Part 4: The Mind

Part 4: The Mind

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There are other skill sets to discuss.

Health sounds like either a lot of sweating or a lot of untasty and hard-to-chew food. It can be that. It can be the best you can do, as you can do it. It can be a root vegetable juice in the morning to fight the inflammation of life's toxins, both chemical and psychological. It can be as simple as a Jamba three times a week — the healthy one that tastes good and isn't basically a dessert smoothie.

Whatever little things, or major things, you do in terms of Self Health Care, do these things, or more: drink your cold-pressed veggies instead of getting them fried — get a cold-press juicer, add beets, ginger, turmeric, carrot, and a touch of apple or pear to sweeten. Get your heart rate over 122 for 22 minutes a day (assuming you have no comorbidities). And grow as much of your own vegetables and fruit as you can, whether you're in a double-wide or a downtown high-rise.

If it's a chore, then it's a chore, but you best master that chore. Only got time to grow one tomato plant and then one squash plant and then one pumpkin? Do that, then. The point is this: similar to the humble confidence that comes from feeling safe because you train to survive a fight — knowing that you know how to grow your food, even if you never have to actually live off of it, gives you a sense of wellbeing that empowers you psychologically and metaphysically. As in, your feelings of destiny, free will, universal good. Become kind of a geek about it. Get your soil analyzed. Make your own worm tea. Email experts about strange spots on your Japanese eggplant.

Before you practice that Judgment we were talking about earlier, there's one more thing. Let go of the "body-mind-spirit" trap.

We are body and mind. We are mind and spirit — or soul, or essence, or what-have-you. When you tend to the health of the body, the brain (the hardware) included, you are tending to the health of the mind by tending to the health of the brain. You must also tend to the mind so that the spirit and the soul can be healthy.

Healthy Body = Healthy Brain. Healthy Mind = Healthy Soul.

A mind filled with the Great Ideas, tended with good advice, thrilling mysteries, and the occasional self-help book that just somehow makes sense and helps you deal with grief or nihilism or something much lighter — the mind becomes a fertile place for the soul to grow and to glow.

Where is all that preamble leading?

To the ever-so-simplistic advice: Read.

Read for fun, sure. I love Dune, and The Hobbit, and The Screwtape Letters (that book is so not what C.S. Lewis thought it was, or it is exactly what he wanted it to be — it's just great). But also read The Great Conversation and books for your path.

The Great Conversation will be covered, also at length, later and throughout. But it's those other books — the books for your path — we'll discuss here.

Are you a county clerk? Read a book a year about everything from the history of county clerks in the U.S. to the bylaws of your county. Just something related to your context. Maybe there's not a book a year for that content, but you can extend it to your church, your union chapter, something. I know of an engineer who was always studying old ways of building things and came across an idea to integrate earthworks with permaculture guilds. He attributed his breakthrough to something he'd read in a very old text. We may not all change an industry, but we can change our lives.

Read a book a week when you can. At least a book a month. Don't get locked into a genre. Read autobiographies for sure, and posthumous biographies. Living biographies are usually filled with lies and deceptions.