THE FUN FACTOR
As I sit here in front of my computer, look around my desk and work office in a more or less introspective objective manner. I observe the notes on my left hand side ¨sitting¨ aside the monitor ready to ¨get up¨ as they are required to refresh my memory on studies or research done on days pass. I also observe the books some neatly stacked on the book shelve others scattered over the desk with notes sticking out of them, then I scan my memories of days past as in the warm and humid days which we are being blessed in the southern hemisphere. Living in the epicenter of a popular destination for the summer vacations, being overran by cascades of tourists from some of the mayor cities with in a car drive of a couple hours. I question myself, on a constant basis of how can I be of better assistance in the sharing of information and how can I summarize in a more efficient manner the vast information I take in as I love to research and investigate, from the more classical to the more unorthodox. Sometimes my mind feels like a fertile landscape which overnight is planted with every known crop beautiful as from a permaculturist vision as it might seemoverwhelming, and I am constantly searching for a balance.
In these deep reflective states, I often reminisce on conferences, presentations, books read, and information which has been presented to me on one shape or another regarding health, wellbeing, nutrition and all that encompasses the arts of quality and quantity of life span. From the vastly popular and well known personalities on TV, those we know with the PhD´s, who studied in the most prestigious universities around the world, to the most locally known (sometimes unknown) nutritionists, general practitioners, others online who share their opinions and give advise as to how to better our life on various aspects of the spectrum which surround health. I like to hear them all in an open mind state with little judgment as possible, since this allows for me to obtain valuable information by someone with a PhD who might have over seen or sometimes you can´t observe and deduct a scientific conclusion from a text book or a microscope. Interesting and sometimes fundamental as this information might be I often feel there is an element which is lacking. Debates will always arise from weather food should be cooked or raw, weather you should be vegetarian or not, raw milk or processed, grains or not and basically every idea, theory, hypothesis will always find some sort of resistance. Yet this internal questioning led me to experience a paradoxical aspect of research where by through searching where you intend to find the answer, leads you to confusion and no less closer to understanding. Subsequently being shunted of the research path only to find what you where searching on another path from where you where looking, we can call it serendipity.
So I came across 3 personalities which I came to highly admire them, though they all worked on 3 different areas they set the stage for me to understand a key element which I feel is missing from the ¨path to health¨ to give it a romantic pseudonym.
These individuals are Claude Levi-Strauss the baptized modern father of anthropology whom is also credited with being one of the most influential personalities in the 
structuralism movement where by he theorized all complex systems have some sort of underlying interrelation which can be ¨structured¨ finding the ¨real things¨ which I came to understand as patterns of coexistence, that lie beneath the surface of appearance of meaning.
The second individual is Dr. Albert Hofmann the famed discoverer of LSD (Lysergic Acid diethylamide) odd as it might seem, his ¨accidental¨ discovery of LSD through the actual intent to come with a new drug to obtain a treatment for migranes.
And the third is E.F Schumacher the German economist who offered the world works like Small is beautiful, a guide for the perplexed and theories like Buddhist economics, appropriate technologies, and local economies
What I was able to summarize in regard to health and the underlining structure of it, which can be rearranged or even completely refuted which I personally have no objection against if in the end the planet is a better place for all inhabiting it. We can make lists if you must, of patterns in no matter how complex, sensitive or broad of a subject which you are dealing with which influences the position of the element in question as a whole. I think with out a doubt the most debatable and somehow turning to become one of the most complex, sensitive and broad of subject relating to all of life but more directly human beings is health. So going back and forth among what some of these patterns might be with regards to it, I tend to make a list which seems to satisfy certain criteria’s with the right arguments to support it only to completely dissatisfy me the next moment. However a sound aspect which is hardly if ever even brought up, much less discussed is in plain view of us all, and as I kept researching and studying from great visionaries it was consistent through out as the sun above our heads day in and day out. This was the factor of FUN though we all seem to have a grasp on the idea or even more the fulfillment of fun in various aspects of our lives. We tend to some how omitted the potentiality of fun in health.
Generally when we consider health we think of nutrition, movement, thoughts, spirituality, supplementation and the wide array of components
of what health seems to be. I am often confronted with the feeling that most of the present theories are based on strict scientific research or experience which in it´s own right deserve all the merit. Yet it seems that it is intended to be carbon copied upon individuals treating all as one, or in other words one size fits all. Fortunately there are great personalities in the fields of health who seem to think outside the box and presented more individualistic approaches to addressing health relating issues. Yet it is very seldom you find some one who addresses the fun factor in health. Though fun in it self could be synonymous with happiness or pleasure, I think that is rather a component of them one which can act like a guide to achieve the desired state. Though I won´t assume to understand the underlying mechanics of these profound and subjective theme, I do know that some where along the lines of the mass market health business and the every day personal approach to life we have lost this key component.
