaking Out of 'Managed Isolation' (in Hotels) in Auckland In Particular, And/Or Whose Paths Have Inadvertently Crossed the Selfsame (or Others, of Recent Times) Who've Left NZ For Their Home Countries and Subsequently Tested Positive for the Virus)? Just Asking, Folks...

...Has Come to Me 'Stamped' with the 'Seal' of Salvation...Secured for Me as a Direct Result/Consequence of a Decision I Made Upon the Fateful Day/Afternoon of November 4th, 1982, as I Neared My 18th Birth-Anniversary, at the Home of My (Then) Good Friend Robert Edwards, at 33 Durham Street, Mornington, DUNEDIN...

Which - oddly enough, upon a health blogsite - I'm recording today upon the 33rd blogpost thereon, on the 393rd day since beginning this particular blogsite...

...upon my 700th blogpost altogether (across my now *7/8 blogsites all up)...

*One of these - http://alwayslookonthebrightsideoflife-wedon'tknowhowluckyweare.blogspot.com/ - still being 'in utero' as it were, there in cyberspace but as yet only in outline form, without any posts thereupon...

...though now I come to think of it, perhaps that's the title of said blogsite, the actual address being http://goodygoody-daggdrops.blogspot.com/ (and/or .co/nz/)...

Now we're all confused...

Postscript: Incredibly - providentially? hey, you be the judge - one day I stumbled across yet another of the various and sundry Lilliput libraries scattered across the length and breadth of my beloved hometown Dunedin, Aotearoa-New Zealand - as I sauntered up Pine Hill Road, just off the main road north (where that particular Saturday morning I'd failed to get a hitch to neighboring Oamaru), and discovered...

something truly incredible..."unreal" (as an old former Aussie acquaintance - now residing in Covid-Central, OZ, i.e. Melbourne - might well have expressed matters):

a (children's Christmas) book entitled My Special Christmas Adventure. Wherein - upon page one itself, in point of fact, tucked amidst the Christmassy tale of mistletoe and anticipated merriment

were the following words:

It was time for bed, but Beryn Abbott sat wondering when Santa Claus would visit her at 

33 Durham Street, Dunedin...

Hey, that just so happens to be the very place where, upon aforementioned 'fateful' day of November 4th, 1982, I surrendered my life to Jesus Christ...

...and 'as they say', nothing has ever been the same again...

Post-postscript: And in case you're still perplexed about why I'd make reference to such a thing, I cannot ever recall previously reading *any book set in Dunedin - or anywhere else for that matter - wherein a specific address is cited.

*Except perhaps two (one featuring multitudes of former Dunedin churches, authored by Charlie Croot, my former teacher and student newspaper 'Mercury' 'overseer', another detailing where older buildings (churches, orphanages, shops etcetera) were formerly situated across the suburb of Mornington).

Though in these two rarest of instances there were such an abundance of addresses cited (I'm supposing here that specific street addresses were indeed cited, something I'm not altogether sure about, but accepting anyhow 'for argument's sake) that one could well ask: so what would that prove anyhow?

No, the exact, precise, one and only place that this lowly pleb gave his heart and life to Jesus Christ was cited...

...and that's more than good enough for me, let alone Bobby McGee...

Confirms to/for Me the Truth of the Old But Timeless Adage: A Gram (Ounce) of Prevention is Worth a Kilo (Pound) of Cure

And (thus and) so for one and all to have finally gotten around to advocating the 'all-importance' of fighting the coronavirus by (bigtime) building up one's immune system...

...sure ain't rocket science, folks...it's self-evident common sense...

...though last I heard there ain't all that much of the stuff going around these days...

...Has Come the Hard Way...But On the Way/In the Meantime It's Managed to Reinforce the Ageless Truism That Author of Ecclesiastes Expressed So Well...

In much wisdom is much grief; and he that increases knowledge increases sorrow.

And on Your Death-Day (23 Years Ago) Gram, Here's to (Once More) 'Raise my Ebenezer' to Your Ever-Beloved, Deeply-Cherished Memory...and NOT ONLY for being the one to PRACTICALLY teach me just what it really means to be healthy...

