All the Rage

People are always telling you that this or that condition is caused by stress. For years it was thought that the ulcers people in advertising suffered from were the result of highly demanding jobs. The ulcer theory was ultimately disproved. Dr. John Sarno achieved  fame for his insistence that many back problems were in the head. A documentary dealing with Sarno, All the Rage, was released shortly after his death. Can we say that unhappiness doesn’t help when it comes to heart disease, cancer and systemic auto-immune illnesses like rheumatic arthritis, lupus and even diabetes? ED is an example of an ailment that many very well find it’s provenance in psychological and preliminarily oedipal situations. But many sufferers from ED who take drugs like Cialis and Viagra merely lose erections because of a combination of psychological and physical problems like obesity, cholesterol and high blood pressure. There's obviously no one answer. Many totally well-adjusted and happy people have life taken away from them and there are miserable characters who go on to live forever. In fact, there are a class of aging person whose gluttony for life seems to be an act of vengeance against children who don’t give a damn whether they live or die. There is a famous episode of the 50's TV show Alfred Hitchcock Presents, "Dip in the Pool," dealing with a man who decides he’ll win the ship’s lottery by jumping overboard in front of another passenger. The only problem is that the person he picks is disturbed and doesn't tell either the passengers or crew what's happened. The denouement is a wonderful essay in the vagaries of fate and how you may isolate causes and effects while never knowing how they will eventually play out when it comes to determining the path your life will eventually take.