I listened to the lout from engineering offer his sage advice to a guy who was recently married. “My minister recently told us that newlyweds put on 5 to 10 pounds a year because of the married lifestyle.”

That got me thinking. It wasn’t just stress, it was acting as though one’s life was over and that normal standards for a human were no longer needed. Many eat terrible food and justify it as being in a rush or somehow explain away the obvious harm. With the average American spending over four hours a day watching stupid shows, that’s a lot of face stuffing time. But consider what comes with such decisions and the lapse from realistic thinking.

Other than respiration and the few who consume water rather than sugar substances, nearly everything else average people do or express is a foolish error and miscalculation. There’s almost nothing positive to emulate, and warnings of imminent failure looming all about.

Worse, all of this is socialized behavior that is considered normal though it is obviously harmful and in all previous historical periods would be considered aberrant. Most people make horrible decisions constantly, without reflection or alteration of atrocious patterns that repeatedly damage and leave them in a broken position. Emulating anything that other people do is an obviously bad idea. One should only take decisions that will end well, and avoid those that are clearly destructive.

We know what will make us fat, or stupid, or otherwise weakened and enfeebled. Aware people avoid such things, rather than fall into a destructive pattern sensible people do not want.