Chasing the Green
Herring
A piece of
cloth soaked in smoked (hence red) herring oil has traditionally been used to lay a false trail for Horse &
Hound. That’s if there was no fox available. The actual
goal, namely to catch and eat the red herring, was obviously a fake. Not so
the pleasure, delight and good health that could be derived from the
physical, emotional and mental exertions of the chase, unless, of course,
someone fell of his horse and got killed (known as acceptable collateral
damage). In medical
terms, a red herring (chase/activity) is called a placebo, the object of actual
interaction being a fake but the outcome of the fake interaction being
extremely beneficial (similar to playing rugby, darts or tiddlywinks or
slaughtering Celts in a Roman circus, all red herring activities). A visit to a
forest is a green
herring
chase. The forest’s (unaccustomed) green ambience (as placebo) distracts from the deleterious affects of automatic or compulsive self-harming resulting
from continuous mental (become emotional and physical) re-enactment of
distressing, hence health degrading memories. Whilst so distracted from
self-harming by chasing the green herring the psychophysical entity
reactivates its self-repair genes (or epi-genes), thus coming up smelling of
roses, lilies or whatever. There is no
scientific evidence than people living in forests, such as foresters or
charcoal makers, are more or less healthy or sick that people living in
conurbations. What does the trick is the switch from negative to positive
stress flooding (i.e. brain rinsing (with or without dyeing with a particular
suggestion)). There seems little doubt that a stressed out forester would get a significant health boost
from spending some time in the gambling dens of Las Vegas or the nightclub
scene of Bangkok. |