As people get older, not all of them age and deteriorate. Some show very few signs of aging and deterioration, some age slower than others, and a rare few seem to defy what we've long thought to be the natural consequence of living longer lives. A hundred years ago, the life expectancy was about fifty. Then in the latter part of the last century, more people than ever reached 70,80,90 and even 100 years of age -- but even when they did, they seemed to deteriorate throughout. Very few want to live lives of prolonged deterioration. However, if deterioration is not an integral and inevitable part of a long life, people have little objection to living longer lives, unassailed by all the afflictions we now accept as the natural consequence of living longer.
We're now already seeing the first wave of people who not only reach advanced years -- but seem to be of indeterminable age while doing so. Obviously this is a trend that will continue until that well-known pattern of deterioration eventually disappears -- and people will be deemed healthy and vibrant, or clearly be recognized to be not in this favorable condition, which for the most part presently, we still accept as "normal" and "natural," because we feel that little can be done to alter that course of development (deterioration). The question for anyone presently, is whether we master that understanding before we are too far along the road of irrecoverable deterioration for it to save us from the usual fate.
That is in fact "true" because we've tried the popular prescriptions for arresting this deterioration and it hasn't worked no matter how much time and energy we devote to these exercises/activities. It could be that these oft-prescribed fitness regimens just don't work -- and so however much time and energy we put into these activities, the results don't justify these continued efforts -- and thoughtful people rightly and smartly abandon them. That being the case, it is not necessarily true that nothing works; it is just well-proven that that the old understanding doesn't work, although it may seem to work for a few. However, those few may thrive no matter what they do -- and who knows how much better they might perform with an even more productive understanding of what they do.
The prevailing paradigm for enhancing one's health centers on the amount of effort one puts into these things. In most things we do in life, we come to eventually realize that as we increase our understanding of a task, the less effort it will take to accomplish that task -- than with just more mindless, brute force. In this day and age, any successful endeavor requires a notable lack of this need for brute force; more than likely, brute force will probably destroy whatever good we hope to accomplish. Good writing is not accomplished by striking the keys harder than the next guy. Or even writing more words. No, effectiveness is accomplished by increasing one's understanding of the phenomenon (process), and when that is enhanced, far less time and energy has to be devoted to this purpose. It may even be the case that to accomplish and attend to this objective may actually require no additional expenditure of time and energy but less -- once the understanding is sufficiently perfected so as to normally be incorporated in any/all other activities one ordinarily undertakes.
That is to say, that in giving a great presentation in writing or speaking, thinking, performing -- the same factors that produce outstanding achievement requires optimal human functioning and fitness to effect. While it is readily recognized that a superior athletic performance will come from a body conditioned to produce optimal performance -- it is also a function of high level brain functioning, and conversely, high-level mental achievements have an underlying physical component. We see that most clearly in the well-known rigorous physical conditioning master chess players will undergo in preparation for world championship matches. And of athletes, we note that some play with a higher degree of awareness -- of not only what they are doing but what everybody else on the field is doing -- which certainly must have a mental component.
One of the basic tenets of Buddhism (as well as many of the martial arts that arise from those meditations) is that right understanding leads to right action and effort. Lacking that, all the action and effort will not only be unproductive but may often prove to be destructive and counterproductive. So when the attention is placed on effort before the understanding (or that the understanding is assumed), already that is the wrong understanding, producing wrong effort. And that may be why, though most of us "know" what we have to do to be in good physical (operating) condition, few adopt those strategies to produce meaningful effects in their lives, and particularly so among those who would seem to most, the most needful of that exercise. And they are given no other option but this ultimatum -- torture yourself in this manner or else...
And no other possibility is given, and therefore, they do nothing but acquiesce to a dismal fate. Is it because they're stupid -- or could it quite possibly be, that they know better, that it won't make a difference because they have tried it before. Then when that didn't work, as they were promised, they were simply admonished to try even harder, put even more time and energy into it -- as though simply more time and energy was the cure for anything and everything. Maybe in an earlier time of understanding, that would have seemed more plausible. Still, we hear it often said that the prescription needed now is more hard work and effort -- and seldom that the problem requires more understanding first, and whatever action required, naturally arises from that understanding. That is, the understanding doesn't need to be "forced" to work.
