Health & Illness & Feasting

            Thanksgiving is the American holiday which combines family and feasting. From my knowledge the holiday originated from pilgrims and Indians celebrating the harvest with a feast all together. What followed after with their relationship I won't talk about now, but I think it's interesting this is where it started. The connection between the origins of this holiday and what the practices now are seem to be very distant except in one way, the feasting. What started off as "welcoming" neighbors and accepting different people in a feast seems to have changed to feasting only with those very close to you, if you took away the food it seems these are very polarizing practices. The only consistency in this holiday is the custom of overeating.
            So Thanksgiving then is the holiday of overeating, the main attraction and the main theme. Interesting that this was the consistent practice when the United States always has had a large immigrant population and makes up the backbone of our agricultural and industrial workforce. The immigrants themselves have changed, but their use and role in the United States has gone unchanged. It would then be more logical to keep the "welcome neighbor of different background" philosophy rather than overeating.
            So the logic escapes me that the practice of eating-more-than-you-should has stuck when the welcoming-neighbor practice has not. Especially when the need for such a philosophy seems to be rapidly growing and food related illnesses have also grown. Wouldn't such a well organized society such as the U.S. be in want of throwing out this overeating practice when it is causing a norm that is encouraging this life-threatening lifestyle and rather support a practice which encourages diversity? I think the first question should be; can a state organize under the wants of all the people and address it?

First Thoughts on the Illness & Dying Unit

I think I have the same experiences with illness and dying that most people are confronted by, they have little experience with it until someone close in their family dies. Everyone who I know (including myself) that is confronted with someone who has an illness or is dead or soon to be dead the reaction is usually that of grief. This is only natural after all, we loss the mental and emotional connection we get through talking to that person, which is often the strongest way we connect with someone and aside from necrophiliacs we lose the physical connection. No one doubts the fact that loosing a loved one is emotionally painful but coming to terms with our own mortality and knowing that everything around us is temporary can give us insight and comfort in these times. To enjoy our times and take advantage of these times can give things more beauty as we know that maybe what we witnessed will always be there to be seen but ourselves will not be there to always see it. In my own family when people die we try to not approach the situation of it's awful s/he is gone, of coarse grieving will happen no matter what we try to view the death as rather a celebration of their life that we were lucky that they could have been there in our lives. This is the perspective I try to take since it avoids the most tear jerking, and I think its always best to have the most positive outlook and always see the glass half full even when it's usually empty.