Drop Dead Healthy by A. Jacobs (books to read to increase intelligence .TXT) 📕

“I want it, I want it, I really really want it!” shouts Patricia.

“I WANT IT, I WANT IT, I REALLY REALLY WANT IT!” we holler back as we step to the side and kick.

The crowd—mostly women, mostly well toned, mostly glistening by now—are really into it, shouting loudly enough to raise the veins in their necks. I look at Julie. She’s saying the words with all the enthusiasm of a third-grader reciting the Pledge of Allegiance.

“Warrior pose!” shouts Patricia.

We jump and spread our legs out like ninjas.

“Every day, in every way, I co-create my reality!” she shouts.

“EVERY DAY, IN EVERY WAY, I CO-CREATE MY REALITY!” we shout.

I’m trying to balance Julie’s lack of intenSati spirit with my own zealousness, which is part earnest, part manufactured. I’m doing this somewhat out of guilt. I made Julie come, and I want to convince her—and myself—that it’s a worthwhile hour.

I have nothing against affirmations, even overly complicated ones. Co-creating my reality? I can go with that. We do see the world the way we want to.

It’s not a bad catchphrase. And I’ve been on the hunt for some good inspirational slogans ever since I had to stop using Nike’s beautifully succinct “Just do it!” (I discovered that the advertising copywriter got the idea for the phrase from the last words of executed murderer Gary Gilmore. So I can’t say it without thinking of a firing squad.)

Anyway, I’m committing myself to these affirmations. And I swear, over the course of forty minutes, I start to get more confident. My posture improves. My endorphins flow.

Yell this stuff in a room for long enough, and you start to believe it. I can do anything! I can write an epic poem! I can design a hydrogen fuel cell! Unfortunately, one thing I cannot do is convince Julie the class was worth her time.

“I feel like I was just at a Hare Krishna meeting,” she says as we’re packing up to leave.

Julie won’t be coming back. Though for the next two weeks, she did incorporate intenSati into our lives.

“Can you hand me the business section?” she said the next morning. “I want it. I want it. I really, really want it!”

In the end, I probably won’t be a regular intenSati-goer either. But I see its charms. Some level of delusional optimism is healthy. As long as that delusional optimism is balanced with a sensible understanding that we have pathetically little control over our fates. It’s a tricky mix, but a crucial one.

You need both. Without some delusional optimism, you’ll suffer from Depressive Realism. This psychological theory holds that the people with the most accurate view of the world aren’t happier—they’re clinically depressed. Studies show they have a correct perception of how much they control the outcome of events—namely, very little—and it crushes them. (Not all scientists buy this theory, but the ones who don’t are probably, you know, deluded.)

If your worldview is too real, you might spend all your time in bed eating Bugles corn chips feeling overwhelmed and listless. You’ll be too aware of all the thousands of factors toying with your destiny—from the weather to your genes to a misplaced pair of socks.

On the other hand, if you’re too delusionally optimistic, you’ll be unbearable. You’ll refuse to save money or make backup plans. You’ll invade foreign countries and expect to be greeted as liberators. Like everything else in health, you need balance.

Chapter 9

The Lower Intestine

The Quest to Go to the Bathroom Properly

I’VE STUMBLED ACROSS some strange information in my health research. There’s Capgras syndrome, in which a person believes that his mother (or sister or best friend) has been replaced by an identical-looking impostor. There’s a disease called “pica,” where the sufferer has an overwhelming desire to eat dirt, paper, glue, or clay.

But right now I’m being told the oddest, most baffling detail I’ve heard all year.

I’m in the office of Dr. Lester Gottesman in midtown Manhattan. And he’s describing to me an elective surgery that he’s performed not once, but several times.

It’s for people who want to change the way they sound.

When they fart.

Yes, these patients want to change the timbre of their flatus, usually from a high pitch to a lower pitch. From a piccolo to a bassoon. Apparently, that’s more aesthetically pleasing.

So he’s done several procedures to tweak New Yorkers’ sphincters. “I try to talk people out of [the surgery], but some people have a whole psychodrama about farts.”

I’m not sure how to react to this information. Mostly, I’m thinking that if the revolution comes, this fact alone will make it hard to fault the insurrection. “Well, I don’t approve of mass executions of the ruling class,” we’ll have to admit. “But on the other hand, there’s that trend of plastic surgery to upgrade our farts. We really were asking for it.”

As a committed experiential journalist, I also wondered if I should submit to the operation and become a baritone myself. But Dr. Gottesman says it has no known health benefits. Which is a relief.

But I do need to address other aspects of my colorectal health. I can’t ignore my bottom. I’ve spent months obsessing about what to eat, but not a minute on how to take out the body’s trash. It seems imbalanced. It seems unhealthy.

I’m not a big scatology fan, unlike my sons, who can amuse themselves for an entire afternoon by repeating the phrase “crocodile fart.” So I’ll spare you from an overabundance of detail in this chapter. This chapter will be somewhat soft focus, like the TV camera in a Barbra Streisand interview.

I found Dr. Gottesman because he’s been included on New York magazine’s Best Doctors list for the last eight years and has written, in his words, a “shitload” of academic articles.

When I first arrived, I filled out my paperwork in the waiting room, which had a sign that said NO EATING. That seems unnecessary. You’d hope that the word “colorectal” would dampen one’s hunger for a chalupa.

Soon after, Dr. Gottesman