Anytime, Anyplace, In Any Condition

Like everybody else, I read the conventional advice and columns on fitness and exercise, trying to figure out exactly what it is they want us to do, since their ability to communicate what they know invariably far exceeds what they know -- which is a fatal handicap for those wishing to be the most influential voice in any field. Nowhere is that more true than in physical education, in which the students are expected to do flawlessly, what the instructor doesn't want understood but simply obeyed.

That's not unlike the medical/sports studies usually offered as proof that something, or a system works, because it was double-blind, and hence, the participants had absolutely no idea what they were trying to prove or test. The fallacy though, is that (athletic) performance is the measure of one's ultimate understanding in anything -- so even wanting to do well, is a large part of that measure and performance -- and not the proof that even with a lack of any understanding, insight, and desire, something might work in spite of one's abilities to undermine their own efforts.

In that way, sports performance becomes a lot like the rest of life -- and that is the significance of training for anything, to improve one's chances of success in any subsequent arena of life -- as well as find out what one's proclivities and potentials are. But obviously, this cannot be a study of random behavior, or doubled-blind so that the subjects have no idea of what they wish to accomplish. That is the fallacy of most, if not every one of those pseudo-scientific studies claiming to prove, what they already believed to be true from the start, and then designed their experiment so that the results could only confirm that truth.

Unfortunately, that's what a lot of people actually think science is -- proving the truth of their preconceived conclusions, and seeing only what they want to see, and disposing with that they choose not to see. In this manner, "science" is inevitably culture bound -- but that doesn't mean that science is necessarily bad. It's bad in cultures and societies that regard any progress as a good, or has a problem distinguishing good from bad.

Thus some (primitive) societies think the only physical capabilities worthy of developing, is the capacity to destroy every other, and not that teamwork, cooperation, and the sharing of anything, is their ultimate objective. In these primitive societies, every behavior and action, is a zero-sum outcome -- with a winner at the expense of a loser, and often, with many losers to support and distinguish only one winner. Such societies are not only zero-sum but eventually become extinguished and extinct.

The obvious winners, are those still around -- and flourishing. They're always fully prepared to prove themselves -- or find out what their present capacities are. That is the point of living and life -- at all times.

That's why a meaningful fitness program can be done anywhere, anytime, in whatever condition one is in -- and not merely be an idea of the condition one would like to be in. Yet that is how fitness professionals usually talk about their activities -- as something they only hope to be in some imaginary future, rather than manifesting and exhibiting it in the present moment of actuality (reality).

Of course, such discussions have no reality but are merely the exploitations of wishful-thinking of preselecting those who will never know the difference between any actuality -- and their perception of it. In fact, such conditioning in these individuals, is self-contradictory action of belief, nullifying every other action -- with a zero-sum net outcome. One gains the world but loses one's soul. One gains prosperity, but sacrifices one's health, and so on.

What healthy individuals are, is the total integration and integrity of everything they are in a positive direction, and not merely, self-contradictory activity. It means nothing to have a great triumph in great sadness and embarrassment. Those are the Pyrrhic victories, in which one has ostensibly "won," while having lost "everything," and especially that which would have given such a victory great meaning -- and now it is meaningless.

And thus a true sportsman, learns to use as a guide along the way, how they play the game, as a measure of its success as much as the final score. In this way, fitness in the present moment, is the indicator of its ultimate destination and accomplishment -- and not just an inconvenient means to an end that grows more distant with each conditioning session until one falls hopelessly behind and out of it, and gives it up entirely, because those objectives keep slipping farther away as one ages with the realization that all is now irretrievably lost.

Then, all those efforts seem to be "wasted," in that lifelong chase for goals that were never or could ever be fully realized -- in each moment of one's living -- anytime, anyplace, in any condition. That is the most damaging aspect of most conventional conditioning programs -- that only promise to deliver a result in some never attainable future.

This becomes increasingly apparent as one ages and sees the futility of actualizing their success, one day further into the future.