There is still this tendency to prescribe what must be done before determining if anything needs to be done -- or even finding out what is actually happening. There is this cultural imperative to do something, to be busy, to create jobs, to make work -- when that may not be the problem at all, and is the wrong emphasis. Is the objective to create the most jobs, work, effort, to produce a small availability of goods and services, or is the abundance of goods and services the objective no matter how many jobs, work and effort is required to produce that? For if we produce many high paying jobs but scarce goods, what is the use of all those many high paying jobs/incomes?
The money won't amount to much/anything because the limit dictating all other considerations is the scarcity of goods and services. If no amount of time and energy affects the production of more goods and services, then all that increased time and energy amounts to nothing, is a waste of time and energy. However, if goods and services are plentiful, even most minimal incomes can afford them; they may just be giving them away to whomever wants them, limited only by their ability to recognize its value. But that is the backward way we've been conditioned to respond to any problem, any challenge. We value the effort over the objective we wish to achieve -- and just understanding that, may be the key to opening a world we haven't seen because it doesn't require effort, and is even, the cessation of effort, to perceive the simplicity and clarity.
Most popular exercise programs are conditioning -- but it is negative conditioning, or biasing one not to do them. By the time one is "middle-aged," that conditioning has become almost universally successful. One will avoid engaging in those activities. That is particularly true especially among former highly dedicated athletes in their younger days. Exercise in their mature years, is largely something they impose on the young to do -- not a regimen they adhere to personally anymore. They know better.
What then would be a model for positive conditioning? What would be movement/activity that made one feel better instantly, perform better -- and not simply undertake because it would feel so great when we stopped? -- which of course is negative conditioning. For much of history up to the present time, we now recognize that the main model of motivation was negative conditioning/reinforcement. "If you don't do this" (whack). We've become a bit more enlightened in many fields but one of the most resistant and last to come around has been in physical education (conditioning). We think adding stress is what produces optimal human performance -- and not yet, that it might be enhanced with tranquility and equanimity providing clarity, focus and insight. Some motivators will still insist that people need to be "under the gun," "under cruel and unusual pressure" to bring out the best in them. Unfortunately, a few of these throwbacks to a more barbaric age may be lauded for this depravity -- and certainly nowhere more so than on athletic fields. Some people, it is joked, just want to be exercise instructors for the raw power, control and license it gives them to inflict suffering and humiliation on others. When they say "Jump," they want the only response to be, "How high?"
And what does all this have to do with well-being? It certainly seems to be a case of enduring it because it'll feel so good when it stops. But is that a productive way -- or the only way of regarding fitness activities -- as a response to stress and the negative and unpleasant? Can we free the mind from that kind of conditioning? -- with all its implications. Can we disabuse ourselves entirely of what we think exercise has to be -- and conceive of only what it could be, without the emotional/cultural baggage? People buy into the belief that time, effort, pain, unpleasantness is the only road to being fit -- when it should be obvious that those are the barriers that keep them from being so, and it may be that they don't need to go there at all, it has nothing at all to do with optimal functioning and good health. But just as obvious should be that what they are presently doing is not effective. However, this is not evident to those who have accepted that the way they are, is the only way they can be -- were meant to be.
The human body is very plastic. To a great degree, it can take on a variety of shapes and appearances, which most people don't suspect. The people with the greatest appreciation for this (maybe for the wrong/frivolous reasons) are competitive bodybuilders. As much as they almost always try to exaggerate the picture of formidable and intimidating muscularity, the fact is, if they wanted to look tremendously out of shape, they could also. They have that muscle control; but on the other hand, the average person in whatever present condition they are in, has the ability to look much better than they do -- instantly, because no matter how much one thinks he is out of shape and lacking in muscularity, the fact is, every person has muscles. Most just never learn to use them in a systematic, effective way -- to give the appearance of good health as well as to function in good health. That is the startling realization most don't know and never realize. A lot of those dramatic "before" and "after" photos purportedly comparing one's development over six weeks to a year, can be effected by a well-conditioned person in the course of one hour, if not instantaneously. It's not rarer than one thinks.
