Homeostasis

I like the word sustainable and this other word homeostasis popped up in my consciousness recently. You already know homeostasis is synonymous with balance and it’s word associated with health, at least in my wacky vocabulary.

More often than not we are moving from crisis to crisis. One drama or problem after another. Another unexpected bill or expense another thing that disturbs us from our state of rest(if we can get it). Never a moment where everything is in its proper place and calm. This just raises our stress levels and causes us in effect to become ill. It also causes us to loose discipline as we try to treat our stress with self medication, that may turn into abuse, whether food, drugs or other.

I believe minimalism to be a great way to eliminate a good chunk of the many variables that come our way. Minimalism is mostly referred to as a way of saving money but that is only one of the many benefits. It also lowers the amount of worry and stress. The more stuff you have to deal with the less rested you are.

The human body, in relation to digestion for example is minimalist in my opinion. When we eat, the body extracts the nutrients and eliminates the excess. If we are constantly accumulating stuff and bills and stresses and disturbances it is in effect a body that is eating but not eliminating waste. We hoard things that we may never use, people that are useless(or harmful) and stuff we may not want. Its constipation.

Accept it or not, we are heavily influenced by our environment, social circles. Remember watching Saturday morning cartoons and the toys that used to be advertised. That is how you knew what toys you wanted for Christmas. The desire for the stuff was implanted into your head. Likewise your friends may tell you about this new stuff or exercise or diet they are on. This is a thought implanted into you to now investigate if not try whatever you discussed. Recently I watched a documentary called Drugs Inc, where in one episode a musician who himself was a MDMA user said that many of his fans revealed to him that they became MDMA users because the musician mentioned it in his songs. So that was an example of how those fans increased the disorder in their lives by bringing in more stuff. Stuff that they acquired because they were influenced.

I wrote a post yesterday about Miley Cyrus who in her music also referred to Molly which is a colloquial for MDMA. Being a celebrity means dealing with a lot of stuff, people, money, appointments, contracts, obligations etc. So its understandable how they could happen to self medicate to the point of abuse. Amy Winehouse, Janis Joplin, Jim Belushi, Heath Ledger, Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, etc. Nothing is absolute as in the same documentary I mentioned there were homeless people who had nothing in terms of material possession that were self medicating, but their situation may have devolved from a state where they had much and lost it due to choosing the wrong cooping mechanism namely drugs. I don’t specifically want to discuss psychotropic drugs but I do want to mention that they can cause mental illness. There are many other things we use to cope but ultimately it involves consumption or practice(for lack of a better word).

Excess is abusive to the self because it causes illness as mentioned above. Minimalism can help us to put bigger spaces between the crises, have all our bills in order, reduce our impulse to self medicate. How does this relate to dating and relationships. Well the longest relationship you will have is with yourself, so understandably you want to treat yourself well. Eliminating the excess is a path to wellness.