Status & Health

Last post for a bit. Caught this stat yesterday, that life expectancy is linked to the "sense of control" we experience in our lives. Thus people who have position and wealth who thereby feel that they are in control live longer than those who are dependent, the example given being on the dole.

This trend could be explained in many ways for example that people who are more sickly are going to have less control obviously skews the data. But, I felt the implication of the statistic was that psychological pressure alone contributes to lower life expectancy.

This links to a huge chunk of what I've analysed of late and adds some weight to it. The analysis of depression was that it is a psychological strategy to lower desires to avoid the stress that comes from competition. It is an essential mechanism in social animals then in that it reduces conflict and limits resource consumption. It seems then that dying early by individuals who are squeezed out by completition is a similar psychological derived mechanism which actually aids the group as a whole.

It means however that as I was beginning to realise, position and status are not arbitrary but are actually linked to life! When people look for job promotions its not so that they can contribute more to the company, its not even so that they can get more money to feed more mouths, the status itself confers psychological well being! Now I never understood that, maybe I don't have this sort of brain.

So I need to factor this in to my list of life essentials that for most people social status is a "necessary". Sexual activity still has a question over it. The others are the obvious biological ones + the most important one: love (as in altruism).

It beggars belief though that my fellow man is so ignorant though. I mean if you gain status by being "above" another person then doesn't it mean that in the same move they are therefore equally "lower". So the net gain is zero. Nothing has changed in Reality. And a hidden implication is that there is an absolute top and bottom. For example on the scale of salary. Some say that the bigger the salary the higher the status. Some however say that the happier the higher the status and we know that salary and happiness don't equate. They are different scales. There is no absolute high and low. And in any case on any measure be it height or popularity or wealth etc there will always be people above you and people below you however high you rise. So it is a futile quest really.

I believe that this is an affine space with no origin, and while you can trace vectors between individuals in many dimensions (niches) there is no centre or top or bottom. Does the Earth have a top and a bottom. By convention we take North to be the top, but we know that space has no Real orientation, its just an illusion; as by the same measure is money.

Where money is different is that it affords us more purchasing power and this has a real effect because it means that we can buy people (who said slavery was dead). Thus we buy people to make our food, do our washing, drive our buses and train, clean the water etc. This can make a real difference... but only as long as there are people who accept the illusion. When famine breaks out then people want food not money, the space reorientates.

That is unless "control" itself is the feature. Are we all control freaks? Or is it as analysed most recently the underlying desire which requires control to manifest, and which causes suffering if not manifest. Not managing desire then really will kill us maybe! This is more urgent that I thought!

It no wonder then that the world is such an unhappy place if we are all secretly seeking to be one up on our neighbours. It can be quite innocent like in X-factor where you wish to be the best in the sense that you have the best voice and singing talent. But it is a small step to wanting to be first irrespective of your singing talent, and worse simply not having anyone ahead of you. My most recent ex-bosses all suffered from this pathologically.

Actually I see it is simply a matter of ego which separates the person who simply wants to be the best, from the person who wants to be first. Then is ego the issue in feeling in control? And a factor which makes causes poor people to die earlier than rich people? To be discovered...