the road to happiness

With apologies to Snoop Dogg, I got to tell you, I'm stayin' off the street, smokin' domestic, munchin' on berries and juice;
laid back (with my mind on my intestines and intestines on my mind).

It's a long and winding road, the intestinal tract -- anywhere from 17 to 30 feet in a normal human -- and without doubt is the road to joy and happiness, if not ecstasy. This is especially true in those of us for whom the tract has been a source of torment for any length of time, like, for instance, 45 years or so. In the dark and endless days of our Babylonian captivity, we scarcely dared think of the joy awaiting us upon our deliverance, which seemed uncertain at best until it actually happened.

For years I continued to eat in restaurants, even though I knew better. Eventually, forced to mostly eschew that habit, I never imagined what damage white flour was inflicting -- that bleached-out, nutritionless substance Michael Pollan calls "the original fast food." Each day these refined flours would produce enough methane in my gut to re-float the dirigible Hindenburg and made my life a misery, although probably not as much of a misery as the lives of the people living and working close to me.

The joys of romantic love and the bliss of meditation certainly have their merits, and the happiness they bring I'm sure may equal, but does not surpass the tranquility of body and mind that accompany healthful eating, healthy digestion, and successful intestinal negotiation.