#133 - Plugged In
EES, low key, and looking well
Let me tell you about my Friday afternoon.
It started off by handing in my phone.
So far so good; one of my favourite pass times. Like an Unplugged stay.
But then it turned more Matrix than Unplugged.
The next three hours were spent surrounded by screens, and the elderly.
Quite surreal.
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EES
Imagine, if you will, a dimly lit room.
A light sends green dots dancing on the wall.
Got that?
Great, now add 12 lounge chairs in rows of 3.
Populate 11 of these chairs with the aforementioned elderly, and the last with this writer.
Next imagine a raised shelf running around the wall.
The shelf is full of computer monitors.
On each screen is what looks like a stream of text. Colourful and indistinguishable. Running at different speeds on each devices.
Classical music plays in the background.
The effect, I have to say, is rather hypnotic.
Where on earth were you? I suspect you’re wondering. I thought the same, I can assure you.
Fate had led me to the Battersea Park Clinic to embark on the latest of my eccentric health treatments.
It’s called the Energy Enhancement System.
Low Key
And it came on my radar from a chap called Jack Smith.
Jack has spent millions in the last few years treating various ailments (he, helpfully, sold a company for $800m) and concluded this system to be the only thing that worked.
Still on my own healing journey this caught my attention. As did the price. It’s suspiciously cheap.
Most these whacky treatments are ludicrously expensive; 10-part IV Ozone Therapy, for example, will set you back £750 a session. A course of 10 sessions is recommended.
But not this.
It’s just £60 for three hours. A bargain if it can do a fraction of what Jack believes.
So there I was, at 2:45pm last Friday; sat amongst a sea of grey hair; waiting to be summoned. My neighbour, a Dutch lady, I learnt, was here to fight her cancer. I suspect others were in a similar boat.
I was rather excited.
I had a book, a journal, and three hours off my phone. I’d pay £60 for that with no healing properties. If it can also help heal, frankly, it seems too good to be true.
Shortly before 3pm we were ushered in.
It was all very low key.
No instructor, no official start, nothing really. We just wandered in and each found a lounge. And it had begun.
20 minutes pondering the trials and tribulations of the week soon slid into a nap, which led to some journalling.
Three hours passed in very much this vein. Pondering, napping, and journalling. It was a joy.
Once finished I was ushered to a salt bath to complete the process. And that was it. I was ejected back onto the streets of Battersea.
Looking Well
So did it work?
Well...
I felt extremely calm afterwards, so that’s something.
And I noticed a certain glow; even earning a comment about how well I looked (thanks Mum!). Surprising after a week of work.
But as to the healing?
It’s hard to say. I feel like it did something. And perhaps that’s all the matters.
It reminded me of a conversation I’d had recently; I was challenged for talking of getting healthy.
Don’t focus on the end goal, he told me, focus on the journey. The healing is a goal in itself.
As with everything in this life the journey is the destination.
What I loved about this particular treatment is it’s a wonderful way to spend three hours. So much of this healing process can be a chore, and rather tedious. But this? It’s a journey I’d love to be on.
But in that quirky room, I had another thought.
It’s not really the journey or the destination. It’s the company. Because all the colour in this life comes from who we spend it with.
Heal one thing, and then comes the next. Life will throw many challenges; who you face them with matters far more than what they are.
Sat there on my lounge chair, surrounded by my elderly companions, I felt a real gratitude for the people I get to spend it all with.
And it was with that calm, gratitude, and perhaps even, wisdom, that I wandered home.
Whilst I can’t tell you what, clearly something happened in there.
I will certainly be back.
What I’ve Been Reading 📚
Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
A beautiful book. A meditation on family, love, fortune and the passing nature of it all. Highly recommended.
Thank you P for the recommendation!
The Odyssey by Homer
Rereading 13 years after I first encountered it. Amazing how much shorter certain parts of the story are then remembered. Odyssey’s journey is almost secondary to the various comings and goings on Ithaca.
I didn’t find it the biggest page turned I’ve ever read but a pleasant read none the less, it had a certain comfort to it.
Part of my book club with Hector Alexander. Next month is Moby Dick, for which I’ll be visiting H in Nepal for a live reading.
A Final Thought 💡
"All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone"
- Blaise Pascal