'A Merry Heart Doeth Good Like a Medicine': So Declared the Wise Man, Solomon, Way Back When. But Sadly, Today's Newfangled Generation Simply Cannot Get It, or Even Remotely Grasp What He Was On About. Which Essentially Explains It All, Doesn't It, i.e. As to Where Our World is Now Headed: Nowhere Pretty 'Nice', Much Less One of Those "Decent Places" Smeagol-Gollum (and His Ring Quest Companions Samwise Gamgee and Frodo Baggins) So Cherished. NO INDEED

...Is (Either Instantly, or on an Ongoing, Never-Ending Basis) 'Pooh-poohed' by one and all...Yet Almost Each and Every - Other - News Bulletin and/or more in-depth Interview with Folk in the Know About Such Matters...Through Ongoing, In-depth research and Analysis...Reassures me - and in no uncertain terms - that I'm not only entirely on the right track, but heading down the other side full speed ahead...

...but what would I know, "I've never earned [such] a degree", I'm just a self-educated ignoramus...

"I have decided that I can be as happy [substitute or add: healthy] as I make up my mind to be." (So famously said some wag.) To paraphrase an 'ole favourite song, That's WHAT THE WORLD NEEDS NOW...no, not just for some, but for EVERYONE

And yesterday!

Things Not Obsessive Enough for You Globally of Late - Vis-a-vis the Obvious (i.e. the One and Only 'Story' Doing the Rounds of Late)? Yes, 'OCD' (My Longterm 'Condition', Apparently) is Now the 'New Normal'...

To Be Continued...

Sunday March 22nd:

Hey, at this stage what can I possibly add...no, I mean, really?

Hysterical Histrionics Hitting and Hugging the Headlines...Leaving All Thoughtful Folk Everywhere to Enquire: 'What's Next, or Right Around the Corner?'

To Be Continued...

(Sunday, March 15th)

*Hey, what's more to be said, no, I mean, really?

*Except, seeing this is a health blog, after all...

...to add that I see it as little coincidence that Friday afternoon, at my friendly neighbourhood public library, as I - as is my wont - perused all manner of old library books for sale,

'encountered', pretty much all at once, the following two 'references':

*in a book for kids/youth, I believe entitled Fun Facts for Kids or some such (complete and replete with ye good 'ole kaleidoscopic, 3D cover and all, and double page 'presentations' throughout with all manner of interesting 'bits 'n bobs' upon this, that and especially the other),

I immediately opened onto a section all about epidemics and pandemics, especially specifying the deadly Spanish Flu of World War 1 - or was it the Spanish Civil War? - 'vintage'...

*a book simply entitled Histeria (sic)...all about the historical derivation of said term, in all its multi-variegated and resplendent 'inglory'...including references such as 'The Suffocation of the Mother'...

To Be Continued (doubtless)...

Sunday March 22nd:

As they say in politics - and as others say, life is politics and politics is life - 'a week changes everything'...and so sadly I must inform my bloggership that Yours truly has now, however reluctantly, and yes, being pulled and pushed kicking and screaming - and all the rest - all the way - now joined those rather unhallowed ranks...

Hey, as my sister once wryly commented, and as others she was 'quoting' have themselves said in response to still others bemoaning their obsessive worry-wart'ing' (if there is such a thing)...in light of all that's goin' down these days - and she said this well prior to Coronavirus/Covid-19:

**if you ain't anxious, then it's you who ain't really altogether with it...

**But yes, I'll rectify/correct this sometime, as how she put it is almost infinitesimally better...

...Backs Up the Necessity of the Three Vital 'INPUTS' of human life: One without which one can survive for weeks, even months...Another without which one can survive mere days...A third without which one can get by for but minutes...

It's easy as, folks, so let me know the 'answers' to my allusions...it's #s 2 & 3 I'll be treating of in the foreseeable...

Sunday March 22nd:
Seeing as no-one's even ventured an - online - guess, which I reckon is pretty slack, even downright rude (of my admittedly *'low' readership/viewership), here's the 'answer' to the allusion I made:
#1: food  #2:water  #3: air/oxygen

Didya even guess? Anyhow, a surefire way to remember the same is the little word wan...

