Can you read your body?

 

This blog links with massage. It need not go over your head in incomprehensibility, nor be full of 8-syllable words like this! But a little of Einstein to start with. 

There is his E=MC2. My own ditty is A+C=M, this being Anabolism (building up) plus Catabolism (breaking down) equals Metabolism (the process of the balancing out of the building up and the breaking down).

There is an expression of ‘body literacy’ meaning, to quote a Collect/Prayers sometimes heard in church, to ‘read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest’. It refers in church to the Scriptures. Some of it can apply to our own bodies, though we don’t inwardly digest ourselves!

Not to flog the words ‘physiological’ and ‘psychological’ to death as pet words conspicuous by their presence, not by their absence, in several previous blogs, though your body may be ‘saying’ or requesting that it could do with a massage of some sort, Swedish, Sports, etc, or some other treatment such as a waxing, threading, or whatever.

We can listen to our bodies, though not get greedy, such as ‘replying’ to ourselves: ‘Not now, body; I’ve not the time nor the money for it; you only had a treatment last week’. But depending on your situation, time, finances, needs, etc, you may feel lead to book another session, or even a first session.

It will surely be anabolic for you, in building you up, giving you a feel-good factor, being a pleasant experience, and so on. See you soon maybe, or see you again soon, for your massage and/or other requirements.

 

No pressure - but why not have a massage?

 

Massage and other treatment will hopefully not be as long-winded (pun intended, see further on) as the name of a Dutch chemist and meteorologist, Christophorus Henricus Diedericus Buys Ballot (1817-1890).

The pun here is related to his Buys Ballot Law. This states that if one in the Northern Hemisphere, including the U.K., stands with their back to the wind the atmospheric pressure is low to their left, and high to their right. This is because in the Northern Hemisphere wind travels anti-clockwise around low pressure, and clockwise around high pressure.

 

You won’t be in a wind, or rather a draught, during a treatment of massage, waxing, or whatever you choose, as the room and surroundings will be made comfortable and pleasant. There will also be a positive atmosphere – another meteorological term!

This law helps in various matters of sailing. For real enthusiasts, or one can just dip into it, the USA has published a 47 volume set ‘Sailing Directions’. Maybe you would visit the masseur by boat or barge, entering by his back garden where part of the Basingstoke Canal passes by, if you felt so inclined.

The lows and highs of weather charts are to do with the atmospheric pressure. There are several ‘pressures’ in massage, such as lightly in Swedish massage, to heavier in sports massage. It depends on each person’s requirements. But come along for a massage without feeling pressurised! 

A final weather-wise couple of terms - have a clement experience, meaning mild, pleasant, etc, as opposed to inclement, meaning unpleasant, nasty, etc.

Taking time for a Massage

 

This blog begins on a tangent, though brings in some aspects that could apply to massage.

There is Parkinson’s ‘law’, which is more of an adage really. This is from Cyril Northcote Parkinson (1909-1983), a British naval historian, and says that ‘work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion’.  Which is worse – having too much to do, or too little to do? There are other similar sayings, some bringing in algebraic formulae. We won’t go into those here, you’ll be glad to know!

 

The masseur could be doing the ‘work’, and it could be that leisure, such as having a massage, waxing, liposuction, etc, will expand so as to fill the time available in your treatment session(s). Or if ‘time goes quickly when one is enjoying oneself’, it may seem as though the time goes faster than you think.

 

It’s good to leave enough time for things, even if it’s make time for things, whatever one’s daily matters may be. Some examples are: time in and out of part time or full time jobs; tending to family; getting children to and from school; going shopping; visiting relatives; and countless other things.

 

If not setting enough time, one may under-estimate the minutes or hours that some tasks may take. This can lead to stressful situations. We cannot really multi-task in the sense of doing one thing with one’s left hand while trying to do something else with one’s right hand at the same time.

It can be that we, as people, co-operate with time, though time is not a living entity. Neither can we go back or forward in time, unless one has a time-travelling machine or Tardis! Though a part of Horsell Common, by the Muslim Burial Ground, was the inspiration for ‘War of the Worlds’. It’s quite atmospheric and a bit spooky there.

 

Pass by that way if you wish, if you come along for a massage or other treatment. Aim to spend some time enjoyably, and based on what you are able to afford. One can capture each moment of it with hopefully pleasant experiences, and happy reflections or musings on it.

 

 

Massage And Hammers

 

This blog on massage starts out with some words I read, not by a masseur, but which could come under the DBO. That’s the Department of the Blooming Obvious, to moderate the ‘B’ of it. There was (or still is) such a column in a newspaper.

