Keeping An Open Mind
What is the quality of vitality of the human being that lasts far beyond their short duration as a competitive athlete? That would be the life of the individual who is always learning -- and never concluding that he has long ago seen and done it all, and everything new brought to his attention, is merely a fad for which the madness will soon revert back to the time-proven wisdom of the old. And thus the latter mindset bothers to learn nothing new, content in the explanations that don’t make a difference, losing all faith that right thinking can make a difference -- acquiescing to the corrupting indifference and despair in a world offering different possibilities that intimidates and bewilders them.
The fact of the matter is that when something works, it works from the very beginning -- and not at the end of six months or a year, when one has likely forgotten why it is they‘re doing what they‘re doing. That is self-evident truth, that intellectuals so infatuated with their ideas, will not acknowledge no matter what evidence is brought to their attention. They believe that is all the more reason for them to remain steadfast -- as a sign of their intellectual superiority -- to maintain an opinion contrary to all the evidence in the world.
Rather than such ideas prejudicing the understanding, the understanding without the preconceived notions of what is happening, reveals the obvious, self-evident truth -- much like an aspirin begins to cure a headache immediately after taking it, and not only after six months. That realization is never more useful than in the study of movement itself -- of the human body, of which the old standard, was the measurement of a mass (weight) moved a certain distance in a certain time.
Emerging new standards are the changes of movement within the body -- usually measured by the change in heart rate, but even more relevant, should be the measurement in the flow measured at the extremities -- which understands the circulatory and respiratory function as a whole body effort rather than merely relegated to the specifically designed organs for that primary, exclusive function. Up to recently, that whole body/system consideration to human performance and functioning was problematical to those in areas of specialization, of which the furthest down this path of discipline and perception, is the medical field, in which many of the older practitioners still insist that one thing has no relation to any other.
Those coming from the other end, are likely to pronounce that everything is related to everything else -- and so rather than there being many different problems, there is just one that causes the many apparent others. That is to say, that although it may at first seem that ten things have gone wrong, it is really one thing that has produced the nine others -- and so we need to identify that one unifying explanation rather than look for the many ad hoc explanations. Ad hoc means that that explanation explains only that one thing -- and when something else happens, we need to come up with another explanation, and so on. Thus the rise in the need for experts -- each with their own specialized language of jargon keeping the uninitiated out.
And so a breakthrough scientific advance, will demand a simpler answer that explains the many -- rather than allow that for everything that happens, there is a wholly unique explanation, requiring a whole group of experts that must study years to penetrate into the mysteries of such phenomena -- and everybody else should not even think of inquiring into their realm without the proper consultation, approval, certifications and authorization of themselves, the self-designated experts -- whose job is to do all your thinking for you, until eventually, you do not have to do any thinking for yourself -- fully covered by one’s health care coverage -- as the nightmare vision of the state of health and society in the future.
posted by Mike Hu @ 12:00 PM
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1 Comments:
As long as there is this worldview that nothing is related to anything else, one needs a new explanation for everything brought to our attention -- which is not unique in the annals of history and thought. Back in the medieval ages, it was thought that every planet had their own rules of behavior -- and so priesthoods emerged and entrenched themselves to explain the mysteries of the different planets -- each being the determiner of a different set of attributes. In ancient times, Mars was war, Venus was the goddess of love, etc.
Then people like Copernicus, Galileo, Newton -- said they have a uniform explanation that destroyed their mystery and power -- and for which they were initially ridiculed and persecuted. Today’s problem-solvers recognize this way of thinking that solves the many seemingly unrelated problems as the “critical path” -- that if one doesn’t solve systematically and sequentially, the problems multiply and get out of control.
The old minds called such solutions “panaceas,” or the promised solution for everything, which they maintained, has always been a deception, something “too good to be true.” And so these ideas are dismissed summarily because they might actually solve problems -- not just one but many at once. The ancient saying is, “Killing two birds with one stone.” But such advances decreases the amount of work that needs to be done, threatening the job security of those vested in the old problems.
There are a lot of people vested in the old health problems of the past -- particularly the health care industry. The pioneers in this field are already migrating not to the treatment of disease but of optimalizing life -- which is not covered by traditional health care coverage. The situation is very similar in all the fields of human activity -- moving from a deficiency motivated society and individuals, to a being-motivated one -- concepts that began to emerge in the 20th century of increasing affluence, leisure and prosperity.
No longer was simply working tirelessly, “keeping busy” -- all there was. It used to be that the object in life was to become rich so one could retire -- and usually that meant, begin to die, hopefully gracefully. That was the old aging paradigm -- the assumption that aging was the inevitable constant for all, rather than as it turns out, probably the greatest variable and differentiator of life’s experience.
Many people at 70 now don’t look like “old people,” while undoubtedly many others, are still aging in the traditional pattern, even starting that aging process at relatively young ages of 30, etc. The valuable conditioning and education is not simply education for education’s sake, to keep a lot of education professionals in job security, but should be this learning for life, in this direct, tangible way of making life better directly., and not as in the old paradigm, as an indirect and secondary result of being “rich.”
That is the new and greater meaning of “Health is Wealth,” and not vice-versa. The institutions and defenders of the status quo, are always the last to embrace the new possibilities -- and then when they finally do, will claim that they discovered it.
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