NATURAL: The Anal Lube for your Wallet
There really is no such thing as “Natural, Herbal, or Organic,” those are sales and marketing words coined to help you ease your money out of it’s hidey-hole. They are the anal lube for your wallet, don’t fool yourself you are getting prepped to be screwed.
All things are made up of atoms as humans we are mostly a carbon life form. All carbon like all elements that make up all we se, and all that exists, all matter come from stars like our own Sun as they burn. Bigger stars have enough pressure to fuse helium into carbon, so this is what science educators like Neil deGrasse Tyson mean when they say, “We are made of Star Stuff.”
I love Science, it helps the brain function as if it was created by some unseen power, to think. To ponder your own creation, to shape and create your gods, or to think away the imaginary, and search for evidence to explain what our reality is. Each brain creates a unique reality for the person carrying it, so if you do not use it, it has the power to lead you into a cult of ignorance. If you know how the brain works, you’ll know, not even the colors you see are a true representation of reality. The brain process our world, so learn to take more control of it or someone else will take advantage and twist your thinking into whatever mold or shape that serves them. That is true slavery, and mental slavery is a serious crime against a human’s ‘natural’ potential.
As a Sickle Cell Warrior I do not put myself into painful situations by placing my faith on anything that needs me to believe in it to work. I want evidence for all things or don’t bother trying to ‘save me’ if you can’t help me think through the steps you are trying to sell me on. My doctors have a hard time getting me to do anything unless they explain the benefits to me on those terms. I love to learn new things and love it even more when I learn I was wrong about something I believed was true, that is science. Every question that can be answered can only arouse even more questions. Stay curious, and feed your brain with new questions each day. You will never have all the answers so don’t put your faith into those you find today, a man who has all the answers can’t learn shit. Find something and keep digging deeper.
So this ‘natural’ stuff is a question I’ve been having strong feelings about, if you want to look at it from another point of view you can say all things are natural and organic. If it can be created in a lab it was mostlikly discovered on some dark corner of a forrest floor, until a human came along and discovered it has some usefulness. This is what a drug company does, it finds useful shit, it refines the natural chemical elements, and refines it some more, to make sure the levels are right and not toxic enough to kill you. Then it patents it so they can be the only one’s with the right to sell you a controlled version of what nature created from star dust.
The reason I am not hyped by the herbals and natural medicine movement in my Sickle Cell Community is because the folks selling these things might mean well but they present an “Us vs Them” sales pitch most of the time. Saying that big pharma is selling us poison while their stuff is all natural and has been working and used by tribes of people for thousands of years. I really hate this because it fuels a level of distrust in a person, feeding on fear. While at the same time you are feeding them fear, you are also telling them to trust you, as you lube them up. This to me is evil minded and abusive. This is what happens when you don’t have enough doubt in your mind to raise questions. Doubt is a great asset against fear. Our natural instincts is to fear what we are told is bad for us. It keeps us from petting lions as a hobby. But to evolve as humans we must be able to question our fears and see where they are coming from. That doubt can change the nature of a dangerous wolf into a cute best friend and sheep protector.
The problem I have with the natural stuff is the fact that it has a less controlled production or regulated by the FDA or any goverment agency that is out to make sure that your drug company does not poison the public. You can call your stuff natural but it is still made up of active chemical elements, atoms that might do more harm than good. You are not a doctor, yet you keep telling anyone you met, “Hey try this stuff, it really works.” Right you don’t even know my blood type or how my body will react to the “Stuff.”
The natural stuff is fueled by faith, you have to buy into the idea of it. You have to believe it works because Uncle Bob said it worked for Aunt Suzy. So we allow the placebo effect to run our medicine cabinet instead of real evidence based medicine, tested and regulated to do what it claims to do.
Don’t get me wrong I hate taking pills. I really hate having to need to take something for this or that. But Sickle Cell Anemia and Depression are my realities. Those things must be managed or my days end up being full of pain and suffering. Living like that is not enjoyable to me.
So I choose the stuff from some rich dude’s lab. At least I know he is rich enough to sue if something goes wrong. I would warn my community to never mix herbals with the stuff from major drug companies. Herbals are no different than the lab stuff on the basic levels, the only difference is the amount of active chemicals in a herbal product is rarely controlled. So you may take a pill that has nothing but useless powder or extremely toxic. But your faith in it might just be enough to get the job done for whatever issue you think it cures naturally, just like Aunt Suzy.
Hey, it might work, so did the use of lobotomy in the past, depends on your viewpoint are you the patient? Or are you the guy cutting up my brain connections until I am as charming as jello? For me it is not that they don’t work, that herbal medication maybe just as effective. In fact growing up in Haiti, natural herbs was all I had as a child to help me through a painful crisis. That does not mean I am on board with herbals, because a lot of my memories as a child there was a lot of suffering no matter what bitter tea I drank. My question is why suffer if you don’t have to?
My other issue is the lack of safety and control, also the lack of overseeing the shady salesman with only a sugar pill to offer trying to get a buck out of a needy community. If your stuff works I want to see real scientific studies, double blind, controlled group and all that shit, do the work and earn my respect. There are plenty of good hearted people working hard in the labs of the so called evil drug empires that work every day and night with a passion in their hearts that they are serving our community. Work as hard as they do to prove what you have works. If you believe it works and you believe you are serving this community in good faith do the work it takes to make your treatment known as effective using the scientific method. Do give me the shit about lack of resources, sell you idea to another company that has the ability to properly refine and test your product, if you really valued the community over your bank account. You have to look at this community, they don’t have much to spend, if they can get Health Care in Trump’s America they can easily get their medication covered by that plan. But your promised natural alternative is not covered and comes out of their food or rent budget. That is enough reason for me not to be a fan of your natural alternatives. You ever notice how much that organic shit costs? It is because they need a lot of natural shit to grow it the old manure way. It also takes much more land to grow them this way. Science advancements be damned let’s go with what grandma use to have. This mentality is a virus.
Did I express it well enouhh yet, my feelings of how much I really dislike the natural peddlers out there in my community? There is a nice helpful market out there ready to use the word of mouth to spread a miracle cures like a virus in a community fighting pain and depression and all types of battles with Sickle Cell Disease. I understand they have the right to sell stuff just like the rich white guys at the giant Pharma Company but I still don’t like selling false hope to people who are already hurting in hopeless situations.
So I am being honest when I say, I like the evidence based approach better because if I am going to get screwed anyway, let me have the lube that has been FDA tested, and proven to work.
Maybe I am a little racist too, because I expect the white man to screw me because history made me very skeptical of anything he has to offer. But when my own people try to screw me, if not out of malice but out of the pure bliss of ignorance, it still hurts much worst because I did not want to have those same lingering expectations about my own people turning on me and selling me to the devil. Not that I believe in such things as devils, but all lies out of ignorance to me is the handy work of a devil. You might as well give up and say, “Lube me up Donald!”
So please do be skeptical, yes of even your brothers, because we did not get into some of those first slave ships without some of our own people with the same dark skin as us making deals to sell us for a little profit. I mean some of them still believe we immigrated here by choice. A gifted hands, but no brains politician communicated as much recently. So I urge you to be skeptical regardless, have doubts, ask your doctor many questions, there is nothing wrong with asking questions, a question a day keeps the bullshit away.
Natural Anger
Hertz Nazaire
Sickle Cell Warrior / Science Education Advocate
Here is a related ‘feeding your brain’ video. Take a moment to learn something new each day.
