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.

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