...what ya look like when you ain't gotten enough of the former!

*In more ways than twice...

...Reveals the Importance of Taking Delight in God's Everlasting Covenant of LIFE: the Real Deal RAINBOW Coalition...

Radiance
And
Iridescence
Never-Endingly
Blazoned
Onto and Over
Water

Revealing
An
Irrefutable
Nuanced
Beacon
Of
Wonder

Reminder
And
Indication/Indicator
Never-endingly
Bragging
Of
Wondrous
Workmanship Whenever (Windy, Wet or Wintry Weather) and Wherever the Whole World Wends its Wondrous Way...Where'er it Will...

RECOLLECTING 
AS IT WERE IN
INAUDIBLE, INFALLIBLE
NEON, NUMBERLESS NUMBERING
the BINDING BOND BETOKENING
OUR ONGOING
WORLD's WELCOMING WONDER

Where Our (As in Humanity's) Back is (Spiritually) Bankrolled By Not Now Incurring Any Retaliation and Repayment in kind Rightly and Righteously Reckoned unto us by Earth's Real Righteous Ruler 

...Has Ended Up Costing me Bigtime in Almost Every Area of my Life (that Matters, Anyhow)...But 'they say' that Truth is More Important Than All Else Besides (& I Heartily Agree)

...Relates in one way or another to the bedrock truths of the principles encapsulated in these short 'n snappy acronyms: N-E-W-S-T-A-R-T (Otherwise known as G-O-D-S-P-L-A-N)

And what, pray tell me - I mean you - do such acronyms actually stand for?

To quote a noted writer of yesteryear, at one time anyway the world's most prolific female author, and the third 'most written' overall, the Californian Ellen Gould White:

Nutrition - Exercise - Water - Sunlight - Temperance - Air - Rest - Trust in Divine Power...
these are the true remedies...

Or, alternatively:

Godly Trust - Open Air - Daily Exercise - Sunshine - Proper Rest - Lots of Water - Always Temperate - Nutrition

(from a booklet entitled 'God's Plan For...Taking the "ITIS" Out of Arthritis', by 'M.E.E.T. Ministry' (Tennessee, U.S.A.).

Though I've no problem with #1 acrostic, or more correctly acronym, I'll try to come up with my own in the near future, if I'm at all able to...though no promises, folks, but I reckon it's possible; and to arrive at a good one, to boot...

I'll keep ya posted...

Sunday evening, February the 9th:
How about this, for starters...

Rest
Aerobics (et al)
Irradiation
Nutriture
Balance
Oxygen
Water

all intrinsic parts and aspects of God's Covenant of Life...radiating into all nature the beauty of Wisdom (God Personified and Epitomized)

...is not so much a result of rationalistic endeavour upon my part, but inevitably comes as an intuition (something essentially 'in-breathed' and not self-derived) however (inadvertently) sustained by intelligent consideration...

Has on many an occasion been distinctly unwelcome to me (i.e. my 'natural man'), but when - consistently - applied to my daily life, has eventually proven a boon and a blessing

...is a precious gift from My Maker/Designer, however - temporarily - unwelcome the knowledge may well at times be!

Has Been Graciously Granted to me through the Divinely-Conferred Gift of Teachability...& is freely available to one & all (provided you're not too proud & self-satisfied to receive)

Attests to the Deep-seated Truism of the words of the 'wisest man who ever lived': 'A Merry Heart Doeth Good Like a Medicine'...and how about this side benefit thrown in for good measure? - there are no (deleterious) side-effects!

...Has convinced me that 'the truth' (on and about pretty much any issue of real worth/value/importance) is not found among the majoritarian, orthodox, status quo view...but among an open-minded, informed and critical-thinking remnant: those not afraid to declare that the age-old emperor indeed has no clothing, and that the real facts of most matters lie not in self-important, multi-lettered individuals, elites and bureaucracies but rather amongst the common people (as Ed Ames might've put it.)

...Suggests to me, anyhow, that if one is really, truly serious about 'health' - and one's life generally - they will go on (in harmony with the age-old admonition) seeking the truth thereof until they eventually find it; whatever the cost!

