Too fat to move

An increasing number of United States’ citizens is too fat to be x-rayed. There is quite simply too much fat for the x-rays to penetrate. Not that the fact that this particular piece of technology won’t work on them is the greatest tragedy in existence, but it still says a lot. It is yet another symptom of a far worse condition: that of humanity distancing itself ever more from nature.

Sixty-four percent of United States’ citizens are considered fat, about one third obese, many so fat that they can hardly move. Beds must be reinforced to not collapse under the strain.

- The statistics will be even worse next time, if something dramatic isn’t done, and fast, James Hill, director of the Center for Human Nutrition at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center in Denver says.

And this situation is far from being unique to North America, but is more or less similar in all «developed» nations or areas of the world.

Wrong diet, too much sitting still. Cars are used to cover the smallest distance or move up the smallest rise. Physical exertion is rare. Many people hardly take a walk anymore. There are predictions stating that eventually, in a few generations, we will never leave our home or even our chair.

I can believe that.

The Good Mother

Mother visited me today, concealing it well, but brimming with the usual concerns for my well-being. Poor woman. She has never been good at hiding her numerous neuroses.

She always beat around the bush, but still manages to put forth her objections to my lifestyle, my chosen path in life. My blood relatives are basically christians, and they use every opportunity in their zeal to «save» me from eternal damnation. Some witches find similarities between themselves and christians. I can’t for the life of me understand why.

So mother is worried, and she tells me, in a thousand words or less to «leave my destructive life behind and return to the love of the family».

This wasn’t much of a problem when I traveled a lot and didn’t have a fixed address, but they have all taken advantage of the fact that I’m staying fairly put these days. Now, they often stop by unannounced and do their utmost to save me.

The sad fact is that she isn’t really caring about me at all, but about her own vanity. The rumors of me being a witch gets around, and returns to her, and worse to the nagging hags she call friends. My father loathes my choices in life, too, but at least he’s kind of honest about it with his open antagonism and hostility.

I tell them all, in return that they should liberate themselves from their own chains, that they should stop living in a prison of their own making, and stop worshipping anything, especially a mirage, and they get very upset and even angry with me, even more so when I patiently and not, make a last-ditch attempt to explain to them and confront them with the obvious contradictions of their «reasoning».

I’ve given them up, really. There is very little hope left in me that they will ever to be able to see the world even remotely like it is, but keep living their very dangerous and horrible fantasy. I have found myself a true family, among other witches, other practitioners of witchcraft, among political radicals and anarchists, people able and willing to take me as I am, and don’t want to form me in their own cracked image. We live and grow together, but we don’t live each other’s life and don’t try to.

«The bond that links your true family is not one of blood, but of respect and joy in each other's life. Rarely do members of the same family grow up under the same roof».

Richard Bach