Mindconnection eNL, 2008-08-10

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An emerging nonsolution to this problem in the USA is denial. Which is why we are seeing 300 lb women wearing black Spandex outfits. In public. Men, too!

Why not just solve for the root cause and not have the problem in the first place? Mindconnection has a course that will cure you of the urge to pig out.

When you can't accurately judge when you've had enough to eat, or what a sensible portion size is even before you eat, you almost surely have a compulsive overeating condition.

If your body is too fat (people inaccurately say "overweight," when what they mean is they have too much additional body fat), then consider this. You did not get that way overnight. You got that way one bite or spoonful at a time. In other words, you consistently overate. And you did this for an extended time. That means you are suffering from a learned behavior. You can unlearn this behavior, and this course will take you through the steps of doing exactly that. That learned behavior, by the way, is an obsessive behavior.

In countries where excessive body fat is normal (e.g., the USA), people are usually in denial. One self-proclaimed life extension expert wrote a book detailing his philosophy. He gave his body fat percentage and called that "ideal,' when in fact it was nearly double what is healthy in an adult male.

If you're considering this course, you have already broken the chains of delusion to acknowledge that you have a problem. And you are doing something about it. This says something about you, and what you should be hearing about now is very positive.

So now you need to understand what is driving that compulsive eating. Basically, it's a maladaptive, self-defeating, self-degrading obsessive behavior. The good news is you can change all that. Permanently. Click the piggy picture above, and take control of your eating patterns so you never again suffer from the overeating compulsion.

Smart people are keenly aware of the stupidity epidemic. We feel it in hundreds of small, frustrating ways. We also see it in huge consequences. We can't directly cure others, but we can prevent ourselves from becoming infected. Therein lies our hope for future generations.

People don't suddenly come down with stupidity syndrome. Stupidity takes over gradually, through a series of small changes. These changes slowly rewire the brain over time. People who are becoming stupid don't notice the process. You can find ample information on this process in the current literature. Studies of brain plasticity will probably produce the most relevant information.

Some books I recommend are:

• https://www.mindconnection.com/books/distracted.htm
• https://www.mindconnection.com/books/thebrainthatchangesitself.htm
• https://www.mindconnection.com/books/thenewbrain.htm

To keep your mind sharp, you have to keep doing what you are doing. That may not seem like much of a tip, but it really is one. The reason it's such great advice is you are the sum of what you do. You are not smart by accident. Stupidity doesn't happen by accident either, but through carelessness.

Just as it is much easier for a millionaire to become penniless (s/he can just give it all away) than it is for a penniless person to become a millionaire, so it is much easier for a smart person to become stupid than for a stupid person to rise out of stupidity. This is why you must protect what you have. If you lose it, the difficulty of getting it back might mean you've lost it forever.

I'm not advising that you be inflexible. I am saying you should be on guard for those small things that sow the seeds of stupidity. For example:

• It may seem harmless to stay up late and "catch up" on the weekend. A small thing. The reality is you can't catch up on sleep that way, and your intelligence is diminished to the extent you do this. A person with an average IQ who engages in this one practice drops to moron level. This is why it seems there are so many morons--there actually are. They are self-made morons.
   
• Tossing that junkfood in your shopping cart "this one time" can't hurt, can it? A small thing. But each time you break a barrier it becomes easier to go deeper into bad practices. That first toss of junk into the cart leads you to completely underfuel your mind and body a year later.
   
• A little television is relaxing, right? But that 30 minute sitcom is 30 minutes of mindlessness along with the brainwashing advertisements. That's 30 minutes of negative brain rewiring. You could have been reading a book for 30 minutes and rewiring in the other direction.
   
• You slip into clichés and acronym-speak "just around the office." How long before this nonthinking, noncommunicating stupidity creeps into other areas of your life? Hint: think in terms of days, not years.

Here's another tip on preventing stupidity, but exercise it with caution. Avoid getting to the point where your circle of friends all think the same way you do. One the one hand, you want healthy disagreement. Respect the fact that there's more than one correct way to look at things. The danger here is you don't want to suffer undue influence from people who don't think.

If the other person's viewpoint can be logically derived from supportable facts, that doesn't mean it's mutually exclusive to your viewpoint. Neither of you has to change viewpoints to remain friends or even to discuss the issue. But when the other person is dogmatic in the face of overwhelming contrary evidence, then you are in the danger zone and need to consider whether this person is intellectually toxic.

There are two exceptions to this approach, and they are politics and religion--neither of which is based on fact. Lest I sound politically incorrect on the first topic and heretical on the second, note that politicians often say they have to compromise (necessarily not basing the outcome on the actual facts and merits) and religious leaders talk about faith. I think few would argue that the Apostle Paul was a religious leader. His treatise on faith is often read at weddings. Paul said faith is the evidence, meaning faith takes the place of facts. His whole religious view was based on this concept.