In fact, that is precisely what happens at every major bodybuilding contest. The contestants that walk into that building undergo, without exception, these dramatic transformations. They just don't want the public to know that they don't always look like the peak condition they attain for a few minutes -- when they want to. Most people can effect less dramatic changes -- but almost everybody seems to have that ability to a certain extent. With training and familiarity, they get better at effecting those changes. Those who are really gifted at it might be well-advised to go into bodybuilding competitions that some are just genetically gifted for.
But it's like every skill and talent known to man -- some are genetically gifted for that activity, no matter how much they might wish to be or not be. I mention this because some may not value the talents and skills they have but instead wish they had those they don't have. That's actually quite common because society may place a value on certain talents and skills -- while ignoring many others, that may actually have more value and usefulness.. Some things not valued presently may be re-evaluated and revalued later on, at a more enlightened time. Things and time change. It is this ability to change (adapt to change) that has great value -- a sign of great vibrancy. The inflexible, intractable, rigid, unadaptable seem to be a lot less fit for life at any time. They don't have the basic equipment to manage well in times of great change; they will inevitably insist the world adapt to them. Those are the characteristically and symptomatically dysfunctional.
What we want to be are the optimally functioning -- rather than the problem. What is the problem, the burning concern of these times? It is the aging of society and its implications if we continue life as we have been conditioned by the past to think it must be -- of increasing disabilities and deterioration in all things, producing a greater dependence rather than the greater independence that understanding and technologies that should outstrip these deteriorating factors. That has to be a very visible model of how the future can be -- of people achieving greater fitness and capabilities, as the normal and possible. What we desire is better health and not simply better health care for the increasingly many requiring it. It is possible; many things are now possible that we don't think is so, mainly because we don't know of all the options, having been used to in the past, of having the information provided by the trade association with the vested interest in maximizing its own profit and job security. Health is a disaster for the health care profession -- and are these health care professional inspiring models of health themselves? Anybody thinking to be a role model has to be a convincing product of that effectiveness of his own prescriptions. The fat dietitian is unconvincing no matter how many diplomas are hanging on their wall.
Yet we tolerate all this dissonance in our perceptions. Most people would settle for looking fit and healthy as a fairly accurate indicator of the health of an individual. And for most, if they looked fit and trim enough to do anything they might be physically demanded to do, would it really matter to them if they never did any of it -- unless life really demanded it of them? Appearance is a fairly obvious indicator of potential capacity -- recruited as needed, and not just obsessively and compulsively proved and exhibited. If a person looks like the healthiest person around, would it matter if he never exercised at all -- or at least so minimally that most would not consider it a significant amount of activity at all? Probably the major consideration for most in whether to exercise or not is for this appearance effect. Plastic surgery may be a means to obtain certain desirable effects without personal effort. But this capacity for molding the body to one's liking is within most people's present capabilities -- if they just knew how. That is not so much a product of effort as it is of understanding. The implication here is that a much higher ratio of benefit to effort exists than is usually thought possible -- and if that is true, does one necessarily need to do more, especially if one is doing nothing to begin with, and particularly nothing producing any desirable effects.
That's fairly difficult for most to assess impartially and objectively because with most of our desires, we are vulnerable to and often overcome by wishful thinking, We believe that what we wish to believe is what is indeed so. Others might see that more obviously but we may not, which can lead to great illusions and delusions of who we are and what are capacities truly are. In this disparity, few err on the side of humility and modesty. Most will be offended to learn that they are not perfect and perfectable. These matters are never as conclusive as most athletic contests are -- and even then, on the impromptu playgrounds all over the world, those results may be hotly disputed no matter what the outcome showed. But rather than the "subjective" being entirely invalid, the feeling that the activity was a positive, worthwhile, productive experience is nonetheless real. It simply begs a wider validation -- whether that is being the best singer, athlete, or king of the world. As for less welcome thoughts, we go into denial. So right perception and right understanding is no means a given -- but therein lies the key to many of our problems. The problem may disappear with the proper perspective -- requiring no further action, or naturally producing right effort.