I read that to have a massage, an author choosing this as a random thing, one needs to have a physical body. This is true! It would seem flimsy and wispy if one was trying to massage a spirit or soul without there being a physical body present.

Yet having a bodily massage or other treatment, as mentioned in some previous blogs, can also have an effect for good on one’s spirit or soul, or both, though we cannot see spirits or souls as tangible things.

 

Abraham Maslow, pictured above, (1908-1970), an American psychologist, is known for ‘Maslow’s Hammer’, or it may be called ‘golden hammer’. This is phrased as ‘if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail’. Some aspects of this won’t apply to massage of course. For example, you won’t be hammered or forced into any treatments.

Massage need not be as a hammer, in that it is not the only treatment available, though some may wish to have massage only. There is also waxing, threading, etc, and different types of massage – see the ‘Home’ web page.

 

At a church a Vicar said to someone at the end of a service, ‘Good to see you; not seen you for some time’. The person replied, ‘I’ve been with you all in spirit’. The Vicar replied, ‘That’s nice, but bring along your body more in future. That’s better than a lot of invisible spirits floating around’.

So we can do so for massage or other treatments. Come along in person, compos mentis, being ‘all there’. If not having been for some time, masseur may say, ‘Great to see you, you’ve changed a bit’. You may reply, ‘Well, it’s still me; it was the same me when I last looked in the mirror anyway!’

Beneficial Massage

 

The fees that are charged for massage or other treatments by masseurs are one type of capital. This also appears in accounting records.

There is social capital, which is a type of capital relating to society, interactions between people, etc, of a beneficial nature. We may be practising it without even knowing of the term. 

It is shown in examples such as opening a door for someone; returning a lost item to someone; giving someone directions; loaning something, not necessarily always financially, without a contract. 

These and many other things may be between people we may or may not know. If the term sounds a bit business-like, we could say it means being kind, helpful, loving one another, even in the simplest ways.

 

The ‘capital’ part, in a simplified and informal way, though dated, can be in saying ‘That’s splendid. Capital!’ That may sound a bit high-brow, or as an alternative to ‘How jolly’ or ‘How spiffing!’ It is used to express approval, satisfaction, or delight, all of which you will hopefully experience in a massage.

Massage can contribute to social capital, and our response to it, or to other treatments such as waxing, threading, liposuction, etc, may not be of upper-class expression, such as ‘spiffing’ or ‘top-hole’, but of ‘excellent’, ‘first-rate’, etc, which are equivalent meanings.

 

One could expand on the ‘language’ of capital, such as investing time and money in massage or other treatment, and of reaping rewards such as having positive experiences.

The masseur will be interested in the financial type of capital but will promote social capital also. You won’t be just clients from whom a business wishes to take money, though of course a massage service is a business.

There will be the ‘people-person’ aspect also, of any worthwhile masseur. You will get your ‘money’s worth’ and will hopefully benefit holistically in areas of body, soul, and spirit – a somewhat frequent claim in recent blogs, but true. Not that masseurs and therapists claim this is so with no back-up, as there are testimonials from clients which show and comment on the positive benefits.

 

Come along sometime, or for another visit, to see for yourself, and have a massage or whatever you may wish to socially capitalise on, i.e. take the chance to gain advantage or benefit from.

Therapeutic Times for Masage

 

A massage therapist is able to offer, as the name suggests, massage as therapy, plus other therapies such as waxing, hot stones, threading, etc.

We need not be put off by the thought of ‘therapy’ though, and have probably heard descriptions, or experienced ourselves of being, for example, ‘in therapy’, or ‘having therapy’, or ‘getting an area of one’s life sorted out’, and so on. The English word ‘therapy’ comes via the Latin ‘therapia’ which is from the Greek, and literally means ‘curing’ or ‘healing’.

There is a broad range of therapies, a massive range in fact, relating to body, soul, and spirit. Some of these can overlap, or even include all three aspects in holistic (whole-listic) treatments. People can sift through therapies that are available. They may range from seemingly cranky or hocus-pocus, to middling and maybe of some use, to positive and helpful therapies. The latter may start as ‘I will give that a try’ and may go on to become ‘It’s just what I need (or needed)’.

It may not be that massage can actually cure ailments, such as physical diseases, nor whether it actually can heal completely, though that could sometimes happen. But hopefully one will find relief in some measure from aches and pains, stresses, etc, and experience healing of some sort, whether in small, medium, or large ways.