Dr. Albert Hofmann understood that he had in his hands a powerful tool to permeate the logical, domesticated mind and touch the soul, dreams and true deep-essence of the human being, by which he 
was able to see the world with different eyes. Doing so the individual was able to overcome difficult moments, allowing for means and different options to be presented as ways through the dark tunnel. I tend to believe fun to be a spatial and time occurrence, never the less in recent times strongly influenced by the surrounding environment (mainly the mass media). Meaning ¨less recent¨ given that we are almost in a way being induced to being educated as to what fun is and is not, mainly reduced to having something to do with consumption. I do make an argument for fun as being critical in the well being of the individual as observed and experienced by those who lived among other wrongly classified as ¨less fortunate¨ or ¨third world¨ cultures. Where things are done by need of course like cleaning, cooking, farming, herding etc. however the approach taken is one of intent, desire and reverence rather than chore, obligation and ego-centric need. I think a key emphasis has to be made on the general idea of fun as being the outcome of some sort of recreation activity. Usually something outside of every day tedious life, yet I think when the component of fun is brought back in to this ¨tedious¨ every day routine filled, tiresome, boring life we will start experiencing something refreshing and powerful.
I was put to shame while being out in 80 plus degree weather, picking herbs with Guarani natives in Misiones, Argentina. The sun was starting to raise, mosquitoes where all over the place, it was so humid
you feel like your clothes had been soaked in water and put on you. Having my first experience out side LA, where upon the first slight wave of heat the AC was turned on where it was all convenience and somewhat luxury. These people where being almost literally being sucked dried by waves of mosquitoes, and I´m sure no matter how adapted you are to an environment you are still human and feel the heat and humidity. Yet there they where singing, only to be interrupted by some one cracking a joke on how bad someone else sang to have them all burst in a choir of laughs. While all I could think was on having breakfast, they where not going to sell the herbs, yet they enjoyed so much what they where doing and whom they where doing it with.
It was very refreshing and here almost 6 years later I came to realize the value of that experience and many others, where fun or enjoyment where the foundation of what generally could be conceived as something tedious. Though we can make a case for the great advancements we currently have in all fields of sciences related to health, I have to but confess how cold and un-personal they feel, usually filled with routines, consumerism, and delegation. E.F Schumacher pointed out how strange it was to hear people sing for the fun of it simply, a good response to the enjoyment of being, regardless weather doing something or not. Fun though as personal as health is in my mind, is something that resonates with in you and places you in a state of ease.
I like to think of FUN as the feeling which arises in me while walking to a friend’s house and the moment to moment experience of actually walking, breathing, taking in the view, of the experience though many times experienced never failing to be fun. Because nobody told me it had to be and because I don´t expect it to be, it resonates with in me and it satisfy me. This gives me purpose with out actually classifying it as such, and this belief was strengthen when I watched the Dan Beuttner presentation on TED on how to live to be 100 plus. The main
idea which I could rescue regarding common patterns shared among cultures which living to be such age was no casualty or phenomenon rather a common occurrence among their groups. Yes nutrition was influential as physical activity, societies make up, cosmo vision, most important and relevant to this article was the uniqueness of an Okinawa word ikigai which translated to ¨the reason I wake up every morning¨ from which their relation to their activities and their relations was that of enjoyment. Enjoyment being the Siamese twin of fun, so I propose you finds your ikigai, in every moment with the best possible intent. Do things which fulfill you with out actually classifying them, do things which you are drawn to not those they say you should do.
As we are now well in to the 21st century, growing up in the 80´s and on, I am still amazed at how far we have come as a technological society yet how far back we are in relevance to the most elemental aspects of what being humans and living in and with this planet means. We can see clearly in to this paradox as we observe the gross national health of industrialized nations plummeting through the charts and not strangely parallel to that what you will never see in no chart yet evident is the plummeting of gross national happiness. To put it in more elegant and euphemistic form, we are rich in means but poor in ends.
What I try to present here is not a glorification of the worlds poor or ¨less sophisticated¨ they have their share of problems none the less. 
Definitely not a instigation for all of us to turn back the clock and walk around foraging for our sustenance half naked, what I try to present is a appreciation for the lost of elements which as we progress we seem to consider as burden or simply have them ¨slip away¨. Rather a reflection as to why when I had a mate with sugar with no actual food, in a shack with 3 walls and no windows in the middle of no where there seemed to be a more tangible sense of wellbeing and happiness. In contrast with the well decorated, expensive houses or restaurants I have had the opportunity to be in, and the feeling of unease or tangible hypocrisy. There is a troublesome feeling which arises from these vastly contrasting scenarios. Where the logical question naturally arises WHY? Maybe is the notion of what is considered as the ¨hedonistic treadmill¨ at work? I do believe in my heart that technology, ancient wisdom, sustainability, intellectuality, common sense, wealth, health, love, wisdom, unity can all sit and dine in the same table with out quarrel. It is my believe that fun can be the uniting factor in this seemingly impossible task, while similarly acting as a sieve to buffer out that which does not please us as a planet while similarly allowing for a stage of transcendence and transformation. In a time when health as become so confusing I believe fun, joy, pleasure, can clarify things up a bit.
I would like to close this article with the following words from E.F Schumacher in which he addresses art, and I apply to the art of living.
¨Art the nature and meaning of such is being confused disseminated from considering art with reaction to its effect on human beings falling in to 2 categories 1. If designed to affect our feeling is entertainment 2. If designed to affect our will is propaganda
Great art is multi-faceted phenomenon appealing to man´s highest intellect and emotional faculties¨ E.F SCHUMACHER
Now do your self a favor HAVE SOME FUN!
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