Can Saving Money or Possessions Threaten Your Happiness and Comfort?
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Author Archives: Bonnie McCune
Talk Is Cheap and We Get What We Pay For
Like the weather or football, when health’s the topic, we always have something to talk about. Especially as we mature. One stereotype of aging is that people talk more and more about their health, and not in a good or positive way. Apparently, we drone on to the point of boring our listeners. Why? Two possibilities: health preoccupies our time and our thoughts to a greater degree, or because we have fewer other interests.
Decades ago, after suffering through regular rounds of extreme boredom at family gatherings during which senior relatives delivered lectures about symptoms and treatments, I and my friends took oaths decades never to prattle on and on about our ills. In our smug superiority, this was our promise, yet our practice nowadays is to rush into a room with a litany of languishes. This doesn’t improve our conditions, it certainly fails the test of conversational interests, yet each of us can’t wait for the other to yield the floor so we can launch into our personal spiel. I know one woman who complains frequently about older friends that discuss health to exclusion of nearly every subject. When done with this, she promptly indulges in a recitation of every ache and each therapy she’s undergone in the past several months.
Why do we do this? None of us are doctors, so we can’t diagnose or relieve or provide a service, although we’re never prevented from expressing our opinions. In fact, we usually wind up trotting out every particle of information or opinion we’ve stumbled over related to a health condition. These may be contradictory, erroneous, or pea-brained. Makes no difference. Still fascinating. To us if not you.
Perhaps in this manner we enhance our friendships. Or air our secret fears. Or simply pass the time in a more appealing fashion than discussing the climate. However there should be limits. When someone complains of indigestion, surely no more than five or ten theories as to cause and effect are reasonable to explore in casual conversation. Apparently not. Gluten, wheat sensitivity, irritable bowel syndrome, gastritis, appendicitis, acid reflux, lack of probiotics, food poisoning, various cancers, autoimmunity offer some of the possibilities. Every person we know has experienced one of these at some point. Even if not currently suffering from some ill, the equally interesting aspect of what we’ve done that’s led to our status.
Many suggestions (dare I say too many?) about what to do, what’s good, what’s a cure-all eat up as much chatter as complaints themselves. I’ve known supporters for a particular diet, say macrobiotic trot out an entire grocery list and menu plan, then threaten me with disaster if I don’t comply with their belief. Because health connects to all aspects of life, debates quickly expand to incorporate economics, government, art, and psychology, even death, because everyone dies from something.
My primary quarrel with heath as a topic of conversation lies in its tedium. People simply won’t turn off their repetitive, monotonous, self-centered spiels. I want to yell, “Someone turn on Wheel of Fortune!” I’m nearly ready to plead for politics as a replacement. Equally boring, but at least people get angry, hot under the collar, so the energy flows, and we just might be exposed to a new idea.
A COVER NOW REVEALED
ANNOUNCING MY NEW BOOK, NEVER RETREAT, TO BE PUBLISHED IN MARCH 2018, BY Imajin Books. A feisty single mom clashes with an ex-military, macho corporate star at a business retreat in the wild Colorado mountains, where only one can win a huge prize. But when a massive flood imperils their love and survival, they learn the meaning of true partnership.
I’ll be organizing some give-aways as well as the opportunity to receive a e-copy for those interested in preparing reader reviews for online sites. Contact me at Bonnie@BonnieMcCune.com if you’re interested.
Rocky Mountain High at an Advanced Age: a short and successful journey to pot use
I’ve been an anti-drug advocate for eons. It’s probably because I feel my grip on reality is so tenuous, if I started using, I’d be dependent. I also have seen the impact of drug abuse on friends and relatives, even worse the tangled, chaotic, destructive pain they dump on their supposed loved-ones.
Yet count me in the ones who advocate de-criminalizing the stuff. It’s proven we’ve lost the War Against Drugs, and these efforts don’t make a dent in drug use. Their impact—ruining lots of lives with long prison sentences, raising taxes, splitting families.
This stance opened the door and my eyes to the use of marijuana. As campaigns to legalize the stuff spread, I began to learn about people who have been helped by their use—health concerns such as arthritis, epilepsy, cancer treatments.. I heard the scare tactics from decades ago, which created my intense paranoia about negative impacts, were very much blown out of proportion. Then my home state legalized use several years ago.
In what might be considered serendipity, I was suffering from an autoimmune condition that affected my legs. Discomfort, itchiness, restlessness kept me awake at night. My search for relief brought me to seven or nine kinds of skin creams and lotions, various over-the-counter pills, and sleep techniques, none of which really helped. During lunch with a friend, she mentioned she suffered from arthritis in her knees. Since she’s an avid hiker, she’d also been chasing a treatment that would enable her to continue her exercise. Turned out to be a marijuana cream and patches.
She accompanied me to a marijuana dispensary and helped me through my first meeting with a salesman. In a candid interchange, she told me what helped her and what I might consider. I walked out with a salve which turned out to relieve my aches and pains. Every person is different, and some aren’t helped. The treatment doesn’t cure me, isn’t uniformly effective, but does more than anything else has.
After my little sampling of this psychoactive drug, I’m most pleased to find that I’m capable of changing my mind. Many people, me included, feel the older you get, the more rigid you are. How you are at about 30 pretty much sets the pattern for the rest of your life, except you get more inflexible in your opinions. Not a good position to be in, for we all should be able to face new situations, learn new information, and adapt for our own benefit.
This is one old dog who’s learned a new trick.
The Power of the Mind
In my paranormal suspense novel, A Human Element, Laura Armstrong can perform telekinesis. What exactly is telekinesis? It’s the action of mind on matter, in which objects are caused to move as a result of mental concentration upon them. Is it science or fraud? Akin to seeing spirits or not? And if one believes in ghosts, are they inclined to believe in other paranormal phenomenon too, like telekinesis?
Another term grew from telekinesis: psychokinesis. PK, as it’s known, encompasses a wider group of mental force phenomena that telekinesis now falls under. Did you know that PK Parties were a cultural fad in the 1980s? Groups of people were guided through rituals and chants to awaken metal-bending powers, or perhaps it was just another excuse for a party! Either way, you can read about it from PK party founder, Jack Houck. Real or fake? You decide.
The psychokinesis phenomenon dates back to early history though. In The Bible, for example, Jesus is described as creating water into wine, healing the sick, and multiplying food. Let’s not forget it’s also in pop fiction today, like Stephen King’s Carrie. Hollywood gives us Poltergeist.
Ouija boards were also a PK fad. I had a frightening experience with one when I was eleven years old. A friend and I channeled an “evil spirit” through the board who levitated the Ouija’s movable indicator. The spirit told us to find a boulder in the woods with an “X” on it. That would be where we would find hidden green treasure. We found the boulder but the only green treasure we found was the angry, green icy flow of the raging creek that nearly swept us away that February day. That was my last attempt to play with a Ouija board. It scared the Devil out of me, literally it seemed!
Most scientists believe that the existence of telekinesis has not been convincingly demonstrated. I’m not sure what I believe, but I do think there are amazing discoveries about how the brain works to still be found. I do know I will never touch a Ouija board again.
My experience and my fascination with mental powers fueled the writing of my character of Laura Armstrong who can move objects with her mind.
I believe we can do so much more with our brain powers.
What do you believe?
P.S. I’m also giving away a $25 Amazon gift card below!
by Donna Galanti
Bonnie McCune, author 