Was reading two books recently, one on writing, one on dieting, and they both had an odd sort of similarity, in that both presented clear cases that things are stacked against you from completing either thing successfully.

In The Pleasure Trap, they track human history and show how the Western Diet is basically short-circuiting our natural systems that were designed to keep us healthy from the beginning of time. They also don’t believe in moderation, saying that our diets are so out of whack that it needs to be treated like alcoholism and everyone needs to go on a vegan, no oil, no refined foods lifestyle. I stay pretty close to that already, but the book is basiclaly saying that the 30 percent that I don’t do keeps me unhealthy. It is like an alcoholic who only drinks a glass of two of wine every day, but is no longer out all night drinking beer. Like AA, it needs to be all or nothing to have lasting results.

The book also make a good case for waster fasting, whereby you consume nothing but water for days on end, but the book seems to make a case for it without mentioning it could also be dangerous without medical supervision. The people who wrote the book run a fasting center where you can check in and go through a supervised water fast, but I wonder how many people will just read the book and think, “Hmm, just drink water, easy.” The center is north of San Francisco, so if I really get into it, I could just as well fast with them. Or, if it’s expensive, find some website that wants me to write about water fasting and go for free.

But, anyway, the message of the book is that the Western Diet is entirely rigged to short-circuit a perfect system of balance, and that eating rich foods basically opens up forces that will work against you.

The other book I read was The War of Art by Steven Pressfield (legend of bagger vance), and talks about writer’s block and is basically an inspirational book about the creative life. But again, the book delves into the myriad ways that forces in life and in yourself work to prevent you from completing things. How your ego wants to avoid happiness, and is waging a battle against your self on a constant basis. Was also a good book, and seemed to have a lot of things to say that I really liked to hear, a few too many “Oh, shit, I do that” moments, and just a well-reasoned look at the life I’m starting to live.

I just found it odd that two seemingly disparate books would seem to have such an important factor in common.

This entry was posted on Friday, November 28th, 2003 at 8:55 pm and is filed under diary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.