And thus and so, having shared my complete lack of confidence in the medical establishment/ fraternity in my last (13th) blogpost, let me herein balance that up by saying that my personal experience of another type of healthcare professional, the dentist (though not ye ole dental nurse of murder house infamy of my own and my contemporaries' childhoods!)...

...is of an entirely different order altogether, and that despite my staunch as opposition to the increasingly infrequent practice of water fluoridation throughout the world, including the Western segment thereof...

To Be Continued...

...sometime...who knows when...

Is essentially summed up in these timeless words of truth: *'had suffered many things of many physicians, and had spent all that [-]he had, and was nothing bettered, but rather grew worse'

The aforementioned words - ascribed to the 'certain woman with an issue of blood' who was then and there healed by the Great Physician Himself (see Mark's gospel: 5: 25/26 etc) - could hardly be more relevant to my own life experience...

So much so in fact that I oftentimes find myself, however inadvertently, returning to the following statement, uttered by a (long-past) former leader of a major New Zealand political party about his erstwhile leader, whom he proposed shortly replacing (and indeed did, if by the barest of margins):
reworking it to fit into my own (alluded to) situation, let me simply say:

I've nothing constructive to say about [the orthodox/conventional 'health' fraternity].

But more in days/weeks to come (alongside a proper reworking of **blogposts 4-6) when I finally ***get around to it.

*Mark 5:26 (King James Bible); the New King James Bible puts/renders it thusly:

had suffered many things from many physicians. She had spent all that she had and was no better, but rather grew worse.

**The three (July 22nd, 24th and 25th) which all deal with a 'missing mineral in my diet', dis/uncovered by me, myself and I - no thanks to ye orthodox medical establishment, that's for sure!

***Far as I know, my oldest sister's the only one I've ever known who's ever been given 'a round tu-it' (as in a t-shirt emblazoned with and declaring such, in her later youth).

...confirms for me the inestimable, invaluable worth of a good night's 'beauty sleep'

-which, to requote the bard best I can, so effectively/efficiently 'closes up the ravelled sleeve of care'

Among numerous, even innumerable - certainly hard to briefly itemize/catalog - blessings galore... 

Epilogue: With it one can do a heckuva lot, without it stuff all; as I'm proving - in both instances - in my own ever fraught life-experience at present!

...Has Come Via the inspirational pen of Ellen G White - and Invariably been Confirmed through my own lifetime experience/observation...Convincing me in No Uncertain Terms that so-called 'modern' drugs are Nothing Other than a form of latter-day, Sophisticated Voodoo (hocus-pocus)...

'Drugs do not cure sickness, they simply change the form and location [thereof]'...temporarily obscuring/diffusing it throughout the body but ultimately not resolving it; enabling it to re-manifest itself at a later date and stage in forms ever more injurious and difficult to deal with...

By thus effectively 'glossing over' the real issue, they not only obscure and temporarily shunt it from visible notice, but by thus 'hiding' it enable it to ultimately re-manifest in ever more deadly and sinister ways...

And thus are so-called 'modern medicines' - potions et al - which themselves often contain highly suspect substances/ingredients which themselves contribute to either exacerbated issues or other, new problems down the track, often even worse than the original presenting problems...

What has ever so intrigued Yours Truly is how the Good Book Itself - amidst one of its various enumerated lists of sins, in the Book of the Apocalypse, itself dealing with 'last days' events, i.e. 'stuff' occurring from the days of Jesus' surviving Apostles through to the long-foretold Second Coming of Jesus in great glory to our inglorious globe - uses the term 'pharmakeia', translated 'sorcery', in Revelation: 9.21(cf 18:23; Isaiah 47:9,12).

Under numerals '5331' and '5332' (and '5333', the same as 5332), the 'Greek Dictionary of the New Testament', in the extensive indices to the New American Standard Bible: Hebrew-Greek Key Word Study Bible, has the following (listings):

5331: pharmakeia...medication ("pharmacy") i.e. (by extens.) magic (lit. or fig.): -sorcery, witchcraft.

5332: pharmakeus...from pharmakon (a drug, i.e. spell-giving potion); a druggist ("pharmacist") or poisoner, i.e. (by extens.) a magician; -sorcerer.

