The Sun The Moon and Taking Things for Granted

I just read a Chinese parable another day. It says an old man was asked which one is more important, the Sun or the Moon. The old man thought for a long while and answered "the Moon".
"Why?"
"Because the Moon shines in the night when we especially need it; the Sun shine in the day when it's already light."

I found it inspiring. Taking thing for granted seems to be a major disposition of our humans. Yesterday I read another article on facebook about health advice given by a 104 year-old Japanese doctor. While I appreciated most of the advice, one of them struck me hard: "Energy does not come from sleeping a lot or eating well, it comes from feeling good" Well, I hope the doctor did not mean literally (or maybe the translation wasn't accurate due to the confusion of Japanese language?), because the fact right before me is that if we don't eat and sleep, no matter how good we feel, we die, and we die with horrible feeling. As simple as that.

From what I learned humans' energy does come from foods. Sleep doesn't "provide" energy but without it our bodies cannot function well enough to receive nutrition from foods, so it's equally crucial to our energy production.

Since I lived with chronic health problem for ages, I found, people - of course include me - tend to take physical health for granted. We apprise our mental power so much to an extent that some people literally believe feeling good is all we need to live well. The belief in our mental power is also out of proportion. During Chinese cultural revolution, a famous slogan went like this: "The field produces as much crops as people want." Nowaday a popular phrase goes "There are nothing you can't do but only what you can't imagine." Such beliefs go on and on and it is called positive thinking and it's panacea for all diseases and fuel for all ambitions.

Why people so insist the importance of our mental energy? I suppose the reason is exactly the same as that old man who says the Moon is more important than the Sun, that is: like the Sun, foods and sleep are there almost EVERYDAY, so we ignore them, forgot that if we don't have them there will be no chance for our mental exercise.

The Chinese article that cites the parable story above also talks about mother's love, another thing that many people take it for granted. Yes, I believe physical health is like mother's love, we only realize it's importance when we lose it.

The Moon shines in the night, brings us romantic imagination and fascination, so and so, but it's the Sun who stays there day and light, provides the most important sources for our existence, which made all those romantic exercises possible. Yet, when we enjoy these "luxuries", we think those are all it's about and don't give credit to something that is more essential. Why? I don't know but I suppose that shortsightedness is what we are born with.