When it comes to politics and religion, the beliefs are what they are. They are based on faith, not fact. That's neither good nor bad, it just is.

But in the Mindconnection eNL, there are repeated admonitions about not voting Demopublican. Does that not conflict with what was just said? No. Those admonitions arise from the enormous damage done by the Demopublican Party. We are facing, for example, a national debt of nearly $10 trillion and it is pushing our economic system into collapse. There are times when we have to set opinions aside and deal with reality. In our elections, that time is now.

If you want to pretend there is any real difference between the Democrats who steal our money (and hand it over to their lobbyist employers) and the Republicans who steal our money (and hand it over to their lobbyist employers), that's your choice. Some people prefer the Crips to the Bloods or the Genoveses to the Gambonis. Please express such preferences somewhere other than the ballot.

The Demopublicans have destroyed half the value of the dollar in the last 10 years. And they have done that to transfer wealth to their employers. Such an illegal transfer is defined as "stealing." By federal law, it's a felony to steal over $500. These folks are felons. Vote accordingly.

But, I digress. For a view into:

• how stupidity gets past our protective mechanisms, read https://www.mindconnection.com/books/mindlessslogans.htm
• how denial prevents stopping stupidity, read https://www.mindconnection.com/books/mistakesweremade.htm
• how stupidity becomes collective, read https://www.mindconnection.com/books/mobsmessiahsmarkets.htm
• one person's flamboyant attempts to address entrenched stupidity, read https://www.mindconnection.com/books/howtotalktoaliberal.htm

By some estimations, most Americans will see Tax Freedom Day for 2008 sometime late in 2027. Will it really be that soon?

The reason TFD is just a pipe dream now is that money does not grow on trees and the trillions of dollars that members of CONgress pass to their de facto employers (clients of lobbyists) defines your actual tax burden. The only fix for this is to refuse to vote Demopublican.

Sadly, many people believe they are wasting their vote unless they vote Demopublican. In other words, they think they must use their vote to say "please keep the same bunch of crooks in so they can keep robbing me blind" or somehow it doesn't count. Earlier this year, we had 9.4 trillion reasons why that "logic" fails and it's gotten worse since then.

But you've heard that before. So, let's move on to another kind of expense. It's minor, but at least you can do something about it.

One of the most perfect foods for humans is the chicken egg. I eat quite a few of these (normally half a dozen a day). I have a cholesterol profile that causes doctors to ask, "How did you do that?" Note: eating eggs does not give you cholesterol problems. Exactly the opposite, if you eat the right kind of egg.

The eggs I eat are free range eggs. As a kid, I used to pick the eggs up right from under the hens. Those were cooped birds, not free range. But they had plenty of room and were basically happy (they just didn't like that annoying kid stealing their eggs--where's that rooster when you need him?).

In the grocery store, you'll see those cheap medical bill-inducing factory eggs, laid by stressed out chickens that live in little 2x2 cages stacked 10 high (I feel sorry for the bird at the bottom--she gets all the crap!). Those eggs contain all the stress hormones and none of the omega three oil that is abundant in the eggs of properly fed and cared for birds. You can taste the difference.

The problem with decent eggs is that, while they cost far less in the long run than the ruined-taste cheap eggs, they cost more at the cash register. Many stores now sell egg flats. A flat of eggs will have some number, such as 2.5 dozen or 3 dozen. You can save the cardboard cartons from your previous dozen egg cartons and just transfer the eggs from the flat to the cartons for convenience. So, you save a little bit on eggs each week.

Another tip here is those cartons are made of unbleached cardboard. As mine age a bit, I tear them up and compost them. They compost just fine, and the earthworms love them. Composting helps build wonderful soil, and it's cheaper than chemical fertilizers. If you grow tomatoes, the taste of the tomato will reveal whether you composted or used chemical fertilizers.

Oops. There I go again. I tried to change the subject away from CONgress and all their BS, and I ended up talking about fertilizer anyhow.

http://www.break.com/index/hands-free-safe-drivers.html?ref=track35

Whether you have disease care insurance or not, the information in the article below is relevant. Follow the advice in it, and you reduce your "health care" costs.

http://www.supplecity.com/articles/healthcare.htm

1. Dentists have recommended that a toothbrush be kept at least six (6) feet away from a toilet to avoid airborne particles resulting from the flush. Experts have found there is no safe distance from which you won't have "flush particles" in your brain from watching television. You have to shut it off.
    

2. We don't run ads in our newsletter. We do get inquiries from advertisers, all the time. To keep this eNL coming, go to www.mindconnection.com and do your shopping from there (as appropriate).
    

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