It's like the story of the martial arts student who goes to the Master and inquires, "Suppose I'm in a bar on the worst side of town and ten hoodlums come after me with knives and broken bottles. What should I do?" And the Master says, "Perhaps you shouldn't be there in the first place." So with the right understanding leading to right action, many problems shouldn't arise after all. Yet some teachers may not hesitate to recite what kicks, punches, and blocks might be "appropriate" as a demonstration of great wisdom. For those kinds of problems, the solutions are endless. We then go on to "solve" problems that may not exist, thereby leaving no time and energy to rectify that which might require a minimum of attention and resources. Not going there in the first place.
Robert Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land, provides a literary precedent for such a development. In what many aficionados regard as the greatest science fiction novel, the protagonist is a young human born and raised in the advanced Martian environment and culture. He is brought back to Earth and therefore has no warning nor preconception of the form humans must have. Having been used to the lesser gravity of Mars, he doesn't know what adaptations are necessary to cope with the overwhelming gravitational pull. He is reduced to a gelatinous, nearly formless mass that few can recognize as human form. In a matter of weeks however, he thinks mightily on the form required to adapt to this new environment -- and so transforms himself into a physically awesome specimen, because that is what is required to flourish in his new environment -- largely as a function of thought. Most of us do that unconsciously -- as well as do many other animals as the situation demands, even without the formidable thinking capacity of humans.
Animals threatened, may expand to twice their size -- to discourage predators and competitors of the same species. Athletes do it routinely. Less noticed, is how this body language is recruited in many other activities humans engage in. In debates, the words may have much less impact than the way those words are communicated -- but the words are part of the total message. Persons may visually deflate when their best arguments are trashed effortlessly by their opponents. Even more telling, may be pretending to have a lot more confidence than one really has -- and when that pose is detected, may lead to a disastrous implosion of what little real confidence one actually had. So it is more than just pretending to be, that is convincing; one has to be able to walk the walk, as well as talk the talk.
Among the Oriental martial arts masters, it is legendary that the most proficient are frequently determined not by an actual display of physical competence and agility, but by the mastery of their deepest understanding of life and purpose. It was not uncommon in Western civilization also until recently -- that the most formidable intellects were also physically awesome as well, with of course the few exceptions that have led to modern misconceptions that brains and brawn seldom are to be found in the same individuals. Leonardo da Vinci was not only regarded as the most exceptional mind of his time, he was the champion wrestler/strong man of Europe. Michaelangelo also used himself as the model for his extremely formidable muscular portraits. Alfred Wallace, the co-developer of the theory of evolution, was renowned for physical strength and delight in brawls. Abraham Lincoln was a champion wrestler/rail splitter. George W. Bush can chop wood all day. Socrates could endure conditions most ordinary people could not. These were tremendously robust individuals, developed in the many facets of human activities and being.
And now we've come full circle because the model of humans of the future has to be of more completely developed beings -- because our tools (technology) makes it possible. We can know more than just about one thing in our lifetimes. We can have many interests, many occupations and careers in our lifetimes, live many different lives even -- than those of a hundred years ago whose reality and interests might have been limited to their neighborhood and community. If one was a coal miner, his son was expected to be a coal miner, like his father before him. There was no time, energy and inclination to learn to be anything else. That was a waste of time. But a rare few managed to transcend those fates by learning about other possibilities and options. Some lamented on the passing of the old ways and the stability and certainty it represented -- even as dismal as it was. For it was the known and the familiar -- and that was all the justification they needed. It was as God intended.
We scoff now that people at any time could be so naive and resistant to new ideas and possibilities -- as though they somehow occurred only in some distant past, in well recognizable landmark events. But of course, the prejudices, biases, resistance manifests differently in every time and so it is largely irrelevant how one feels about the injustices of another epoch in determining how one is about issues on the cutting edge as they are revealing themselves now -- and not what one would've done fifty or one hundred years ago. That is the deception of hindsight. It is always easy to be right one hundred years ago in the past. The crucial test is whether one will be right one hundred years in the future -- as of now.
