It amazes me what people are willing to put themselves through at the direction of modern/ western medical practicioners, yet when it comes to living a balanced life with regular consumption of whole foods, full range movement, breathing practices, time spent outdoors and in natural environments, and adequate rest… they’re a hard pass.

I’ve found modern medicine to be extremely valuable when it comes to emergency situations, however when it comes to supporting long term well-being and reversing chronic conditions, it has proven to be wholly inadequate.

When one truly considers the evolutionary path that has led to the development of human beings and our adapation to the multitude of environments we’ve inhabited prior to the development of industry and all the modern conveniences we know today, it should be obvious that modern life is a big part of the problem we face when it comes to our overall health and well-being. In terms of human history, we have rapidly been removed en masse from the enviroments that shaped us, and it seems to me that the urban and suburban environments we now find ourselves in aren’t supporting our conditnued growth and development as our technological innovators have so often promised…

So what then? Obviously a wholesale return to pre-industrial living is not an option, even if it was an answer. What we need is to establish environments and lifestyles that actually support the biology and physiology of human beings, along with all the other forms of life that are required to support a healthy biosphere instead of continuing on with the arrogance that has led us into the situation we currently find ourselves in. Our technology will never replace what the natural world has given us, and we can never remove ourselves from the natural world and expect to maintain a healthy condition.

Macrobiotic philosophy presents the idea that humans are most free when they acknowledge the ways in which we are physically “un-free” and actively live within those constraints. This means that we acknowledge that we cannot simply eat whatever we want whenever we want, or that we cannot live sedentary lives, separated from nature or isolated from our communities. There are certain realities to living life in the physical world that we must come to terms with, and when we do, we experience the greatest amount of freedom that this life has to offer.