The Flintstone Effect

All the trouble of the world, at least Fred's world, would be resolved by the end of a thirty minute episode of the Flintstones. Most of his troubles were of his own creation, but he was happy to oblige us with his shenanigans toward finding a suitable outcome.
Fred, Wilma, Barney and Betty were touchstones for me in my early teens and throughout high school. 

I guess it came on about the time my mother would arrive home from her day job. Once she was home, being Latchkey kids, everything felt okay again.

I've always loved cartoons in general for their use of primary and secondary color, simple shapes and their general simplicity. Story lines included, except for the contemporary ones. I prefer to relish the good old days when men opened doors for women and only glanced sideways, when their wives weren't looking, at the other beautiful girls in the room. Profanity wasn't funny and lewd conduct wasn't necessary to get a laugh.

I had a free preview of a station a couple of years ago and recorded hours of The Flintstones. It's been a long time since I felt a compulsion to bring it out and escape for awhile into the animated life of friends of mine.

About the same time, suffering severe anxiety over life in general and the loss of income in specific, I sought out the advice of a doctor, "Do you think I should try an anti-depressant?" I was really hoping he would say no as all the research I had found indicated that it was a gamble, not much was really known as to how they work and often the side effects were worse than the cure. Their effectiveness could diminish over time and it would be an ongoing pharmaceutical guessing game. I'm so suspicious of Big Pharma anyway.

His advice to me was to rent a bunch of comedy films and watch them. He said laughter was the best cure. I think he is right.

Lately I've been concerned for my health and it is very easy to let that worry zap the good energy that could be focused better elsewhere. The fears can overcome almost any good thoughts.

I have always found that my best defense against worry is information. Whenever I have a struggle like this, I seek out information to better know the risks, symptoms, diagnostic techniques, and methods of treatment. Once I get that information in my head, as fearful as it is at first to research, I feel armored.

The side benefit to this type of worry is that it helps one get a better focus of life. All of a sudden nothing matters except being well and touching things that are real. Living breathing things that have true meaning. Certainly not material things. The bucket list comes into the forefront and all the things being done "just to have the life you dream" seem fruitless. All the hoards of things collected are a burden. Of course, once the scare is diminished or alleviated, it is really easy to go back to the status quo. 

The other thing this information seeking has exposed to me is the extent to which those dreams we've all been coerced into believing would be so wonderful are in great part the main culprit for all of our ill health.

Centralized agriculture, urbanization, fossil fuel exploitation, the good life...
runoff, smokestacks spewing, water and air pollution, toxic dump sights, radiation..."Poison is the wind that blows..."

There are carcinogens in lipstick! There seems to be no where to go to get away from it.

I have come to the conclusion that since almost all of the efforts to "cure cancer" are in bed with the same ones who make profit from producing the things that cause it and the industry that treats it, that it is their job to pay for the externalities they create by funding the medical plans for all of us. Sounds fair. Think? At the least they should be contributing funds to true prevention instead of cures, since they can't seem to find one, dah?

If they are going to make us sick, they should pay to make us well.

Of course the devil is in the detail and they want us all to believe we are victims of our own devices. That it is because we eat too much fat, don't exercise and smoke that we are sick. Those things possibly having an adverse contribution to sickness, they pretty much deny that it has anything to do with "dietary pesticides, hazardous waste sites, ionizing radiation from nuclear plants, and non-ionizing radiation". 

This was supposed to be a light and happy blog. Once in awhile, things really find me mad. I can't believe that we are all letting this happen to us. I had to say something.

"Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got till it's gone;
They paved paradise,
And put up a parking lot." - Joni Mitchell

Where's that Little Red-Haired Girl? She always makes me happy.
I looked around to see where she was and she was right beneath my table, quiet as a mouse while I rant above her. Usually she is curled up, too big to fit right, in Orphan Annie's bed farther back in the corner.
It's almost time for her to hang up her fur coat. A few more weeks I think. At least by the signs of the fruit trees...