Why is aging associated with ill health?

This automatic assumption that one will be always  "sick" when one crosses 50, 60, or whatever and , and will  need medication ... Where does that come from? 

The "modern" medical system has effectively ensured that. 

Medicines are meant to be taken when you are not well. Being "not well" is not a continuous condition. 

The human body is designed in such a way that we will always be well. There will be brief periods of illness when we need to pull back on activities, give the body some rest, maybe take some medicines, and allow it to recover. This is irrespective of age. 

The default condition for the human body is wellness, not illness. Modern lifestyles, food lobbies, and Pharma mafias have ensured that the reverse is the case

Review of Archies

Just saw Archies on Netflix.

An OTT only movie directed by Zoya Akhtar, it is surprisingly watchable. 

The three leading characters , Archie, Veronica and Betty are played respectively by: 

Agastya  Nanda, grandson of Big B, 

Suhana Khan daughter of SRK, 

Khushi Kapoor, daughter of Sridevi 

Nepotism anyone? 

They all play 18 year olds in Riverdale, a fictional town in the hills of North India. Conveniently, they are all Anglo Indians, something that suits their upbringing and accents. 

For posh mamas and papas providing a launching pad to their laadlas and laadlis - the Archies brand, story and settings are ideal.

Like in the Archie comics, which people of my generation have read a lot of, the problems these kids face are not real world problems. They have their small little world and their small little problems, consisting of things like what to wear for the next party and why did Archie kiss that girl and not me.

The picture could as well have been titled Barbie World, for that is what the whole set ( the whole film is  shot on a set which is Riverdale village) looks like. 

Given that background, the kids fit right into their roles. It is unlikely they had to practice much to be the fun loving,  anglicised, detached from reality kind of teenagers that they are playing. A lot of current generation teenagers from SoBo and such areas will identify with them. 

The kids, being star kids, have obviously been through a lot of training in acting and dancing, especially dancing. They can really dance! The movie is made in the form of a Western musical, not very usual for an Indian movie.

The script is fairly trite, but when was the storyline ever important in an Archie comic? The director has done a good job of taking these kids through their paces, and keeping the screenplay fairly engaging throughout, with just that little bit of suspense about what will happen next. The sinister plot of Mr Lodge, conspiring with a local wannabe politician, to tear down the town's Central Park and to build a hotel there is thwarted by the kids, and they endear themselves to the whole town in that process. 

I don't know if these kids have it in them to make it big - very difficult to tell with this movie - but they all have done a fairly good job. Of the three, Suhana Khan is the most impressive. Khushi is kind of damp, and Agastya is good, like Abhishek, but also like Abhishek, seems to lack that extra something that say, a Big B has. 

In terms of acting, Mihir Ahuja who plays Jughead is good. Vedang Raina playing Reggie is eye candy material, I can imagine all the girls watching the movie swooning over him. 

On the whole the movie is a nice, light, entertainer. 

Worth a watch

See link below on side effects of vaccines, one of many such :

https://x.com/robinmonotti/status/1724195084051038576?t=KlPOD5Z4D184MpzcT_MDXQ&s=08

👆 this is just one of thousands of similar articles. Of a spate of side effects including sudden death caused by the vaccines. Even in India, which did not use mRNA. 

The conclusion is not that boosters are bad. 

The conclusion is not that mRNA vaccines are bad. 

The conclusion is not that we should believe these latest "medical" findings more than earlier ones. 

The conclusion is : 

All vaccines are bad.

The medical system is not to be trusted. 

Add to that, masking too. 

Not only are  vaccinations and masking not effective, they are extremely harmful. 

Where is the medical evidence for this you say? Even after all that has happened? The best way to spoil your health is by listening to the medical system.

And these conclusions are not based on hindsight, they are based on pure common sense, and proper understanding of health, both of which the medical system lack. 

Here is the link to my article in July 2020, even before the vaccines came on the scene.

I do not feel the need to change a single word even now

https://www.dineshgopalan.com/2020/07/corona-to-shelter-or-not-to-shelter_16.html

--
Dinesh Gopalan

mob: 9845257313; blog: http://www.dineshgopalan.com

On "experts" and their ilk

This link full of advice from HR experts is interesting: 

https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/business/hr-experts-warn-of-coffee-badging-as-employees-return-to-offices-11683761.html

It is interesting because it is a whole load of crap. 

Experts are of the opinion that...

Whenever I read that I switch off. Whatever subject the so called experts opine on, they will mess up. They will come up with a shit load of fancy sounding jargon, designed to show off their erudition and expertise; but the end result is that they invariably showcase their shallowness and vacuity.

The sole objective of "experts" is to confuse and confound, complicate and dissimulate, using a haze of words which leaves the reader in a daze. Which is precisely the effect that they are striving for. 

The net result of listening to experts in all areas of life is,

You spoil your health by listening to nutrition experts,

You never regain it by listening to doctors,

You complicate your work life by listening to HR,

You screw up your peace of mind by following what HR says,

You compromise on your fitness by listening to fitness experts,

Your relationships deteriorate further after following the counsellors' advice, 

You buy into toxic investments after listening to personal finance experts ... 

The list goes on. 

There is no substitute to common sense,

And there is no substitute to taking charge of your own life.

More and more it appears to me that if you want to lead a good life, you must stop listening to experts.

And why should you believe what I am saying?

Because I am not an expert, that's why. I proudly claim lack of expertise in every subject!

On modern hi tech mattresses

Oh, the needless complications of modern life... 

It's as basic an act as sleeping, which is as essential to us as eating or breathing.

They take that and convert it to esoteric mumbo jumbo. 

Modern lifestyles ensure that people find it increasingly difficult to sleep. Stressful jobs, addiction to screens, ignoring the biological clock, going against the circadian rhythm, faulty diets... The list of crimes that we commit against our own bodies is long. 

And then we don't get sleep. We obviously think that there is a magic pill that can solve the problem. We need better mattresses, is what we conclude.

Meanwhile, we are so unfit that we obviously have back problems. We conclude that our inability to bend and touch the floor is due to, you guessed it, a faulty mattress! 

Enter the mattress makers. They convince us that the answer lies in more and more "sophisticated" mattresses. And market them with such a seductive appeal that everyone gets more and more convinced that sophisticated mattresses are a necessity.

We don't realise it, but the moment we fall into that trap, we constrain our lives in several ways. Wherever we go, we need "good" mattresses to sleep on. That reduces the number of places we can go to, and it reduces the kind of things that we can do. 

So we constrain our lives further and further, with an ever constricting range of activities, coupled with  deep seated anxieties on that most basic of human functions, sleep. 

Meanwhile, the coolie at the railway station and the manual labourer at the construction site, work hard the entire day tiring tiring their  bodies out, eat a frugal meal in the evening, sleep on the bare ground, and get wonderful sleep. 

Oh, the ironies of life!

Sometimes, the solution to a problem lies in going in the exact opposite direction to which the world is going. Try this:

Buy a chataai, the old fashioned sleeping mat made of coir or grass or some such material. Spread it on the floor and go to sleep. 

I assure you you will never go back to sleeping on a mattress after that.