Life is a process composed of processes . A process is like a stream, that originated in the past, heading to future. Like a creek, whose water streams from a spring and ultimately reaches the sea. You may never find the spring, nor travel to the sea, still you know that they exist and belong to the history of this creek.
Life is like a river, composed of streams and whorls.
This representation of health and disease is much more powerful than that of medicine, that is called here medicine of Homo Faber . The stream metaphor will now be illustrated by few examples. Single stream metaphor Imagine a lake nourished by an upper stream and drained by a lower stream . The more water it contains the greater its tolerance to dry out, or die. Tolerance may be raised, either by rising inflow of upper stream or lowering outflow of lower stream.