Embrace change

The only thing constant in life is change. No matter what we do everything changes.  I teach writing. One of the first things I ask my students is to throw away all the rules they learned in school. Then I tell them they have left- and right-brains.  I teach them how to wake up their right brain and make it lead the process. In the end they write better, faster, and their hearts speak in their writing.  All because I began with telling them to forget everything they were taught in school. This changed them.

 Sorry, pharmaceutical companies, I know you hate me for this, but generally I don’t like to drink your chemical drugs with the exception of paracetamol for the occasional headache and your anti-allergy pills mostly to put me to sleep. Yet I am in very good health, walk briskly for someone who is nudging 70, and have the energy of someone probably in her 30s. I don’t take any vitamins except Vitamin C when I feel the need. Of course, I take Stem Enhance, which I’ve written about.  That is not a chemical drug. It’s a nutritional product made from algae and it has worked miracles on my body.

 So I wrote about it. Well, after almost a year from the time I wrote my column, it was used as an attachment to a cease and desist something or other issued by the acting director general of the local FDA accusing me of advertising the drug.  Nobody paid me to do it, though I sell the product myself because it has done me so much good.  It has one very visible side effect. It makes you look younger or everyone tells you, you don’t look like you’re turning 70 soon.

 But things are really changing even in the medical field. I got a call from a retired top-ranking executive of a multinational company asking me to write about herbalists in my column.  Actually I believe in herbal cures ever since I had a conversation with Dr. Jocano who told me that some local communities believe in damong Maria (a kind of grass that they made into tea) as a very effective cure for a fever. They tell you to cut it at around noon every Friday then boil it and make the patient drink the tea. Well, Dr. Jocano explained, scientifically it takes the grass one week to reach the level of potency that will make effective tea, therefore every Friday, that’s one week. Furthermore, the anti-pyretic in the grass is strongest when it is heated, therefore the time — around noon. You see, our herbalists were not totally unscientific, Dr. Jocano said.  That made me think.

 Before the colonialists came we had highly qualified herbalists. There is a cave somewhere near Angono that had all manner of inscriptions on the wall. The person who told me the story said it was the curative recipes of herbalists. In my imagination I saw a conference of herbalists held in the cave a long time ago. They discussed their cures and inscribed them on the walls using the characters of the time.  I admit I don’t know if this story is true. I have never seen the cave. But that’s how medicine began in this country and then it went to chemical. It changed.

The story that I know is true is that during the Spice Trade or the Galleon Trade, the Philippines was not famous for its spices but was outstanding in its natural dyes.  Red from a narra that is now impossible to find and indigo, a vivid dark blue. We shipped these dyes to China who loved them for their silks. Then chemical dyes were invented. They were much cheaper.  So the world changed its tastes from the natural to the chemical dyes.

 If I worked in a pharmaceutical company these days, I would be nervous. I would see on my horizon a menacing nightmare as herbals are slowly gaining market share.  They work and they have fewer side effects. Right now the only thing going for the traditional pharmaceuticals is that people have habits that are hard to change. Some go to a doctor and believe fervently in everything he says.  So they are willing to invest in a maintenance regimen and are unwilling to relinquish those pills even if some have bad effects on their kidneys and liver.

 Me? I asked my neurologist what the maintenance pills were for. She said to lower the risk of another stroke.  I knew my stroke was caused by stress. I told her I would take the risk and instead of taking maintenance pills, I avoided stress. It has been 10 years since my stroke and I feel fine.  Most important of all — I don’t look 70.

 I guess the lesson is: The only thing constant in life is change. I don’t know what you choose. I always choose and embrace change.

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