In coming for a massage or other treatment, it is possible for it to be ‘all good stuff’, as when one says to their friend ‘I was just talking about you’, and the friend replies ‘All good stuff I hope!’ Clients may (or will) experience an overall sense of sessions being conducive to their well-being. And again, as in holistic types of treatments, somehow an atmosphere or influence – call it what you will – of wholeness will pervade and be sensed.

In this blog, it may seem as if it is elevating massage to great heights, or new heights, though clients do find treatments beneficial. One may wish to publicise and promote one’s own ‘trade’ positively, though there is something in it for clients personally. It can also be that they are enabled to relate more easily or freely to others in some ways, such as when some ache, pain, tension, etc, has been lessened, or even removed altogether. Though masseurs don’t have magic wands that they wave!

See you soon maybe, for a massage or whatever treatment you wish.

 

To massage or not to massage?

That is the question re massage, to open on a Shakespearean note. But no, not a blog on his works. In fact, this blog may seem a lot of umm-ing and ahh-ing of whether to have a massage or other treatment or not. In the end one decides yes or no.

But in aiming to explain, as a layman, how one arrives at yes or no, without hopefully being too long-winded, or higgledy-piggledy, and without it turning into a psychology lesson, there are filtering processes, which can apply to making decisions in any matter in life.

 

In a learning experience, this begins with a stage of going through a beliefs and attitudes filter. In this filter, one may reject a matter, or may go on to the next stage of a context filter, where one considers the context of a matter, i.e. some things in life can appear odd when considered out of context.

It may be that one bypasses the beliefs and attitudes filter if going by ‘seeing is believing’, e.g. one sees videos, demonstrations, etc of massage and then believes it will be good to have this, though does not as yet arrange any treatment. In this case one would jump straight to the context filter.

At the context filter stage, one may reject the matter, or pass to the next stage of a reflective loop. Here one is reflecting in one’s thinking, and may reject the matter and not have any treatment for now. Or one may adapt and experiment, e.g. arrange a certain treatment of massage, waxing, threading, etc, maybe for a first time, or try various different treatments. Or one may adopt the matter one is considering, so one might say, e.g. ‘I enjoyed that treatment; I think I will have more of it’.

So at any stage there is a choice to reject. But we hope you will wish to have treatment experiences that you will find pleasant and profitable, and that you will arrive at a ‘yes’ for massage or whatever treatment you wish. There is no compulsion of course, as we know one person cannot make up another person’s mind for them anyway.

 

 

 

How do I get a Meaningful Massage...

 

 ...or waxing, or liposuction, or threading, or whatever treatment you may have?

In focusing mainly on massage here, there are some people who can be more nervous than others. This may show in them being jittery, fidgety, stressed, or other expressions. It’s part of who they are. One will find that massage is not a psychology lesson, though aspects of psychology (soul and spirit) can come into it, as well as the probably more visible aspects of physiology (body).

 

One does not have to analyse every moment of massage sessions, and nor will the masseur be analysing you. If one can relax in a massage, it will surely be of benefit to clients, and will help the masseur too. Some clients may be less relaxed in waxing, for example, though the aim is not to cause pain. That costs extra, as a previous Blog says!

But just to come for a massage, and to be still a while, if ‘let go’ sounds too threatening, or as if one would lose control. One will be in control of all of one’s faculties, even if one may become sleepy, dreamy, ethereal. This is nothing spooky or hypnotic though.

 

Certain stresses and strains may be revealed and detected during massage, such as neck, shoulder, head, back pain, or general body tension. One may wish to have specific treatment, concentrating on certain problematic area(s). Or if no particular areas of pain, one may enjoyably experience the masseur’s touch, and general well-being feeling of the massage.

Then after massage, to retain something within of calm and peace, with a certain depth, possibly also expressed outwardly also, that one hopefully experienced during the session. One may aim to retain this somehow, so that it does not quickly evaporate through  stress, or rushing back to the next thing on today’s ‘to-do list’, with maybe too many things to think about all at once.

All good things come to an end? If so, for massage sessions, one may feel very relaxed and maybe sleepy. This can be so too for Tai Chi classes, for example, relaxing on a mat at times, feeling one would like to stay there for ages, yet calmly resuming ‘normal service’ of one’s individual daily matters.

Come along, trusting that massage or whatever treatment you have will be meaningful. This can also link with mindfulness, meditation, and similar holistic-type activities.

