Thursday, April 29, 2010

Am I cursed? How much phyical illness to do with morality?

Pages from "Life And Works Of Confucius&q...Image via Wikipedia


This morning I received an email from an old friend. It was a link to a video of a lecture about how our spirit affects our physical health. It sounds good I know, but just after watching about 10 minutes, I was feeling like wasting my time to some superstitious crap!

Not only the speaker's (he looked nice and health) sluggish tone made me impatient , the contents was mostly irrational. Be fair to say, there are a few interesting things in his speech like how those ancient masters such as Confucian or Buddha made their core theories based on Five Elements - the ancient Chinese interpretation of the nature, but the relationship he made between human beings' physical illness and "moral" quality is just a pure ignorance to me.
It seems to me, that when people have no answers to some physical phenomenons, they tend to believe there are something to do with spirit, such as moral quality, faith creed, whatsoever. But the facts are out there: so many evil-spirited people are physically healthy, and so many nice people get ill. I really don't think there is a need to write an research paper to prove this. But the question is still there: do most people tend to be superstitious or religious when they are lost?

Since the video was sent by my friend who knew that I was chronic ill, I had to assume that she must believe that this video will do good to me. Even though I understood that her intention was completely innocent, I still could not help to write her an email to express my feeling of being offended (I didn't really say the contents are all crap though. Maybe I should).

Frankly speaking, I have been having trouble with my friendship for a while.. During earlier years of my illness, most of my friends seemed to be more understanding, but for such a long term, they must be tired (which I understand), or, simply don't know what to do. They either estranged themselves from me, or tried to convince me that I am not physical ill at all. So I end up losing patience because it is so much energy taking to keep communication. And needless to mention, some of their "understanding" are just destructive to my health.

Once upon a time, I had to doubt myself: am I really cursed? or do I really have big problem with making friends? Until one day I found online community and discovered lots of CFS patients had been experiencing exactly same situation like mine (guess collectivism works in some way).
So I no longer doubt myself, no longer put relationship above the truth of what I know.
And that this attitude itself - putting truth above relationship - is against Chinese tradition, because due to Chinese moral tradition, (mostly confucianism) ethics is almost totally based on interaction with people, which I think is one of the most poisoning elements in Chinese cultural heritage.

So, as I mentioned earlier, as a rebel, I choose truth, instead of relationship: yes, I am chronically ill, but I am a moral and mentally healthy person.



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4 comments:

  1. Even the bible, in the book of Job, contemplates the question, and concludes that there is no relationship between your morals and your fate. Karma is another way of looking at it. We can try and improve it, but Karma is something we are born with.

    To believe that it's only up to us to control our health (and/or destiny) is not only intellectually weak, but it's also blasphemy if you are religious.

    How arrogant can we be to say that our thoughts will dictate to God how to treat us? Doesn't he have His own free will?

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  2. ranfuchs, your comment reminds me a chinese saying: 以其人之道还其人之身,which means: refute somebody by his/her own idea.

    but i will be healthy eventually, not by "correcting" my "moral stand", but other means...

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  3. As you say, there is too much evidence to the contrary to connect morality or attitude with physical sickness. Better to accept no explanation until a real one is found than believe in a lot of silly superstition.

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  4. thanks NP.
    @ranfuchs, karma is the way to view this. yes. take our fate as it is, and do our best. that's all we can do.

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