The Boxer, The Cancer, and You: Why Understanding Changes Everything

We have a tendency, especially when we are not experts in a field, to overthink things. Or, perhaps more accurately, we tend to look at them in the wrong way. We lack the framework to see the full picture, so we default to the simplest, and often most frightening, interpretation.

Let me give you an example using a boxer. Imagine you are a trained boxer. You've spent years in the ring, practicing your form, learning your range, and understanding the physics of a punch. When you throw a punch and your opponent moves away, your body knows exactly where to stop. Your muscle memory, honed by thousands of hours of practice, engages to prevent you from over-extending. The punch stops, and you remain balanced and uninjured.

Now, consider a different person. He's a wannabe street fighter, someone who is very interested in boxing and punching but has never actually been in a real fight. He's full of enthusiasm but has zero practical experience. He finally gets his chance and squares off against someone who simply dodges his punch. He throws his whole body into it, and when his fist meets nothing but air, he lacks the ingrained knowledge of where his body is in space. He can't stop his momentum. The result? He injures himself badly, perhaps in a way his opponent couldn't have.

Why did one man get injured and the other didn't? The difference is practice and familiarity. The trained boxer knew where to stop. He knew how hard to hit. He knew what to look for. His understanding of the terrain—the ring, the opponent, his own body—was so complete that his reactions were automatic and precise.

This same principle applies directly to how we consume information, especially about our health. If you truly understand a concept, your mental image of it is completely different from the perception of someone who does not.

Take the example of an autoimmune condition. For someone who doesn't understand what it is, the term "autoimmune" is a big, scary thing. They know it only as a binary concept: you either have it, or you don't. It's on or off, plus or minus. That's all they know. They have no awareness of the shades in between, the nuances of what autoimmunity actually means in a living, breathing body. And because they don't understand the terrain, the minute they look up their symptoms and ask, "Do I have an autoimmune condition?", their mind goes straight to the worst possible outcome.

Now, let's look at cancer through a similar lens. Because of my work and study, I understand how cancers function. If you were to ask me, "Das, do you have cancer?", my honest answer would be, "Yes, I do." And if you were to then panic and say, "Oh my God, what's going to happen?", I would have to clarify that it's nothing to be scared of. I'm not alone. Most of the people around me, nah, all of them have cancers too.

This isn't some grim prophecy. It's a recognition of reality based on knowledge. I know how cancer works and what the probabilities are. I know that our bodies are constantly producing cells with mutations, small errors in replication that technically fit the definition of cancer. But I also know that a competent immune system identifies and eliminates these cells long before they ever become a problem. I know that there is a vast spectrum between "no cancer" and "terminal cancer," and that most of us live on that spectrum every single day without ever knowing it. I don't worry about it for the simple fact that I know what cancer is.

But tell the same thing to someone else. If I told my friend Rani, "You know, I have cancer," she would panic. She would immediately say, "Das, don't say such things! Are you sure?" For her, cancer is a binary switch. You are either okay, or you are not okay. There is nothing in between. Her lack of familiarity with the terrain leaves her with only the most extreme interpretation.

So, let's bring this back to autoimmunity. Autoimmunity, at its core, is as simple as your own people attacking you. It is your body's defenders mistaking your own cells for the enemy. This is not some rare, alien event. We see this principle play out in our own society all the time. Think of the policeman who is supposed to protect you but uses excessive force. Think of the military, designed to defend the country, but whose members can go rogue and cause harm. These are not examples of full-fledged societal collapse. They are mistakes, acts of aggression by certain individuals, or cases of mistaken identity.

Autoimmunity is the same. It's not something new or unseen in our bodies. Small-scale immune confusion, mistaken identity, and over-aggressive responses happen on a daily basis. It's only when this process spirals out of control, when the "friendly fire" becomes so intense and persistent that it causes significant damage, that we call it an autoimmune disease. That is when the situation becomes so negative, so bad, that intervention is required.

And when you reach that point, it's not just about taking medications. You need a strategy. But you can only think about a strategy when you are a master of the terrain. If you don't even know what the terrain looks like—the hills and valleys of your own biology and the environmental factors that shape it—you can't possibly devise an effective plan. You're just stumbling around in the dark, waiting for someone else to tell you what to do.

So, if you are wondering right now whether you have an autoimmune condition, the answer is likely yes. You have it. Everybody has it. We all have some degree of immune confusion. The only real question is the intensity. If your level of autoimmunity is a little higher than others, if your immune cells are a little more "corrupted" or confused, then you need to start asking yourself a different set of questions. Why is the confusion in my body so high? What is creating an environment where my own defenders are so easily misguided?

Because for confusion to exist, there has to be an environment that supports it. No state, whether it's a state of health or a state of disease, can exist without support. Think about it. Why is it that someone might say to you, "I can't believe your health is bad. You are always so healthy?" They can say that because they see how you manage your health. They see the environment you create for your body. Conversely, they could look at me and predict my health might fail, because they see how little attention I pay to mine. If I am not actively supporting health, then by default, I am supporting disease. I am creating an environment conducive to illness.

If I were to become diseased tomorrow, it wouldn't be a random stroke of bad luck. It would be because I was actively, though perhaps unknowingly, supporting that disease. And if you are healthy, it's not because health magically descended upon you; it's because your daily choices and your environment are actively supporting your health.

The logic is inescapable. If you have a significant autoimmune condition, it means you are supporting an environment that is conducive to autoimmune disease. The simplest, most profound action you can take is to ask yourself: "What are the things I am doing that might be supporting this environment?" And then, once you identify them, the next step is equally simple: undo them.

This is the reason I put information out here. It's not to give you a magic pill or a one-size-fits-all protocol. It's to help you become familiar with the terrain. It's to give you the tools so that once you start probing, once you start looking at your own life through this lens, you will know what to do without needing someone else to guide you at every step. When you understand the land you walk on, you can navigate it yourself.