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Available for over a year
It’s now easier than ever to pick up minerals, proteins and vitamins in the hope they’ll pep us up and improve our health. As a woman of a certain age, my social media feed is full of influencers and adverts selling me wellness in a bottle. And I’ll admit, I have succumbed to the hope that I might find wellness in the supplement-filled containers that adorn my kitchen cupboards and bedside table. Like everyone, I just want to feel a bit… better. On Monday, Dr Xand van Tulleken discussed his new book, a study of the wellness industry, in an episode of Start the Week on the theme of living with uncertainty. In it, he suggested that, in a world in which we’re increasingly being pushed towards self-optimisation –through supplements and wearable technology – wellness is actually a desire for certainty. I think the wellness industry taps into that very human need - to control and have some certainty over the future. We just want to know that we’ll be ok. Popping a vitamin supplement is a defiant act of taking back control in a world in which we’re being told AI could wipe out all of humankind. The Christian story’s approach to certainty is complex. It speaks of having certainty in salvation achieved through Christ’s death and sacrifice, but the hope comes not through a self-optimised body but through a fragile one, bruised and broken on a tree. This month, Pope Leo began a new series of reflections on Gaudium et Spes – Latin for “joy and hope”. He spoke about the contradictions of modern life. The extraordinary scientific and technological progress alongside a profound uncertainty about the direction in which humanity is heading. He says we’re called not to retreat from that uncertainty but to engage with the reality of human life within it. Maybe what the Christian faith can offer in a world seeking wellness as a buffer against uncertainty isn’t the hope of perfect lives or perfect bodies, nor a certainty about the future. But rather, that in a world that feels profoundly uncertain, there’s a hope that’s able to withstand the uncertainty. Perhaps the words of 14th century mystic Julian of Norwich might soothe those of us anxious about the future and seeking certainty in the promise of wellness: “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.” Maybe just not as we think.
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