Nuff Said?

Well, admittedly, maybe not, insofar as we are presently living through what is popularly known as a 'drug epidemic', not only in God's Own/Godzone, but throughout the Western world...which term (in that particular context) clearly, obviously is in specific reference, not to the various pills and potions upon pharmacy shelves but to the plethora of narcotics, illicit substances and/or legal but deadly alcoholic beverages, one and all, so readily available to one and all these days...

Nevertheless I'm sure the point is well taken, and is nonetheless an indication - and of as graphic a variety as is pretty well possible, surely - of the etymology of such commonly-accepted terms/concepts as 'pharmacy' and 'pharmacist'...

...suggesting the shadier side of their longstanding, even seriously ancient history...

-and I for one, given the absolute lack/dearth of ingredients oftentimes 'revealed' upon the containers of variously concocted 'medications' for this, that and the other, the simultaneous lack of transparency by so-called 'health professionals' over, let alone even knowledge concerning the contents therein... alongside the sole focus upon the treatment of readily observable symptoms with nary a discussion over, much less an intention to deal to, the underlying causes giving rise to said symptoms...

...am far from convinced that the various and sundry drugs, pills and potions presently being so freely and readily dispensed to one and all by the orthodox health establishment...via the 'neighborhood pharmacy'...are not indeed the selfsame sort of exceedingly questionable hocus-pocus, magical 'puff 'n stuff'' that in a former age were the stock 'n trade of ye garden-variety sorcerers/magicians/witches.

Has, however unorthodox/unconventional/unacceptable to the 'healthcare' establishment, proven a wonderful boon & blessing

People tend to assume that a 'miracle', much like beauty I suppose, is all in the eye (of faith - or *credulity!) of the particular beholder/'believer'...

...and since I've neither the time nor the inclination to argue or belabour the point just now, I'll simply let that interesting hypothesis/conundrum stand for the present...

But as One has well said, 'wisdom is known by her actions', and likewise, I'd suggest, is the actual **truth or falsehood of any particular 'proposition' confronting one during her or his earthly tenure.
Anyhow, with life experience and (hopefully) a better, keener sense of judgment with time - and moreover an intuitive, gut feeling/instinct for 'what passes the smell test', i.e. what carries the actual 'ring of truth' and credibility in one's life experience - most of us instinctively 'know' whether something is true or otherwise in our own particular lived experience...

To Be Continued...

*'credulousness:disposition to believe on insufficient evidence' according to the Chambers Concise Dictionary (Cambridge, 1988).

**For further investigation, I reckon you could do - far - worse than look up three of my earliest blogposts, entitled 'What is Truth?' (Parts One/Two/Three etcetera) upon my original blogsite, i.e. http://nuffsaid:consideryourself-frombothsidesnow.blogspot.co.nz/ (or .com/). 

...Was first - and foremost - 'taught' me (as if by osmosis) and simultaneously 'caught' by me...from my beloved 'Grandma Billie' [Wilhelmina Pipkin]: (born 116 years ago today)

And thus and so I dedicate this blogpost today to her memory...incidentally the person (whether relative or otherwise) who most frequently turns up in my dreams (i.e. those I recollect)...

...a person whose 'powers of longevity' were such that a one-time close friend once (or, more likely, several times) remarked upon how very young she (ever) looked...

...so much so in fact that when she was entering her eighties (or possibly even mid-eighties) this person commented upon how she looked like someone in her fifties*!

*Yes, 'scuse my **'poor internet manners' thereabouts, but if ever an exclamation mark were deserved - and then some - this would be the unrivalled occasion, surely...

**As a member of our 'extended family' once informed me, to wit that "it's considered impolite" (or suchlike) to employ either !s or CAPITALIZATIONS...

...but this pleb will continue to 'buck the trend', so to speak, as it's one of the ***very few ways one can express emotion/tone/emphasis online...

***Those 'emoji' ****thingamies/thingummies being wholly unworthy of even a mention...

****Either variant (I'm assuming) being the proper plural of 'thingamy'/'thingummy' (the latter getting a citation in my ever handy *****Chambers Concise Dictionary. 

