[Nancy]

Mara,

If one does not know the 7/12, they are still in the dark about laws of the universe which encompass everything, including eating and body balance. Many fail at life, due to lack of knowledge. My paraphrase from the good book, which also speaks of moderation in all things.

Whether living moderately or not, I can almost guarantee that all will experience great ups and downs in their life. Life has a way of reaching in -where you live- and getting to you. By where you live, I literally mean anything can happen to anyone, even those hiding out from life in their houses. Any place where a person is sensitive and needs growth, an experience can come along to create chaos, passion, great despair, life cataclysms. No one is safe. Life is not safe.

Actually, people become bored with a boring life and call out to their creator for something to happen, they call out in angst for their needs, and they are heard. Watch out what you pray for.

No one escapes from the experiences of love or death, or both. We are born into families and create our own families as adults. Whether we like the members of our families or not, we are inbred with love for them, and need them. There is always joy, pain, and heartache, sweet or not, in the human experience.

I don't worry about passion, having had plenty. I worry about my work in the world and whether I am utilizing my life to the fullest of my expectations. I agree that greatness achieved through suffering is a dream. It is a dangerous dream that can end with a foreshortened, unproductive life. Vincent Van Gogh had no choice. He was an unbalanced person suffering from manic-depression. He cut his own ear off during a time of craziness. He saw brilliant colors. Manic depressives see brilliant colors during the manic state. It is the tip of the iceberg of what is hidden from us during normal states of mind. Yet, I don't want to take psychedelics, do you? In the end, it dissipates life. That's just one example of a tortured soul who produced brilliant art.

Life is here to experience in all its fullness. I wish more parents were creating healthy bodies in their children, so that health wasn't eroded so fast, or never learned and kept at all.

A lot of life is a delusion, a dream. A relationship that appears on the horizon, is not all that one thinks it will be when its done. Much of life is like that. Hold onto reality. Have good experiences in life everyday, excessive dreaming is only excessive dreaming. Just thoughts, everyone has them. Solid accomplishments are more rewarding.

It seems that you have accomplished restoring your health. Funny that this is not done by extreme measures at all, but very simply. The simpler, the better.

Nancy