Summer is the time for outdoor activity. It is also the time, where everyplace you look, weather it be TV, billboards, posters etc., you are warned to protect yourself from the evil Sun. Long sleeves, hats, SPF this and that, don't go out between the hours of X and Y and so on. The Sun is portrayed as the evil giver of disease and the culprit that will steal years away from your youthful look. Melanoma, wrinkles, age spots, dry skin and the list continues to grow for the resume of this evil culprit of doom. Could it be that the Sun is just getting a bad rap and is the scapegoat of this modern technological, vain, anti-nature, instant gratification society?
Humans, Genus Homo, have been evolving on this planet for a minimum of 2 million years. If you go back to the ancestors of Homo, you can take humans back to at least 6 million years, if not longer, and the ancestors of these animals back to the beginning of life on Earth. In all this time, the Sun has been there every step of the way. As a mater of fact, if it wasn't for the Sun, life wouldn't exist at all. The Sun is so much a part of our lives that everything that makes us Human is due to the Sun/Earth relationship. Evolving in such a close relationship with the Sun has made the Sun a very important partner in our health. Our sleep wake cycle is the Suns responsibility. This circadian rhythm is so important to our lives that even a small interruption in this cycle has ill effects on our health. Some of the most important vitamins we need to be healthy rely on the Sun for metabolism and without adequate Sun exposure will negatively, and sometimes disastrously, effect our immune system.
As a Naturalist, I tend to see things in a way that makes me think weather or not we are following the laws of Nature. Through millions of years of evolving with the Sun, Nature has figured out ways to protect us from any negative effects the Sun might have. For instance, Nature had colored our skin to the correct shade, depending on the latitude and therefore the angle of insolation, needed to protect us where our ancestors have evolved. Cultures that have evolved closer to the Equator have more Melanin, or dark pigment, in their skin to protect them from the high angle of UV radiation. People who have evolved in areas of the Earth where the Suns angle is not so high, and the seasons that the Sun is strongest are alot shorter, have fairer skin tones. People who have evolved in these far Northern and Southern Latitudes also have evolved wearing alot more clothing do to the colder climates and the lack of Sunshine, which negated the need for lots of Melanin. In Nature, Humans Migrated relatively slowly allowing them to adapt to their changing environment. Now that technology has allowed Humans, who's ancestors have lived in a geographic location for millenia, to move around the globe almost instantly, taking away Natures ability to protect them in their new home. Imagine someone of Norwegian decent, who's ancestors have live in a high latitude area of the Earth, have light skin and have evolve wearing lots of clothing to protect them from the cold, decides to move to south Florida. Fair skin, high angle Sun, wearing alot less clothes due to the heat and eating the SAD (standard american diet). Every time this person goes out into the Sun they get a Sun burn to some degree and eventually gets skin cancer, is this the Suns fault?
You know how there are times in you life where something happens and a light bulb goes off and changes the way you think of things for the rest of your life? Well I had one of those moments many years ago while sitting on a small beach close to my hometown. I have always loved the warmth of the summer and I have always loved being in the Sun. I have always had a good tan, and except when I was young and sometimes force to by my parents(sunscreen was a new thing), I have never worn sunscreen. Anyway, I was just hanging at this beach enjoying the Sun and water, when I looked over and saw a girl in a bikini lying about 50 feet from me. Her skin was shinny with suntan lotion and as I glanced over she sat up to get something to drink. Out of the cooler she grabbed a diet coke and than reached over into her bag lit a cancer stick. Besides being turned off by her disgusting stupidity, a light went off in my head, and it occurred to me that one day this girl is going to get cancer and her doctor and her family and friends were going to blame the SUN for her cancer! You godda be kiddin me!
First, slathering yourself with a bunch of toxic chemicals then laying in the Sun to bake them in is just stupid. Have you ever heard that if you get sea sick you can wear a patch on your skin to slowly deliver a medicine to stop it, or that if you have a heart problem you can wear a patch to slowly deliver medicine to prevent a heart attack or even if you want to stop smoking there is a patch for you also. Does this tell you something? Almost everything you put on your skin gets absorbed into your body and into your bloodstream! I wasn't close enough, but I bet she was wearing highly toxic makeup and neurotoxic perfume to top it off, all getting pumped through her and poisoning every cell in her body. Next, diet soda, don't get me started, I would need ten pages to explain the stupidity of that. There is plenty written on the web for you to read. There is one thing, and only one thing, people and all other animals are supposed to drink, and thats water, period! If you read my last post, you know my feelings about the stupidity of sucking poisonous carcinogenic smoke into your lungs. So, here is this pile of toxic carcinogenic flesh baking in the Sun, what should you expect will happen? To a more and to a lesser degree people all over the planet are doing everything in their power to poison themselves with the food they eat, the air they breath, the crap they drink. On a daily basis they are destroying their immune systems by the choices they make in their lives and you wonder why the rate of cancer and all other degenerative diseases is on the rise. Still think its the Suns fault?
Our lives center around being indoors, a very unnatural way to be. You live indoors, work indoors, go from place to place indoors. You wear clothes all the time and are told to wear sunglasses to protect our eyes from the evil Sun. Than one day you decide to go to the beach, your skin hasn't seen the sun in six months, you put on SPF one billion and still burn to a crisp! The next day you can't move you hurt so bad, you have blisters all over your back and a slight fever and a headache. You have Sun poisoning, you damage your skin so badly that in ten years you get skin cancer, your doctor blames the Sun.
When the warm weather comes around all I want to do is lay in the sun because I am so sick of the Winter and being cold all the time. It feels so good and warm I want to lay there all day. But I do the smart thing, my skin is as sensitive as everyone else's after a winter of being covered up, so I only lay out for ten minuets a day till I start to build up a tan, than I increase my time accordingly and by the time the warm weather is here to stay I don't have to worry about working in the garden with my shirt off or lying in the pool after work.
The Sun is not the culprit, our unnatural way of life that goes against everything or bodies have learned over millions of years of evolution and our modern unnatural technological world is the real culprit here.
Go outside, be in the Sun, and enjoy your life in a more natural way, your body will thank you for all that beautiful sunshine it has been craving all these years!
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