Why Huna and Dr. Bob Are Saying the Same Thing

Why Huna and Dr. Bob Are Saying the Same Thing

Let's Get One Thing Straight: Balance is Bullshit

You've heard it a million times. "Find your balance." "Work-life balance." "A balanced diet." It's the kind of feel-good, placating advice that gets stitched onto throw pillows. And it's fundamentally, scientifically wrong. This obsession with equilibrium is a damn sedative. It’s a fantasy that keeps you stuck, fragile, and terrified of the one thing that’s guaranteed in this universe: change.

Life isn't a perfectly balanced scale. It's a raging, beautiful, chaotic storm. It’s a system teetering on the very edge of a cliff, and the magic happens in the dance between falling and flying. If you’re truly in a state of equilibrium, you’re not living. You’re dead. That’s the only time perfect balance is achieved. So, why the hell are we all aspiring to be corpses?

The Problem: We're Addicted to an Illusion

We crave certainty. We build routines, make five-year plans, and cling to identities that make us feel safe. We want the universe to be a predictable, orderly place. When it inevitably throws a wrench in our plans—a layoff, a breakup, a global pandemic—we freak out. We see it as a failure, a disruption of the precious “balance” we’ve been told to seek.

This is what I call being a Backward-Looking Person, or a BLP. BLPs are constantly trying to put things back the way they were. They resist change, they fear the unknown, and they expend massive amounts of energy trying to maintain a static state that simply doesn’t exist. They are fighting against the most fundamental law of the universe, and it's a fight they will always lose.

“The irony is that our desperate quest for stability is the very thing that creates instability in our lives. We’re so afraid of the storm that we build our houses out of sugar, and then act surprised when it rains.”

It’s an exhausting, soul-crushing way to live. You’re not adapting; you’re just resisting. You’re not evolving; you’re stagnating. And you’re missing the entire point.

The Application: Ancient Wisdom and Modern Science Collide

Here's where it gets really interesting. Long before we had the language of thermodynamics or endocannabinoids, ancient Hawaiian wisdom, known as Huna, was describing the exact same principles. They were talking about the same fundamental truths of the universe, just using a different vocabulary.

Dr. Bob and the Kahunas were climbing the same mountain from different sides. One used the language of physics and biology, the other the language of spirit and nature. Both arrived at the same peak: life is a dynamic flow, and our well-being depends on our ability to adapt to it.

The Seven Principles: A Side-by-Side Synthesis

The Deeper Dive: Dissipative Structures and the Flow of Life

To truly grasp this synthesis, we need to understand a key concept from Nobel laureate Ilya Prigogine: dissipative structures. These are open systems that maintain their structure by constantly exchanging energy and matter with their environment. Think of a whirlpool, a flame, or, most importantly, a living organism. They are not in equilibrium; they are in a constant state of flow.

Prigogine showed that far from equilibrium, these systems can spontaneously self-organize into more complex structures, creating order out of chaos. This is the scientific basis for what the Kahunas knew intuitively: life is a creative, self-organizing process.

"Close to equilibrium, fluctuations are damped in the neighborhood of the fixed point. However, far from equilibrium stability is no longer a universal property and can be broken." — Ilya Prigogine, Nobel Lecture (1977)

This is EXACTLY what Dr. Bob means about BLPs vs FLPs. BLPs try to damp fluctuations and return to equilibrium. FLPs embrace the instability and ride the bifurcation to new states. The Kahunas understood this: MANAWA tells us that now is the moment of power because far-from-equilibrium systems exist only in the present. Past states are irrelevant; only current flow matters.

The Bridge: The Endocannabinoid System as the Great Regulator

So, how does the body manage this constant flow and adaptation? This is where Dr. Bob's work on the endocannabinoid system (ECS) becomes so crucial.

The ECS is the body's master regulator, a vast network of receptors and signaling molecules that acts like a traffic cop, controlling the flow of information and energy throughout the body. According to Harvard Health, the ECS "regulates and controls many of our most critical bodily functions such as learning and memory, emotional processing, sleep, temperature control, pain control, inflammatory and immune responses, and eating." ^[3]

It's the biological mechanism that implements the principles of Huna. The ECS is the physical substrate of mana, the life force energy that the Kahunas spoke of. In Hawaiian culture, mana is described as "spiritual energy and healing power which can exist in places, objects, and persons" and can be "gained or lost by actions." ^[4] This is precisely what the ECS does at the cellular level—it modulates energy flow based on the body's needs and actions.

When the ECS is functioning optimally, energy flows freely, and we are healthy, adaptable, and resilient. When it's out of balance, we experience disease, stagnation, and stress. And yes, cannabis works by interacting with this ancient system, helping to restore flow and promote adaptation.

The Takeaway: How to Stop Balancing and Start Living

So how do you put this into practice? How do you shift from being a Backward-Looking Person to a Forward-Looking Person?

1. Embrace the Stress of Change: Stop seeing stress as the enemy. All change, good or bad, is stress. It’s the signal that the system needs to adapt. Learn to welcome it as an opportunity for growth, not a threat to your stability.
2. Feed Your Endocannabinoid System: Your ECS is your built-in adaptation hardware. Support it. Things like exercise, meditation, and yes, cannabinoids from cannabis, can help tune this system, making you more resilient to the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.
3. Practice Pono: Look at your life. Are your beliefs and behaviors effective? Are they making you stronger, happier, and more adaptable? If not, have the courage to discard them. Truth is not a static thing; it’s a measure of what works.
4. Focus Your Makia: Be intentional about where you direct your energy. Starve your fears and feed your curiosity. Stop ruminating on the past and start investing your attention in the present moment, where all your power lies.

Stop trying to find balance. It’s a fool's errand. The goal isn't to avoid the waves; it's to learn how to surf.

References

[1] Melamede, R. (2015). The Endocannabinoid System and Medical Marijuana: A Pending Revolution in Healthcare. Vermont Legislature

[2] King, S. K. (n.d.). The Seven Principles of Huna. Huna International. huna.org

[3] Grinspoon, P. (2021). The endocannabinoid system: Essential and mysterious. Harvard Health Publishing. Harvard Health

[4] Wikipedia contributors. (2024). Mana (Oceanic cultures). Wikipedia

[5] Prigogine, I. (1977). Time, structure, and fluctuations. Nobel Lecture. Nobel Prize

[6] Melamede, R. (2018). Evolution: a Dynamic Fractal. PDF