Decay Management

I have weird feelings about the concept of health. Don't get me wrong, not dieing is grand, I spend most of my time doing it, but there is a difference between wanting to lead a full life and frantically trying to avoid the looming spectre of entropy that shall lead us all one day into the Void. I'm not talking about the people who work out a couple of times a week, or jog to keep healthy and clear their head. I'm talking about the people who make "fitness" part of their identity, the people who try to keep up with what ever is passing for a healthy diet that day, people who seem to judge others for their prospective lifespan.

No one wins at life, not really. You might do well in a societal sense; monetary success, social standing, strong community presence, and those things are as good as any accomplishment. Then you die. We all die eventually, and other than the highly contextual impact on humankind in general and the very rare and probably temporary effect on the physical world we leave nothing behind except what we've done to those around us. This is a good thing, whether we want to admit it or not. At the very least our society wouldn't ever be able to hold up to the constant onslaught of "meaningful" lives. If everyone left a lasting imprint in society, or humanity, or nature we would be buried either in constant (probably conflicting) revolutionary changes or the ceaseless torrent of somehow crucial banality of billions of quiet lives slowly crushing the collective human soul with the sheer weight of its loss.

Some people forget this, or at least never really consider it. They fear carcinogens, they avoid "unhealthy" foods based on faddish buzzwords and misunderstood science. They shame and dehumanize people based on what they consider to be unhealthy. We've seen it happen to fat people, smokers, people who drink. Smokers I almost understand, second hand smoke can be pretty fucked up, its inflicting your vice on others which is not alright. Here's a list of things in second hand smoke, and here's what is in car exhaust, oh and here are some of the effects of being in the sun. No one gets out alive, really, most of us leave this place afraid and alone. When you face down that fact does it really matter to you how someone else gets through it as long as they aren't trying to hurt anyone else? It's all poison; some of it, like food, is poison that can keep you alive until it kills you. Some of it, like alcohol, is poison that can kill you faster, but might make all of the ridiculous bullshit we put each other through everyday a little easier to bear. We spend our entire lives walking into our graves so giving people shit for trying to enjoy the funeral march is pretty fucking low. Being healthy is great and all, but nothing gives you the right to be a dick.