 

 

 

 

Positive Peacefulness with Massage

You can see your friendly masseur under ‘Surrey Family Mediation’, though not doing massage there, of course! If it was appropriate, if someone seemed stressed in mediation, he might take an opportunity to mention that he does massage too, and give the person(s) his business card – maybe!

A comment on the mediation site refers to Daniel as kind and peaceful. You would (or have) hopefully find this so. Whether you met him for mediation, massage, or both. As a client, I find that those qualities are conveyed in massage sessions. I hope you too have found (or may find in the future) that this is true.

It is surely difficult if we were to come for a treatment in a strained and stressed atmosphere. If unkind, you might be treated as an object or thing.

 Also, negative, as well as positive ‘vibes’, if we call them that, can be ‘transmitted’ in some way. If negative, it could make treatment sessions not go as well as we wish them to go. If positive, it can be a truly enjoyable experience as you relax in the session for massage, or suitably relaxed for treatments involving a bit of pain. Just a little! Though with sports massage, waxing, etc, it is aimed to keep pain at a minimum.

But there is genuine co-operation and interest shown to you as a person. I unhappily had a non-massage situation where a professional seemed to find me tiresome, and as if to say in so many words ‘That’s it, time is up, end of your appointment; it’s the end of a busy week for me, don’t you know?’ You might guess that I parted company from him, as in ‘And it’s goodbye from me permanently!’

 In some things we may persist with more than one attempt. Hopefully you will enjoy the ambience, pleasantness, every good thing towards your well-bring, of a first visit for massage or other treatment, or continue to enjoy it if you are a returning client.

 Come along for massage or whatever treatment as you wish.

Is Massage Cool?

 

Written from a layman’s, not a scientist’s background.

You may be cooled in some massage services, though not in a cryosauna, as in a previous blog. Or you may be warmed sometime, depending somewhat on what treatment you have, such as hot stone or hot oil massage.

You can be ‘cool’ physically and culturally. One example is in painting your roof, or outside of your house or block of flats. It will then be albedo – from the Latin for ‘white’.

This can help, in the complexities and intricacies of tending to climate change, where it is considered that urban albedo, or whitening, can offset climate change, in reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 1.3%. Then again, snow is truly ‘the white stuff’, as some research shows it to be 0.85% white. I don’t know what makes up the other 0.15% of it.

The 1.3% reduction may not seem a lot, though if water levels rise only 0.5mm per year, that is a lot of water for all the oceans, seas, rivers, etc. of the globe.

It will be worth you coming along for a treatment, even if you might feel you contribute only 1.3%, as it were, to the masseur’s ‘trade’, e.g. not able to make many visits for one reason or another.

The whiteness helps in reflecting the sun’s energy, whereas darker surfaces absorb it more. Wear lighter coloured clothing too, to stay cool, and when you have super massage, in the warm or warm-ish Spring, and warmer Summer – we hope!

There are some seemingly odd things relating to climate change. Here are a couple of examples. One is to cover 1.5% of the Earth’s surface in a perfectly reflective mirror, to balance out doubling of carbon dioxide emissions. Another is to cover the Sahara Desert in silver foil to reflect more of the Sun’s energy!

You won’t be required to do odd things in your treatments, but look in a mirror afterwards if having an aesthetic treatment such as waxing or threading, to see wonderful results, we trust.  Also, maybe make a start, covering your garden sand-pit, if you have one, with foil when not in use. There is method in the seeming madness.

 Come along for a massage or other treatment. You choose the method, selecting what treatment you wish.

Massage Money Matters

Your friendly masseur, doing massage and other treatments, will not be drawing his pension any time soon so you will be able to see him for a number of years to come yet. He is, of course, as we all are, 21 again next birthday.

While doing a course on money matters – and it does ‘matter’ too – the origin of the word ‘pension’ goes back a few centuries. It can mean ‘payment for services’ at retirement, or earlier in some situations. It is from the Latin ‘pensionem’, meaning a payment or instalment.

 

When in one employment, some time ago (centuries?!), we manually prepared customers accounts on a simple system. One rubber-stamp was ‘Account Rendered’. This means a bill which has been sent, or about to be sent by post, but is not yet paid.

You will pay, or more tactfully, will be able to pay the masseur at the time of your visit to him, or in some cases, his visit to you. He will not render you an account, or give you bills, as you will have paid there and then, not paying on tick or on the never-never, i.e. hire purchase.

 

You will hopefully receive your money’s worth, and want to have more lovely massage or other treatment. Though to indulge, be pampered, give self a treat, may not always be one of your main motives if you have, say, a sports massage or a waxing. So some treatments may not exactly be lovely!

