It's A Changing (Evolving) World

Even forms that were successful in their time, eventually become outmoded and obsolete -- so one should not let that happen to themselves.  Individuals can be quick to adapt and respond -- unlike the institutions that will invariably have to fail -- because they cannot change quickly enough, since they are designed to last as they are -- until they fail.  They become the dinosaurs of the current age.  Thus in seeing the demise of institutions like Sears and the shopping malls that were hugely successful in their day and age, there's very little they can do to remain at the top forever -- just as anyone else.  They too will come and pass.  That is life -- and the only reality we have known.

As long as we change, adapt and evolve, we can remain vital to the times we live in -- and the failure to do so, and respond to those challenges, obviously makes one less fit for continued survival -- and life at its best.  So that is the challenge throughout our lives -- to be at one's best, and to regard any deviation from that experience and path, as clear signals that one must change their course -- or perish, either quickly, or slowly over time and age. 

Fortunately, that means using all the tools and strategies one now has access to -- and not just the original equipment one was born with and previously acquired.  One must even be prepared to let everything accumulated thus far go -- to enable oneself to move on -- without all that previous baggage.  Unfortunately, many cannot let all that go -- because that has now become their security, and everything they know.  But what they don't know, is far greater than what they previously have accumulated all their lives.

It is said that information (the known) doubles every year -- or more accurately, evolves into something better, and supplants the old -- integrating all the previously known -- especially in the integrating mind -- that is not simply accumulating separate pieces of information and keeping them separate and unrelated pieces of information, but integrating each into a greater, more encompassing, powerful whole.  That is the mind of the 21st century -- and not simply the accumulative and acquisitive mind of all previous generations.  That's how life has changed and evolved.  Undoubtedly, it is a whole new world -- and not simply the old world repeated with each succeeding generation -- as the institutional and bureaucratic minds would have us believe and perpetuate.

Naturally, such institutions, are the last to know what is going on -- even as much as they will insist that they know all that can be known.   Most know not to make such foolhardy and outrageous claims -- but there will always be the self-chosen few who claim that advantage over all the others.  They will insist that they alone own the monopoly of that information -- and by extension, all information -- as the self-appointed guardians and gatekeepers of that function for society, and all others.  In such a scheme, no one is allowed to think for themselves -- and investigate independently, which has been the basis of scientific inquiry and freedom of thought for the last five hundred years -- since the Dark Ages.

That is the reason they are called the "Dark Ages" -- when nobody was allowed independent thought.  There were institutions and hierarchies for the proper distribution of any information, and particularly, any publication -- which made possible the widespread dissemination of what could be transmitted only by word of mouth previously.  So to live now in an age when any publication is possible, requires a whole new response to those realities and inputs, but most importantly, with how one integrates it into a greater, more powerful and effective whole of comprehension -- that is the greatest possibility of that individual's life.

Thus the individual is not just a surrogate of that society, but is the indivisible (individual) of all of life at the present time -- that subsumes the old divisions and demarcations of previous consciousness.  Thus life as we've known it before and been defined, is now surpassed -- by those individuals attaining greater integration of the present collective consciousness of all that has been previously known, but not so well integrated by the institutions and defenders of jurisdictional turf.  By definition, that is the deliberate fragmentation of information into the impenetrable specialties and hierarchies allowed to only a few -- which now puts them at a disadvantageous in an era of evolving open information and sources -- as they wait for authorization for access and approval.

By then, it is too late.  The moment of truth has passed -- and now they are responding to the past -- that has long passed.  It is not a world of scarcity -- in which any product or service is welcomed gratefully, but a whole new world of abundance in which every extravagance and extraneous, must be filtered out before draining precious attention and effort.  That is unmistakably the changing and evolving world we now live in -- that brooks no room for distraction and time-draining error.  One needs to get it right as soon as possible -- or getting it wrong, will drain years of life and resources before one resumes the rightful path of growth and improvement -- and sadly, a few, will never recover but plunge ever deeper into hopeless despair, and their own dark ages -- cut off from the light (information).

So it seems as though they are feeling their way around in the dark -- rather than seeing the light of the whole (picture) -- and acting as though most of the the information is unseen and unknown -- when it is merely yet to be discovered by themselves.  Often, there is resistance to such discoveries -- because it would be having to change themseves -- which is what vital human beings are doing all the time -- constantly changing, adapting, and evolving.  What they knew yesterday, is not as important as what they are discovering today.

And so the old model (paradigm) of a person full of knowledge, gives way to the one who can discover momentarily and at will, that which they need to know -- even if they have to invent (it) themselves.  In so doing, they are inventing themselves.  But they are not the only ones.  That is distinctively what the "survivors" are doing -- who are the thrivers of any particular time and circumstances.  That is their survival advantage: they prosper and thrive, and not just for reproductive success -- but in every aspect of their lives.  Those successes, are what is replicated -- in the much greater evolutionary story.

If it works, it is not discarded equally with all the strategies and patterns that do not work.  There is a decided bias towards the successful -- and away from the failing modes of life.  That ending cannot be unwritten -- but it is not random.  It is very deliberate and intentional.  Some are just more aware of it than others -- who haven't a clue as to what is going on, yet thinking they must impose their limited world view on all the rest -- feeling that they are the chosen, for no particularly good and justifiable reason.  As they will stubbornly insist, that is just the way it is "S'posed to be" -- for they know not what reason.  That is the logic of brute force -- thinking that alone is enough to ensure any desirable result. 