*****Whilst my Gram's long-treasured gift (on my 16th birthday/birth-anniversary) of a Concise Oxford Dictionary contains the following reference: 'thingamy, thingumajig, thingum(a)bob, thingummy, n(oun)s. (colloq(uially)): 'Person or thing whose name one forgets or does not know or does not wish to mention; what's-his-name, what-d'you-call-it'.

...Was Never Spoon-Fed to Me By Those Well-Meaning 'Men in their White Coats' Traipsing over the Mountaintops ...as ye ole Poet Cynic 'Laureate' Philip Larkin might have put things...

No, however 'nice', 'decent' and otherwise well-meaning, the modern-day 'medics' and associated 'health professionals' undoubtedly - generally - are, their various and assorted 'scientific certainties' are - more often than not - anything but...and are far more usually nothing more (nor less, admittedly) than the conventionally accepted 'truisms' of their own particular day and age...

But what would I know - you might well ask? Pretty much everything about my own body - and its multifaceted workings - as a matter of fact...for I've carefully observed and followed its' variegated machinations now...for well-nigh upon fifty-five years...

No, this particular pleb has none of the fancy lettered emblems of 'wisdom' and attainment after his name, but what's, I'd wager, of infinitely greater value: invaluable personal experience of myself...

...has come to me despite regularly being subjected to the third degree from the Western medical establishment...

Yes, if one is curious about and interested in one's own real health situation and status, and isn't easily satisfied with superficial, glib 'answers' and responses to serious queries thereabouts...

...even oftentimes in the process discovering and uncovering concerning, disturbing realities thereabouts dismissed by 'the experts' on an ongoing basis as merely the product of essentially being one of the worried well, or - much worse - of being paranoid and essentially a hypochondriac...

don't be surprised if - despite your incredible discoveries long dismissed as ridiculous by the medical fraternity - they revert quickly to putting you in your place - i.e. that of being one of the ignorant proles (as - in an interesting ironic twist, as per our discussion here upon being differentiated from the medical intelligentsia - that ingenious writer George Orwell 'shorthanded' the proletarian masses  in his classic 1984); who (i.e. said masses) are actually, and very fortunately - as his main character Winston Smith soon enough discovers - by this very happenstance of fate thus removed from some of the more blatant indoctrination accruing to the general population of Oceania...

...i.e. someone who knows nothing, zilch, zip about health matters in general much less one's own health situation in particular...

...one all so easily, and frequently, fobbed off not only with such, but with curt, know-it-all responses, almost indignant reactions to perfectly legitimate and reasonable enough queries and questions...

...letting you know in no uncertain terms just where you really, actually stand upon the healthcare pedestal, i.e. on the very bottom-most rung, veritably like the medieval feudal serf who must wait hand and fist upon his (or her) master - or mistress - in the vain hope that just occasionally such may happen to mercifully drop a few morsels of their God-given bounty in your particular direction...

...for which you're expected to be exceedingly grateful and put your head effectively in your hands declaring "Yes sir"/"Yes ma'am" - "No ma'am"/"No sir"..."three bags full, sir/ma'am"...

All apparently so they can maintain their esteemed position of 'top dog' upon the healthcare heirarchy.

Yes, welcome to the future, I mean, back to the - distant - past of the master and his/her slave, grateful for just a look of sympathy in one's particular direction if it so happened to suit the superior class...for, after all, are they not 'God's gift to humanity'...?

Yes, welcome to the real world of modern Western medicine, which considers itself omniscient yet actually knows a whole lot less than it cares to believe...

...though it, quite frankly, could care less...

...Has almost always, even inevitably been, a great, unmitigated blessing in disguise...

And so what finally 'broke the puzzle' for me, as to the identity of this 'mystery ingredient' (i.e. necessary trace mineral) in my diet?

Eventually, after two decades plus of owning it, getting around to (re-)reading (or possibly even perusing for the very first time) a fantastic-looking and -sounding little booklet, Healing Foods from the Bible, that, oddly enough, I happened to pick up at a local grocer (equivalent of kiwi corner store, dairy or (in olden times) 'milkbar') - the last sort of thing one would stumble across in such a shop in NZ...though it was around 24-25 years ago, admittedly...whilst living in Minnesota's *'Twin Cities'...

