A question, and a few answers

What is Health?
Isn’t this easy to answer? What a stupid question? Well, not quite.
There have been many definitions proposed over time, and health is linked to human ‘existence’ and activity in ways not always so obvious. One of my good old friends once told me: “Health and stupidity always go together.” I wouldn’t want to go that far, but it is obvious that particularly creative human beings seem to go through many and often very painful steps of crisis and suffering.
The health definition offered by Wikipedia (below) in a bundle of arguments are a little abstract, hence not so sure how useful they are :

“Health is the level of functional or metabolic efficiency of a living being. In humans, it is the general condition of a person's mind and body, usually meaning to be free from illness, injury or pain (as in "good health" or "healthy").The World Health Organization(WHO) defined health in its broader sense in 1946 as "a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity." Although this definition has been subject to controversy, in particular as lacking operational value, and because of the problem created by use of the word "complete," it remains the most enduring. Other definitions have been proposed, among which a recent definition that correlates health and personal satisfaction. Classification systems such as the WHO Family of International Classifications, including the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) and the International Classification of Diseases (ICD), are commonly used to define and measure the components of health.”

Hence, let’s try to look from the other end. After the years of childhood and adolescence, body and mind (often somewhat delayed) reach a level of full operation. From there, a level of gradual decay takes place, in which the body gradually loses functionality – total or partially, a process ending with death. Psychic (often wrongly called psychological) well-being is not necessarily correlated to physical well-being, given our mental/ emotional/ spiritual life is connected to other beings as well as to the body.

For most people, disease depresses happiness.

Accordingly, health could be defined as a state, in which the body’s decay is, at least in superficial appearance, camouflaged and/or perhaps minimized over a confined period of time. This may or may not go along with a sense of well-being

Accordingly, health could be defined as:

“ A temporary positive deviation from the physical decline curve leading from adolescence to death, which at times is accompanied by a sense of mental/emotional happiness.”

This sounds negative, though I would call it reality. In the end, it may be better to work with reality and not building one's life on illusions. How can we get a positive spin from this?

If our health is a decline curve, our goal should be to stabilize the decline
in ways that our physical and mental capacities remain intact until the very end. This could mean a strategy of 'less intake rather than more,' given that the body's capacity to metabolize food decreases as well. Perhaps, the key of relative happiness lies in mindfully cutting back, reducing our needs and dependencies from the outside world, whilst orienting oneself to eternity.

© 2013 by Franz L Kessler