ankita asks: Are we ourselves responsible for our certain type of ill health?
Hi ankita –
Well of course I’m not a doctor, I’m a dog! But I see enough to know that the answer to your question is… Sometimes.
Clearly, if I eat some rotten moldy maggot-infested 6-day-old meat, and I get sick, I’m pretty responsible for it. And clearly, if I’m just saying hello to another dog and she gives me Parvo or Kennel Cough, I wasn’t responsible for that at all.
The part of the question that gets difficult is when two dogs, or two people, do the same thing, and only one gets sick. Maybe another dog could eat that meat and not get sick; maybe another one could play with that sick dog and not get sick. And the medicine that saves your life might be poison to me. It’s really hard to make specific rules.
But here’s the one thing I can say for sure. There are certain things that have absolutely no positive health value for anyone, that are generally detrimental to everyone’s health. And so anyone who does those things is absolutely responsible for the bad health they have. Smoking is certainly the first thing that comes to my mind: Lungs are wonderful and delicate and irreplaceable, and smoking anything hurts them. Yes, I mean tobacco, barbecue clouds, car exhaust, and any other smoke! Now you’ll hear about people who do all sorts of unhealthy stuff like smoking, and live long lives. But I promise you, smoking didn’t help. It slowed them down, hurt their immune system, and filled their bodies with poisons. If they lived long, they’re lucky. But here I am with a brain half the size of theirs, saying that they might be lucky but they aren’t smart.
If you’ve read many of my posts, ankita, you know that I eat all sorts of things. I believe life is for the living, and I would no more want to eat only the healthiest food, to avoid having anything bad in me, than I’d want to stop chasing birds just because they can fly away from me. The trick is to avoid excess.
So eat that piece of candy. But have some vegetables too. Stay out all night. But get a good sleep the next night. Go play some sports that are rough on your knees. But then take good care of them afterwards.
Because, whether or not we’re responsible for our health, it’s just miserable to not have it!
Thanks,
Shirelle