But you will look fine, we trust, after your waxing, or course of waxing, and eased of aches and pains through having a sports massage.

All contributions will be gratefully received, as the saying goes, financially, and verbally in expressing praise and compliments – many thanks! 

Come along to contribute to the masseur’s ‘trade’. You won’t be treated as an object or as a thing though, in that sense of trade, but a warm welcome awaits, for massage or whatever treatment you may choose.

Paying for a Massage

 

There are payment fees for massage. This is not a discussion about costs, though it is related to spending.

Shoppers, purchasers, users of services, etc, are known as consumers. The term consumption, a possible derivative, can relate to spending. 

There is conspicuous consumption, described by Thorstein Veblen, a Norwegian-American economist and sociologist, (1857-1929, see picture below), where purchases of goods or displays of wealth are made, intending that others will see them and appreciate them. We do what we wish with our money, of course, though Veblen calls this type of consumption wasteful.

 

There is inconspicuous consumption, described by Elizabeth Currid-Halkett, an American academic and author (see picture below), where there is lifestyle-related consumption of things which show people’s cultural standing. Some of these things are the type of education pursued, eating organic foods or doing yoga.

When having a massage, waxing, threading, or any beauty treatment, you will be a client or a customer, for example. You give the masseur your custom for his services. It’s all made a pleasant experience we trust, so that you will wish to return again – and maybe many times!

Come along to ‘consume’ some massage or whatever treatment soon.

 

 

 

Get the Message: Come for a Massage

 

 

You will know the address of your friendly masseur when you visit for a massage or other treatment. There are addresses also in computing, such as e-mail addresses, and IP (Internet Protocol) addresses.

 

Computing may relate, if indirectly so, to massage and other treatments, in the area of time. There is a way on computers to call up to see how quickly messages are getting through. These are timed in milliseconds (ms). You won’t be charged for massage by the millisecond though! We won’t notice any delays in transmissions of messages though, e.g. 20 ms is longer than 5 ms, but both are the time of the blink of an eye, or quicker.

 

From one extreme to the other, from minute, in this case meaning less than the 60 second ‘minute’, to fantastically enormous. There is an IP version 6, vastly greater than the IP version 4, though both are in use today. I don’t know if there is or was an IP version 5.

 

A computer whizz-kid could go into all the explanation of this here – but I’m not one. But to say, the IP version 6 is capable of producing many more addresses. It’s an understatement of the year, or of the century even, to say version 6 is ‘quite’ larger than version 4.

 

IP version 4 can give 2 to the power of 32 addresses, which is a bit under 5 thousand million. IP version 6 can give 2 to the power of 128 addresses, which is a number more than there are grains of the sand, and more massage visits than is humanly imaginable – linking in massage here, so as not to digress completely.

 

There is a quote by technology and marketing consultant Steve Leibson, that is mind-boggling: ‘We could assign an IP version 6 address to every atom on the surface of the earth and still have enough to cover over 100 more earths. It is not remotely likely that we will run out of IP version 6 addresses at any time in the future.’

 

Come along for a massage, waxing, threading, or whatever treatment you wish, hopefully finding it mind-boggling in pleasant and enjoyable ways.

 

Is a hot massage better than a cold massage?

 

  

You may experience degrees of heat and cold during massage or other treatments.

 

But this is not to the extreme of a treatment such as a cryosauna session, where one is subjected to temperatures of minus 100C or more. It is short and sweet, or short and sharp, or both, as it is only for a maximum of three minutes. Some people may have less time of one or two minutes.

 

With it being far colder than brass-monkey weather, it is said by some to be refreshing and revitalising, and more of a ‘dry chill’ as if being in a freezer, than outdoors in a blizzard, for example.  It may not be for everyone though, and checks are made, as they are with certain treatments that your friendly masseur offers.

Whether you’re a Winter or Summer person, or whatever season, there is likely to be the warm atmosphere of the masseur’s home, and of his amiable personality, as well as heat in some of the treatments, e.g. hot stone massage.

 

Some other sporting treatment involves players alternating between cold and hot baths, though the cold bath is above freezing point and the hot bath is not at boiling point. If it were, it could be as a story of 40 martyrs in Armenia, sentenced in 320AD to freeze to death unclothed outdoors overnight. A person pitied them, and took the place of one of the group. The one seemingly saved from a cold death immediately jumped into a hot bath and died from the shock of it.

Come and be warmed and heated, or maybe cooled if you are emotionally over-heated through too much stress, etc, and have a massage or other treatment as you wish.

