We tend to be a people of grand flourishes. We build to the big game – and it is over in a shot. We talk politics and spend billions – then discard the candidates like yesterday’s fish. We celebrate life’s milestones with pomp and circumstance – all the while ignoring the beauty of the commonplace and every day. To be sure, some events warrant special attention. One might look at the sky a million times and only see an eclipse once in a lifetime. But is the sky more beautiful during this rare celestial phenomena or more so on a typical, even ordinary, sunny morning? Do we order our lives too much for the exception and therein fail to recognize the wonder that surrounds us in the conventional and routine?
As my body continues to remind me of its advancing years, websites dedicated to lasting and preserving good health have become more a part of the internet surfing routine. The advice found ranges from the inordinately complex to the sublimely simply. There is an abundant array of potions, treatments, books and brews designed to improve our lives; and, I suspect, lighten our wallets. While many of these add benefits, my suspicious and thrifty nature prevents a full embrace.
At the spectrum’s other extreme, comes the relaxed almost folksy direction to simply eat no more than one’s body (per age, gender, and activity) can reasonably be expected to digest. Could it all be this easy? The old English proverb dictates, “Ait a happle avore gwain to bed, An’ you’ll make the doctor beg his bread.” Wouldn’t it be glorious if true? Eat an apple a day, and keep the doctor away! Really? I even like apples. Is it in the routine, consistent acts of caring for ourselves that we will find longest heath?