What Are You Conditioned to Do?

In every field of education, what is it that we are being educated to do?

It is to accept the authority of another over our own senses and judgment -- while ignoring and dismissing our own. So in a sense, we have disabled all our own God-given hardware, in favor of depending on another to tell us what to do and think, above every other manner of functioning, and developing an understanding of what we are doing.

And so when a new problem arises, we don't know how to go about discovering a solution for ourselves, but first rely on the authority we knows -- with no way of knowing if they truly do or not, because those who vouch for that authority, are those who maintain that hierarchy and status quo, is their own dedication.

Thus, we don't know if what we know is the truth of the matter, or just what those with a vested interest in maintaining their own authority on such matters, want us to know -- if we have no alternative manner of inquiry, but to consult these (self-)appointed authorities -- and questioning that authority, is not an option, despite the fact, that their supposed "answers" to everything, seem to make things worse, rather than eliminate the problems.

Not surprisingly then, the result of current understanding of conditioning and exercise, results in more people being out of condition, and needing more exercise. A few will do the much more, while the majority will decide that it is not worth it -- to punish oneself day after day, with only the prospect of then being able to tolerate more -- as proof that one is better conditioned. That seems to work at first, until the body and psyche simply exhausts its recovery ability, and is forced to take a long break, often through injury and often just the sheer exhaustion of maintaining oneself in a constant "fighting"-ready posture, which prolonged indefinitely, causes an irreversible deterioration of health rather than the desired readiness to meet all challenges.

Obviously, if one's conditioning exhausts one fully, there is never any reserve to actually respond to any real life urgencies -- because one is always in the recovery mode, marshaling their resources for the next workout -- as though that was all there is in life. After a while, that does become one's so preoccupation and reality.

And really, the whole purpose of proper, beneficial conditioning strategies, is to enable us to move beyond -- and not just repeat, and fall further behind, until most simply quit out of exhaustion and the realization that they are no longer better, despite how much they do. If one is still obviously responding and growing, then there is no question that one should continue whatever they are doing -- that is working. But when those benefits and results are not so apparent, then one loses that conviction that that expenditure of time and energy is "worth it."

But if one gets a tremendous return for very little time and effort, one would be a fool not to continue. It is because current popular conditioning strategies do not provide these significant and dramatic returns, that people increasingly abandon these activities and become overwhelmed by the deterioration (aging) process. The only option they are provided, is to make life a constant torment.

So one asks, is that the only way, or can one design a conditioning program without this onerous cost? We've never thought this way about conditioning before -- that rather than being hard, it is should easy, and as effortless as possible -- as the lives we hope to live, without the constant struggles no longer necessary to maintain a competitive edge. And in fact, the great survival value, is the cooperative edge, or not competing with every other thing, including and especially, oneself.

This competing, or working against every other thing in life, is obviously the harder and least productive way to go -- instead of being aware of the contribution of everything else, including millions of years of evolution, to benefit from all that intelligence. That is the implied intelligence of present reality -- or as physicist David Bohm called, the implicate order, and others, called it, the unconscious intelligence, rather than the conscious one of effort -- to struggle against everything else.

That is the meaning of the expression of "going with the flow," and realizing the much greater power, that always to be working against it -- as the currently popular thinking of conditioning, teaches one is wise. In order to maximize the benefits of life, one should avail of them, after becoming aware of them, and so, as many wise have advised, one should develop this ability to be aware and observe -- without struggling and trying to vanquish and dominate it as a knee-jerk response.

That's what we have been conditioned to do. Obviously, that is not intelligence, or the intelligent way to condition oneself.

But does that mean we become cerebral giants with atrophied bodies? That also would not be an intelligent manifestation of being -- because if nothing else, that would indicate to us that the connections and the functions of all the organs, were not supremely maintained -- and most of these sensory organs, are located most generously, in the head, hands and feet -- by intelligent design.

Yet most contemporary, as well as the venerable traditional disciplines of exercise, totally are oblivious to those extremities -- practically regarding them as immovable, rather than as the summation of good health and functioning. In fact, there is no measurement or even awareness of these possibilities, while functioning on the most remedial level, is monitored as though it were sufficient indicators of the highest.

I've often observed that in even formerly extremely vital persons, when they began rapid deterioration, it was most notable, at the cessation of responsiveness at their extremities, as well as in the atrophied development of the structures to the brain -- and have suggested that the greatest precursor I have noticed in those with dementias and other brain dysfunctions, is absence of vital movement at the head vis-a-vis the torso.

As I was observing the acceptance of Ronald Reagan in 1980 to his nomination for presidency by the Republican Party on YouTube, one already notices that there was very little movement of his head, relative to his body, and the absence of well-developed musculature, and in fact, he has a very distinctive wattle. He is simply the most well-known, of those he were diagnosed with Alzheimer's.

"Look forward, and don't turn your head." (And seeing what is going on around you).