 

Are you on the fence about a massage?

 

Are you on the fence or hedging your bets about a massage?     

Is this you perhaps, re massage?

With communication, there are hedging words and boosting words. Hedging words are softer, tentative, indefinite, etc, such as:

 

‘I may have a waxing soon.’

‘Perhaps I shall go for a threading next week.’

‘I might enquire about a hot stone massage shortly.’

‘I’m not sure, but am curious about a Swedish massage.’

 

                              Sitting on the fence can be uncomfortable

Boosting words are more definite, expressing one’s own views, preferences, desires, etc, such as:

 

‘I will have an Indian head massage next time.’

‘I must have a waxing for my legs/arms/etc soon.’

‘I am confident that a sports massage will be helpful.’

‘I shall not put off a facial treatment any longer.’

 

Note the unsubtle references to the masseur’s services in these examples! There is no forcing or pressuring to have a massage other treatment, of course. It is entirely client’s own choices. 

Though if sitting on the hedge (or fence) over it, and using hedging words, or umm-ing and ahh-ing over it, you may wish to take as decisive step, and so feel boosted, satisfied, uplifted, when you have had a treatment.

                                               more than a hedge

Not to put words into client’s mouths, though hopefully, you will express boosting-type words, such as:

 

‘Wonderful massage; best I’ve ever had.’

‘Full of praise and appreciation for a fine masseur’.

‘Well worth the visit; homely, friendly, supportive.’

‘I can’t find any fault in this – not that I want to!’

 

You as the client say these things, so that it is boosting by you, and not an ego-trip or boasting by the masseur. Yet it can help to give the masseur added publicity and enhancement of his services.  

See you soon possibly, for massage or whatever treatment you choose.

Waxing Lyrical

No, not a poem, or literary composition! But if you are considering a waxing, you may encounter an old friend, serotonin, the happy hormone’ or ‘feel-good hormone’.  

You may also, if not use to waxing, experience the ‘fight flight, or freeze’ response, yet not to paint it as a torturous experience, as therapists will do their best to reassure you, and make things as painless as possible.

There are, in the medical world, cats and pets! These are: Computerised Axial Tomography (CAT) and Positron Emission Tomography (PET) scans. We trust waxing won’t feel like being scratched by a cat or other pets that can scratch.

We can also help ourselves if being a nervous client preparing for waxing, by using things such as breathing techniques to calm ourselves. Hopefully it will be minimal ‘pain’ to ‘gain’, as the saying goes, leading to an aesthetic and pleasing result. There are various areas that can be waxed, as listed on the website here.

Take a step, or a plunge maybe, to try a first waxing, or another step if having a course of waxing over a few sessions. Some things that we may be anxious or worried about can turn out to be less worrying, or with no worries, when actually doing them. We may spend more time, energy, etc in anxiety before the event!

Come along for a waxing if you wish. Give it a whirl maybe, then give a twirl, when you show the wonderful (we trust) outcome of your experience.

 

How is the Massage for EU?

 

It’s a slight link to massage, though recalling a previous blog (18 May 2021), this brings in the ‘eu’ prefix again.  It will be stating the opposite in this blog, in mentioning eugenics. The ‘eu’ part means ‘good’. The ‘genics’ part refers to genes, so ‘good genes’. And maybe so, if you are named Eugene!

 

But eugenics is not good in aiming to improve the genetic quality of humans by leaving out those considered inferior. The categories of people that are left out, such as special needs, low IQ, learning disability, disabled in any way, etc, is totally unjustifiable. It surely only adds to their difficulties, brought about originally through no fault of their own. The same could apply with eugenics and animals.

 

It does not matter, or matter so much, with plants, though it could be messing about too much with ecosystems, the environment, etc.

 

Eugenics relating to humans has been linked with terms of scientific racism, sometimes called biological racism. We may think this is all in the dark ages of centuries ago, but no. The term was coined late in history really, from around 1904. It brings in many moral and ethical concerns surely, consigning some people to the rubbish heap, including preventing them from having children even, so that in the eugenicist’s view no more ‘sub-standard’ people should be born.

 

Yet it is they who are ‘sub-standard’ one could say. In their attempts to improve on fellow humans lives, the practice of eugenics becomes a horrible evil.

 

Here are pictured of Francis Galton (1822-1911), a supporter of eugenics

 and G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936), an opponent of eugenics. 

With massage or whatever treatment, eu (you), to repeat a quip, will hopefully have a good time.