The Meaning of Life
Lots of people don't seem to understand that the meaning and purpose of life is to create joy and happiness for themselves and everybody their lives touch -- rather than to make themselves and everybody around them, as miserable as possible. Many people don't learn the right lessons in life -- being around the wrong people all the time, seeing and learning from bad examples.
In conditioning activities, the instructor may even insist that the objective of what one is enhancing is the capacity to endure ever-increasing workloads of pain and suffering -- rather than achieving the cessation of it. That is, after all, what health and well-being is.
But the conditioning model of barbaric cultures, is the thinking that the reason for the workout is because it will feel so good when one stops. Of course, the brighter students in the class will note impetuously, "Think how much better we'll feel if we never start?" At which point, the brutish P.E. instructor, will demand that the inquiring mind should immediately give him fifty pushups or fifty laps -- whichever is worse.
There just is no winning an argument with those who believe in progress through the "miracle of brute force and unrelenting terror." The rationale, of course, is that anything one does, produces an equal and opposite reaction -- as though that was some kind of scientific principle.
That was a primitive world view, that in order to obtain anything positive, one had to create the negative. But in these more enlightened times, we now know, that in order to obtain the positive, we have to create the positive. Why should that be such a difficult concept?
While such naive thinking was commonplace in the last century, in this century, we realize the truth -- tht poverty does not produce wealth, sickness does not produce health, lies do not reveal the truth, bad does not necessitate the good, argument does not produce harmony -- and all the other tricks of the deceptive and manipulative mind. That's all it is -- the exploitation of one over another, which is not a mutually beneficial arrangement for either.
Such relationships were commonplace even in the most enlightened societies of the last century, and still persist in many cultures and subcultures today. That is not the pursuit of happiness for anyone -- but only misery for everyone. That has no meaning for life. Such conditioning regimens are destructive and detrimental to everyone's well-being.
Is it any wonder that people grow up not to want to be in their best possible condition?
posted by Mike Hu @ 9:54 PM
3 comments
3 Comments:
No, I don't think money is everything.
That's what led the fitness movement astray -- and is the theme that pervades most fitness promotions still -- anything that sells.
That largely explains how the aerobics movement became so popular and accepted as the "truth." It was the first fitness title that sold over a million copies, and for at least ten years after its initial publication, many people simply coined a new title, introduction or first chapter, and then ripped off the "Aerobics" book in its entirety -- hoping to come up with their own million copy seller.
By this plagiarism, it became accepted as the truth because it got repeated so often -- even as it turns out, it set the understanding of fitness activities back at least twenty years -- and for many people, a lifetime.
Originally, aerobics was defined as a low enough threshold of exercise so that one could carry on a conversation while exercising. But in the hands of the P.E. instructors, that maximum became the minimum, and then quickly, the sky was the limit.
Along with the promotion of aerobic activities, was the promotion of high-impact activities -- of which running is among the worst of them. Injuries from exercise, therefore, skyrocketed, creating the sports medicine industry.
Far from being the ideal exercise. running is unsuitable for most people -- quickly causing foot, knee, hip and back pains -- in those who don't have the ideal genetic makeup for running, which includes most everybody who is out of shape.
Furthermore, the distress experienced by many, gives them the warning signal to desist from further damaaging activity. Properly performed aerobics activity does not decrease one's aerobic capacity by increasing the workload demand -- but increase momentary capacity by doing it aerobically so as to build up reserves.
That is, the pace does not cause the breath to speed up, but causes the activity to be paced by the breathing -- and in this manner, increases momentary capacity so that the pace of the activity will speed up but not outpace the breathing. It is this labored breathing that is signal to the body to slow down -- not to speed up. It does so only in actual emergencies and urgenciies -- and should not be arbitrary.
Most people instinctively realize that is wrong -- and even if they don't, they cannot persist in this manner long without eventually giving up such activities entirely -- because one cannot override millions of physiological evolution with a fallacious understanding, no matter how popular it might temporarily be.
Most of the conditioning strategies of the 19th and 20th century were negative conditioning -- do this or else...
There wasn't a positive model -- defining health beyond not being sick. That is a very limited notion of the possibilities. Many still dismiss helth-enhancing activities as useless vanities -- rather than realizing, it is the objective in life, to be as healthy as possible -- and not sacrificing one's health and well-being for anything or everything else.
I could never understand people, who didn't live with this realization. They thought that the petty was significant and important -- and threw away the treasure. Beyond that, they tried to convince everyone else to do likewise.
What I sense is that there is a new renaissance awakening because nothing else makes any more sense. There hasn't been a precedent for a healthy, vibrant existence throughout the entire lifespan.
People aren't interested in living half their lives in deterioration; they want to live their entire lives in growth -- which may be entirely possible, but not as long as we merely accept and repeat the patterns of past lives. Entirely new ways of being have to be imagined, created, and manifested -- but what else more important do we really have to do?
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