And when I came to the eighth of these seventeen odd foodstuffs, 'grapes', within moments I read these amazing words:

Regrettably, and after quoting an entire (largish) paragraph (just now), I decide to check the copyright instructions at the book's front, and read this prohibition:

**Reproduction in whole or part of any Globe Digest TM without written authorization is prohibited.

So, so much for that! Anyhow, in case you're still in suspense, ***boron is the age-old 'mystery' mineral, and is clearly found in 'grape-stuffs', whether they be plain ole grapes, the pure, unfermented biblical 'new wine' of grape juice, raisins or white and red wine. And an appreciable amount evidently too.

At which point a whole lot of things 'clicked' for me, in particular the (seeming) obsession these days with a thing/substance called 'resveratrol', which is derived from grapes and/or their seeds...as well as peanuts...and about which all manner of incredible, even seemingly outrageous claims are regularly made.

And though E G White rightly warns against alcoholic beverages for all their well-known health risks, it's at least true that via boron they thus provide ye average citizen throughout the world with some handy built-in protection against at least one major scourge of the (at least Western) aging process.

Nuff said for now whilst I seek out the necessary copyright approvals, the lack thereof having inadvertently taken the wind clean out of my sails for the foreseeable...

*I.e. Minneapolis-St Paul, the childhood home of my Mum.

**Assuming, naturally enough, that GD aren't averse to my quoting that proviso/stipulation.

*** (Ditto to the immediately prior footnote, plus): Or to my merely giving the guts of the insight.

Part Two (Days and weeks on/August 23rd in fact): [Necessary Disclaimer]

Having - admittedly taken my good time in (the process of) - done my level best in seeking to secure the relevant copyright approvals involved...I'm giving up...-hey, apart from there being no email address full-stop let alone any suitable one; much less - as I discovered this morning - any physical address of either Global Communications Corporation or Global Digest in Boca raton, Florida - or specifically the actual phone number in America I was trying (from online info provided) and/or seeking (when this proved unavailing)...

...and the - exceedingly polite and moreover helpful - relevant '018' call centre lady not even finding any actual physical address much less phone number throughout the USA for either 'outfit'...

...let me simply say I'm gonna plough on ahead and write up what I'd originally, initially intended to ...until stopped in my tracks by an ever over-wrought and super-sensitive conscience/ conscientiousness which has verily afflicted me from the earliest moments of life through to this very day...

...understanding from many copyright conversations with the relevant local folk in times gone by that perfection isn't required so much as real, genuine effort to seek out those responsible for the particular copyright involved...

To Be Continued...hopefully in a few minutes! ...or, perhaps - not! 

...I've inadvertently, serendipitously, 'coincidentally' stumbled across...throughout the last decade especially...

Part Two: The Missing Mineral in my Diet

So how did I realize what was doubtless at very least one major contributor to the intense, bone-wracking episodic pain in my upper shoulders/nape of neck that has periodically afflicted me in most recent, but thankfully not in the most recent, winter/s, here in my hometown of Dunedin?

By (haphazard) 'trial and error', however cliche-ridden that might sound...

Having, post-diagnosis with coeliac disease back in mid-2009, to pretty well immediately focus upon a nutrient-rich, vitamin-and mineral boosting to my ordinary dietary regime - especially by the use of supplementation, which, in this instance, was not, as per usual, frowned upon - there was one especial trace mineral that intrigued me; normally being associated with an acid one would assume was not especially healthful: hold on, all will shortly be revealed...

Realizing that these incidents of periodic neuralgia usually only tended to occur in the depths of bone-chilling midwinter - although one such memorable incident admittedly did occur, early January I believe, during the height of one of our most recent very unseasonably warm summers - I was able to somehow or other place this fact alongside my attention and due diligence to minerals which assisted my bones (and teeth), especially, naturally enough, in the backwash of my diagnosis with osteopenia, a variety of osteomalacia, not long after my diagnosis with coeliac's disease...

