Posted by Hombre on August 4, 2010, at 21:09:41
In reply to Re: Where to Start?, posted by Steve Q on August 4, 2010, at 10:05:44
I thought of this as I saw an old Chinese lady burning ceremonial money for her ancestors, a common practice in Chinese communities.
Energy production is like maintaining a fire. Food, rest and exercise build up the woodpile. You want the best wood you can get, so you eat the best food. Your metabolism is what turns the wood into energy. It is the fire. As long as you have a good amount of large logs and a large enough flame, the fire will stay burning with a strong, steady burn.
When the wood gets low, the flame will start to decrease. Normally, we eat our meals, take a good rest, and the next day we have enough wood to make it through another day. We can't let the fire go out completely, though, and even when we sleep the fire glows and our body continues to recover and process.
If we use stimulants it's like throwing lighter fluid or paper on the fire. We may get a nice big flare up of energy, but if there is no wood left the fire will quickly burn out. Hence "burn out".
Junk food and lack of exercise/rest (stimulus/adaptation) put artificial wood on the fire. It may burn OK, but it releases lots of noxious fumes and a chemical residue. We wouldn't want to grill over this fire or sit too close to it.
Herbs come into play if our wood and fire are out of whack. Our wood may be good, but it is too wet or too "cold". Or perhaps we are not able to cut the wood properly and get all sorts of misshapen logs that are too big, too small, not conducive to burning. We may need herbs to coax our body to process the wood correctly so it will burn steadily.
If you really want to get down to it, we also need to take care of the trees that we eventually use to make firewood. Supplements, herbs, and lifestyle are factors that influence the health of the tree and ultimately whether or not it will make good firewood. These are more long-term factors, but we cannot deny that they eventually affect our internal fire and energy.
I hope this metaphor is useful.
poster:Hombre
thread:956799
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/alter/20100703/msgs/957240.html