The counter to that is a better understanding -- of all involved.  But the brutish mind will think that simply more force is adequate to any task -- and not bother with any understanding.  It has no time for understanding first -- because it is so far behind with their present course, and continuing in that manner.  There is no time for questions -- and serious inquiries and reflection.  And that is their problem -- not only in that thing, but in everything they do -- and fall further and further behind, when just a moment of reflection and insight, might make the problem disappear entirely.  Invariably, they're not ready for that -- simplicity, and rethink.  They are too attached with their accumulations and memories --to abandon them for a fresh start -- even if it means a vastly better life. 

Nobody else can pull them out of their downward spiral.  They have to want it for themselves -- first.  If people want to succeed, they will -- in all the ways and moments of their lives.  Nothing is ever too small to care about -- and give their full attention to.  That fullness of attention, allows change to work through them -- as they offer no resistance to what is, and live in that moment -- as the only reality that matters.  Life carries them along -- rather than they having to reinvent the wheel and everything there is, by themselves.  That is the hard row to hoe.

Beyond the Known

Most instructors can tell one how to make an exercise harder -- but the real genius is in making exercise as easy as possible -- or any skill, for that matter.  It doesn't take genius to make anything harder and more difficult -- taking years to master.  Genius, or true intelligence, is in making the painfully time-consuming, instantaneous.  Then, anything is possible, and immediate -- and nowhere is that more true than in one's later years, when movement no longer seems possible, and increasingly, one attempts to do less and less.  Obviously, that is not the path to greater health and well-being -- which is the capability to do more with increasing less -- effort of course, but also resources and time -- though speed is not the objective.  Economy and efficiency of action is.

In this, one should know (learn) what is worth doing -- and what is not worth the time and effort -- things that are hard, but not productive.  They in fact, may only be injurious -- in the misguided thinking that all pain is gain.  Pain always provides the ultimate message to stop doing it any more.  Not surprisingly, most conditioned in this manner, stop as soon as they can, which is as soon as there is not another to force them to.  Obviously, that is not going to be an effective lifelong conditioning strategy -- to abandon it at the first opportunity.

That is obviously the problem with most traditional and conventional conditioning practices -- and why one doesn't see many of advanced ages continuing with them, even if they might have when they were younger and didn't know better.  At that point, many just put such activities away -- and accept the well-known consequences.  They don't know anything else -- because that was not integral to their conditioning -- to always find a better way.  Instead, they merely spend their years repeating the same things unvaryingly.  Thus the net result is simply more wear and tear -- rather than continued growth and evolution.

But it is not enough just to make a movement as easy as possible -- but as productive as possible -- the gain and not the pain.  Unfortunately, too many people have been waylaid into thinking that the pain is the gain -- rather than the gain is to experience as little pain as possible.  How is that possible?  Obviously, learning a better way.  It is no accident that the results of many years of doing certain movements, inevitably cause disabilities in those who have done them -- all their lives until they absolutely can't anymore.  And then they don't find another way -- that allows them to do it without the crippling disability.  That would obviously be the cure -- for whatever ails them.

One can always create a new movement -- even though they've never seen anybody do it before.  Probably the best example, is to make walking a total body exercise -- that articulates fully most of the major joints, and particularly those at the extremities -- which typical walking does not express -- with its very minimal, or no rotation at the wrists and ankles.  In this, the objective is not just to get from one place to another as quickly as possible -- but to produce circulation maximally throughout the body -- as the ultimate good.  You don't have to go anywhere -- but optimizing the circulation, is the highest good -- and that doesn't mean just making the heart work harder and faster, but using all the muscles to effect the optimal circulation.

That would be the objective of all worthwhile practices.  However, it is taken for granted that that is already being done -- when it should obviously be seen as the problem.  More effective circulation can be cultivated to any particular area -- that one is focused and intent on doing so.  That is especially valid, for any particular problem areas -- that those have to be addressed to optimize the health and balance of the human body -- throughout a long life.  Getting only halfway there is not enough.  And that is the problem of contemporary aging models -- they get halfway there, and then break down irrecoverably -- and just accept that as the normal course of life.

But it doesn't make sense to live half one's life in this decline -- just because one hasn't found a way before.  That is what the second half of life is about -- finding that way -- even if one has failed up to now.  Otherwise, one lives half one's life without anything better to do -- no higher calling.  And life at this age and stage, has to be a calling -- beyond a career and training.  That is the only logical conclusion.

Otherwise, most will simply flounder and lose their way -- their organizing principles of life.  That is sad to see.  And soon, many will be "retiring" at ever younger ages, and what are they to do?  They've simply graduated to a higher level of challenge -- or not.  That would be the ultimate expression of who they are --  and were meant to be.  But only they can find that out for themselves.  Nobody else can do it for them.  They have to go it alone -- and create their own way.

You don't have to be President if you don't want to.  That was the old paradigm -- everybody wanting the same thing, and competing against everybody else for it.  It's not efficient -- nor is it effective.  But when one realizes one can be one's own exercise -- then all the effort ceases, and it is the easiest thing to do -- and continue for the rest of their life.

Only that can be a lifelong fitness program -- and not just theories and explanations that no longer work.  That is a critical failure -- of traditional and conventional exercise -- up til now.  But simply more of the same, is not going to do it.  It just doesn't work.  That is well proven.  So we need to move on to something else -- something that actually works!  Right now, that means discovering it for oneself -- and for the rest of humanity.  That's how life evolves beyond the known.