Though I cannot at this point in time recall precisely the name of the woman  - a retired New York Professor of some description, I don't believe in the health field itself - who has been running an 'osteopenia' website, and has been sending me (via the web) e-newsletters ever since - who got me really thinking in earnest about this condition, post- my diagnosis with the same in late 2009, or early 2010,

I combined this with the very useful guff Adelle Davis had long provided c/o such classics as Let's Eat Right To Keep Fit, on the well-established importance of and interrelationships between calcium, phosphorous and magnesium especially...alongside those of potassium and sodium...

and then, though I'd intermittently been using (in special supplementation) the particular mysterious mineral I've been alluding to, due to both cost and my lack of 'convincement' of its efficacy - that it was really 'doing the trick' - my interest and use thereof had/has periodically waxed and waned, lapsed and then suddenly been renewed...

The clincher for me came when I mentally combined the periodic bouts of neuralgia with my realization that during those 'seasons' (of my life) - usually wintry outbreaks - I seldom used grape juice; concentrating instead during the colder months - in Dunedin usually the last week-and-a-half in May through September - upon various (true fruit, not merely fruit-flavoured sugar water) juices: such as orange, tomato, pineapple...

Recalling the words of another great nutritionist, like Ms Davis streets and streaks and light years, even aeons, ahead of so many others - the redoubtable Ellen Gould White who left this earthly sojourn a good 103-104 years ago - vis-a-vis the 'efficacy' of both eggs and grape juice...their each containing certain substances (naturally enough significantly different in each instance) which were highly beneficial to human life and limb...

One day, finally stumbling upon a long-neglected but ever-tantalizing tome amidst my vast horde of books, which was about 'Foods Found in the Bible', I read about the long-known benefits of grape juice, considered to have this particular highly useful trace mineral...

...which I'll inform you about in my final Part Three to shortly follow...

...has come (about) through some hard (personal) slog, no thanks to ye orthodox medical fraternity...

...such as my *'awesome' discovery of the importance of a certain trace mineral (long promoted by all good health stores everywhere) in my diet...

...I'll inform you about, if you can stand the suspense, in a day or two...

The following day:

So where do, where can, where should I start...?

Let's just say, having experienced intermittent but fairly longish (as in of a couple weeks' duration)  bouts of ***what's apparently known as neuralgia...the name/term discovered or rather re-discovered this very morning... -N.B. over most if not all preceding years over the past decade anyhow - it's now well and truly vanished...and no, I won't touch wood and all the rest, but need to beware of speaking too soon...

...but not in the way specified in my footnotes below, i.e. c/o osteopathy, but through a trace mineral.

Understandably...to be continued (again) in the not too distant...

*Much as I hate, no, detest, no, absolutely loathe the way in which this once **perfectly respectable, even positively useful and meaningful term has of recent times come into endless misuse and abuse - especially, sad to say, from otherwise **perfectly well-meaning church folk...

**Employed twice within this selfsame sentence as I simply cannot think of a more perfectly fitting word.

***Which term I've encountered off and on over the years, though never once suggested even as a possible explanation for my on-again, off-again severe neck/upper shoulder pain experienced especially throughout the  seemingly long and never-ending days and especially nights of a ****normal Dunedin winter... And rediscovered at long last - this very day in fact - c/o my ongoing 'ocd', on the shelves of the outside 'giveaway' book collection next to the library of a local seminary.

On page(s) 182(-183) of Jill Morgan's A Man of the Word: Life of G. Campbell Morgan, she relates how Morgan 's 'brain fatigue resulted in neuralgic pain, sometimes becoming unbearably intense', leading eventually to his pursuit of osteopathic treatment - 'new in those days, and almost unknown in England'. The skillful services of an expert in the 'science' 'completed Dr Morgan's conversion to the efficacy of osteopathy', which he thereafter 'introduced to many people by his enthusiastic endorsement of Dr [FJ] Horn.'

'Among [these were] members of the peerage (read: British Upper House, or House of Lords) whose influence (at least then!) was widespread. It is safe to affirm that Dr. Morgan helped to a considerable degree to strengthen osteopathy's early foothold in England', using it 'all his life...and recommend[ing] it to others'.

****Admittedly less and less common over recent years and decades, though usually we still do get a 'good' week or two of basic, cold, if thankfully generally calm, dry, sunny, fine & frosty weather...