How to Stay Alive and Not Die

Yesterday I taught you, my loyal readers, of the dangers of eating and drinking. Today we are going to learn of the dangers of such foolhardy activities as breathing (with one or two working lungs), moving, sleeping, waking, and (in one fell swoop) living.

I am not inclined to believe that it is necessary to explain how any of these endeavors, among many others, might cut short one's life. It is far more important, I think, to live safely, according to the principles put down in the diaries and letters of the late Edvard Grieg, who lived to the age of sixty-four:

Breathe the fresh air of Norway.
Do not see Paris.
Do not leave for Stuttgart until the end of the month.
Keep all would-be visitors and invitations off the neck.
Rest a little before going to the theatre.
Seek out a neurologist and take Finsen electric light baths. Treatment is only twice a week.
Go out into a glassed-in veranda right next to Oresund and lay yourself out on a bed bundled in blankets.
Stay indoors for a fortnight.
Postpone your concert.
Give up altogether the trip to Holland and England.
Avoid festivities on the 17th of May.
Find a poem to awake your slumbering vital spirits.
Do not tolerate all that partying.
Stay alternately in bed and in the sickroom for a few days.
Each day eat self-ground granulate with nuts.
Come Soria Moria Castle--the sooner the better--whether you be old or young, and rediscover the fairy-tale dreams of your childhood! You will be richer and happier for having done so!

As the late Bob Ross so well put it, "God bless."