Every so often I like to write a really nice post about David Wolfe. Then I like to throw a tantrum. I haven’t done one for ages on the grounds that he turned out to be very married, but I see he has paid me a visit, so here we go, let us again attempt to explain the phenomenon that is Ina Disguise and David Wolfe.
For those who are not as familiar with this topic as Wolfe and I, I used to be a super critical and very serious lady who happened to have had a very open relationship with alternative health as my early General Practice doctors had trained prior to the worship of big pharma and were not only medical doctors but homeopaths. (shock, horror)
The now normalised hatred of herbalism and homeopathy did not exist post-war. People used what worked, and doctors were unusually interested in health. This has been eroded to the point that even talking about alternative health means that you are subject to personal attack, even without the addition of positive reinforcement and entertainment as a tool to gently coaxing people to take better care of themselves generally.
Twenty years ago or so, long before I had ever heard of Wolfe, I had a stand up fight with the Senior pathologist in Glasgow, about the necessity of paying for more doctors, versus the necessity of improving public health. I had no idea I felt so strongly about it until I was red in the face arguing with him about appropriate investment and misleading information.
Anyway, with the shining example of my early doctors and my father I had always had a keen interest in alternative health alongside my interest in politics and economic history. This has now become an issue of personal freedom, especially since the NHS chose to force the issue in the case of my parents.
Prior to the radical change in my diet brought on by my taking things into my own hands via Wolfe, I suffered from anaemia, frequent depression, psoriasis and I was becoming increasingly crippled down my left side, partially due to what I suspect is a form of arthritis, my heroic use of the mouse, and some damage in a car accident when I was 24 or so. (hysterical French chef boyfriend) I was also intermittently huge. I am not particularly small now, but I am an unusually happy, creative, motivated and positive person, to the point that couch potatoes find me quite odd.
I now look deceptively young, have no pain, no depression and no psoriasis. I am not a great example of a raw foodist, I am quite scruffy about it, but my health and my diet is now managed quite carefully, and when I am not overworking I actually look after myself.
My mother also got an extra seven months thanks to my knowledge, and clearly that is a good thing. She was a happy lady eventually. I would have preferred that she was happy for a bit longer and that they had left us alone. People are disgusting.
Anyway, all that being said as a preamble:
Disliking Wolfe, disregarding Wolfe as a nut based on not liking everything that he has to say, singling out bits of the more entertaining material as evidence that you should be lazy and go to a doctor rather than look into your problems yourself is what a stupid, immature and lazy thinker does. I chose not to do that for a number of reasons:
- He is very skilled at putting together information, much of the more whacky material is very carefully placed to keep you awake enough to hear more.
- He is a highly intelligent individual, and if you look hard enough you will find material that you cannot find anywhere else.
- If you have even half a brain, it is very simple to ignore the bits you aren’t interested in and pursue the bits you are.
- Wolfe can be quite lazy, and can fail to take some elements seriously. That appears to be my job, and I am guilty of lack of self-belief, even now. He is busy marketing, and that is fine with me.
- Once you consider the matter of how knowledge has been annexed for the purposes of making pharmaceutical companies the font of all belief, you cannot believe how stupid it has made even high level medical staff. I was confronted by a consultant telling me she did not believe in science that she had not even seen a year ago. This statement is in itself unscientific and evidence of dogmatic education. Thus big pharma has even infiltrated education to the point of religious mania, which is exceptionally dangerous, especially coupled with the fervor for social engineering in the form of killing entire sectors of the population in the UK. An example of this would be the deaths from Alzheimer’s in Scotland going up by 31% in one year. That is not a natural event.
- Much of Wolfe’s work is given for nothing, and I cannot say that he has been at all mean about distribution. His work on motivating people to consider taking care of themselves is outstanding, and free. Any self-respecting doctor will tell you how difficult it is to motivate patients. I struggle with this side of things even with myself as an example.
- If you also factor in Wolfe’s less witting work on opening you up to consider the matter of personal confidence, which is also free, you start to understand just how hard the dude has worked.
I think that’s enough. I am not weeping. (yay)
I still haven’t managed to write the thing I wanted to write today, but I hope that is a reasonably succinct snapshot of 9 years of intensive self-work that I only did because I wanted to some day be adequate. (spoke too soon, you’re an asshole, Wolfe.)
Thanks,
Ina
