By Leonardo Padura and - -
HAVANA, Aug 2 2007 (IPS)

With all the warnings about everything from sunlight to smoking to meat, it seems more and more astonishing that our species has made it to the present day, after millions of years of exposure to the sun and unrestrained eating and drinking, smoking, and indulging in sex (and not only for reproduction) and travelling, writes Leonardo Padura Fuentes, a Cuban writer and journalist whose novels have been translated into a ten languages. In this article, the author writes that there was even a time not so long ago that we even considered these suicidal indeed genocidal acts to be pleasures, like smoking a cigarette in a bar with a glass of wine or a coffee. The oblivion that shrouded life back then (of course AIDS, global warming, and the hole in the ozone layer didn\’t yet exist) made life more pleasing, if sometimes shorter. Today, however, when the entire human race risks vanishing from the earth because of its own stupidity and mistreatment of our planet, many people are worried about living to one hundred in perfect health, limiting if not eliminating pleasures while they burn rivers of fuel and raze forests and, most important, forget that for millions of other people in this world, a piece of bread, a glass of clean water, or even an avocado are not enemies but luxuries that it becomes harder and harder to come by each day.

Until my wife’s run-in with the dermatologist and my friend’s tale of his nutritionist, I didn’t associate these diagnoses with the recommendations I’d received by email a few days earlier from certain eminent health experts from Johns Hopkins Hospital. According to the message, these wise men had discovered the health risks associated with consuming coffee, tea, and chocolate and drinking cold water from plastic bottles, and they assured the reader of the linkage between sugar and cancer — among other interesting findings.

There must be hundreds of thousands of us who at the mere hint of a cold run to a doctor and come away with a stack of prescriptions more irksome than the symptoms themselves and the feeling that our next cigarette will be not only our last but also the end of those around us when we light it. And then there are the dangers posed caused by drinking beer, rum, whisky, and even a bottle of red wine, not to mention white.

But the greatest threat to our health and indeed the species itself is not exposure to the sun, or gluttony (or worse yet eating an avocado) nor the affection for (now called addiction to) cigarettes, coffee, or alcohol. The truth is that the Great Threat was born with us and each of us carries it between out legs: our sex. More than biological necessity or mental or physiological pleasure, sex has been transformed into a risk factor, as many now call it, and must be practised safely and with caution, behind a latex shield, because otherwise we are playing fast and loose with our lives.

And what about travel? Does anyone remember when roaming the globe was an adventure, a unique experience, a joyful process of learning about other cultures, landscapes, and ways of life? Or the days when airplanes were symbols of glamour and stewardesses were always young, pretty, and lovable? Today, whatever the travel agencies might say (those profit-crazed scavengers of decadent capitalism), the truth is that travelling is the riskiest of all activities. The very act of entering an airport is enough to destroy forever our appetite for leaving the couch or the glow of the computer or television screen.

Everyone who buys an airplane ticket becomes not so much a traveller as a presumed terrorist who cannot be allowed to pass through security checks without being examined from head to toe (private parts included) or granted permission to carry so much as a tube of hair gel or a container of cough syrup. In the airport, where of course smoking is prohibited and where, truth be told, it is better not to risk eating from any of the fast food joints, the risks incurred just getting onto the plane and flying are so relentless that we dare board the vessel only because we are either so damaged or stupefied. And once we are actually inside this macabre apparatus, who has the nerve to ask for a glass of water from the tyrannical air hostess who charges even for a smile (”food for purchase” it says on the ever more expensive tickets) and seems ready to eject you from the plane in mid-flight.

With all the warnings that pursue us, so sad and scientifically grounded, it seems more and more astonishing that our species has made it to the present, after millions of years of exposure to the sun, unrestrained eating and drinking (just to satisfy our hunger and thirst), smoking, and indulging in sex (and not only for reproduction) and moving from one place to another to satisfy our needs and curiosity.

There was even a time not so long ago that we even considered these suicidal -indeed genocidal- acts to be pleasures, like smoking a cigarette in a bar with a glass of wine or a coffee. The oblivion that shrouded life back then (of course AIDS, global warming, and the hole in the ozone layer didn’t yet exist), when there were fewer bans and fears, made life more pleasing, if sometimes shorter.

Today, however, when the entire human race risks vanishing from the earth because of its own stupidity and mistreatment of this wonderful planet that God gave us, many people are worried about living to one hundred in perfect health, limiting if not eliminating pleasures while they burn rivers of fuel and raze forests and, most important, forget that for millions of other people in this world, a piece of bread, a glass of clean water, or even an avocado are not enemies but luxuries that it becomes harder and harder to come by each day. Isn’t that the way we are?

It is curious and I would even say unnatural that there are still people in this world who will board an airplane to spend a few days on a sunny beach in the Caribbean, the Mediterranean, or the Pacific, eat whatever they want with wine and other liquors, have a coffee, smoke a cigar or cigarette, and, the peak of all peaks, unleash and use this sex that God gave us. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

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