That is what the thinking person of today is concerned with. That is what it means to be "high-tech," on the cutting edge of thought, that makes a difference today. Those merely resolving the issues of the past, are not on the cutting edge they think they are. Their opinions are only opinions -- as though they understood the facts, which they think are inviolable. The turning point in the Information and Communications revolution, is when people stopped expressing opinions, and devoted themselves primarily to discovering the facts for themselves, in their own realities, rather than repeating the speculations and generalizations of others, as known truths. Do we see things as they are, or only as somebody else has told us they are, and have no way of determining that difference?
Knowing that difference, is when society turned the corner and came of age. Science is not about which expert said what -- but whether we can determine the validity of what is being said independently from what any expert tells us is true (truth). That's all one needs to know -- is that difference. It is the world beyond mediated (second hand) reality. It is the age old conundrum Plato discussed over 2,000 years ago, "Are we seeing the shadow on the wall or are we seeing the person casting the shadow?"
Fortunately, one doesn't have to learn everything in order to qualify as an inquiring mind. The fact that one is learning anything, with this in spirit of inquiry, is what makes him a player and qualifies him to determine fact from fabrication. It is the method that is important and not the subject studied; it is the scientific method -- that should have the same rigor no matter what the subject. Scientists present the facts without opinion; non-scientists present opinions as though they were facts -- and get violently adamant, when they are not accepted as such.
Finding out is always an adventure, taking risks, testing truth. Or one can simply accept what everyone says is the truth, which is far more perilous. I think even the most uneducated realize that. The danger is not trusting anyone except those who plead, "Trust me. I'm only looking after your best interests -- as a public service I sacrifice my own best interests for." The sophisticated know, those are the words especially to be wary of. Variations on the theme include those "representing everything good, decent and honorable in this world" while the other "represents all the forces of darkness, evil and exploitation in the world." And far from having their actions speak louder than their words, they actually put it in precisely in those words. What is surprising is seeing the heads bob in agreement, as though those words were taken right out of their mouths.
Those are not the ones of interest though -- who too readily agree or disagree with anything said. Far more interesting are those who merely listen and observe intently, letting what they are exposed to sink deeply their consciousness, aware even of their own reactions to what was said. Those responses are worth more than all the knee-jerk opinions certain in the immutability of their own knowledge -- that anything new must be a confirmation of what they already know, or it's not worth knowing, can't be, for if it were the truth, why would they be hearing about it?
Isaac Newton didn't discover "gravity" to prove he was the smartest man in the world and make life difficult for future science students. He created the concept because it made explaining everything else in the world simpler, reducible to a simple force. Computers do the same thing -- reduce the world to ons and offs. In the human body, life is detected by contraction and relaxation -- of the heart, for a distinct purpose. That purpose is circulation -- and that effectiveness cannot be determined at the heart but would have to be determined rightfully, at the extremities of the head, hands and feet. The first is brain functioning. Conditioning activities that enhance human performance in any field of work, play and rest has to be detected at the brain -- making one feel instantly better and not worse. Such activity therefore is self-reinforcing as a positive experience for the whole body. Conventional exercises feel better when they are stopped -- momentarily and as a long term strategy, causing its cessation in older adults and others in declining health.
In the days when exercise was beginning to achieve fledgling acceptance by the medical community, protection against overexertion was considered a major objection to widespread participation. Some proposed a "target heart rate" as a theoretical maximum to ensure against such overexertion. The physical educators thereupon embraced "target heart rate" as the minimum that was required to achieve an exercise effect and benefit. There is no conclusive evidence that that is an actual requirement for attaining health benefits. A conjecture repeated unquestionably by all the self-appointed experts, has a way of becoming inviolable law by an unsuspecting, trusting public. By far, people who have engaged in lifelong physical conditioning regimens, do so because they've discovered how to achieve maximum benefits with minimal effort -- and that keeps them coming back for more. The too strenuous and demanding advocates of exercise, have been successful at discouraging and raising the barriers to this engagement by the greater proportion of the population, and particularly, those who could benefit from minimal exercise. Minimal exercise is obviously the key to lifelong, sustainable exercise. The only option provided by many experts is perceived by many as uncomfortable and unsustainable. Exercise, in order to be beneficial, has to be as easy as possible, impossible to avoid doing.
