Sometimes the Worst that can Happen

  Is the best thing that can happen -- because then,  the worst fears are realized -- and overcome.  Until then, the fears become the limits of what we think is the unthinkable, but only when we are forced to confront it in the actuality, and not just academically and theoretically, we really never know anything with any certainty, and discover the truth of the matter.

It was formerly thought that the world was flat, and if one sailed far enough to the edge of the world, one would simply fall off -- and never be heard from again -- when the truth of the matter, was that there were worlds that existed that one could not imagine -- as the New World yet to be discovered.  So it was realized, that the only thing we had to fear, was fear itself -- and not the realization of any actuality, unless we were forced to make that desperate leap.

Otherwise, one can never sufficiently be motivated just by curiosity and intellectual satisfaction to go far enough beyond the present known -- with all its fears and trepidations.  That is often the case when young birds are finally forced out of the nest -- to learn that they can fly -- when they have to!  Those are the essential lessons of life -- without which, one is crippled, and will not survive for long -- and that is the way of Nature that has gotten us this far, so well.

Could it have be done better or even differently?  Time makes up for a lot of mistakes.  When one has all the time in the world to get it right, eventually one has to get it right -- and that is the only thing that matters, but until then, we never know for certain -- as many presume to.

But as has been pointed out many times before, the thought is not the thing itself -- but always only an approximation of what we are actually dealing with.  What we think we are dealing with, may not in fact be what is -- and that is the root of most misunderstandings and the problem.  The problem is other than we thought it to be, and until that is understood properly, is the reason the solution fails, and all one has  done, is created more elaborate explanations of why everything goes wrong.  Obviously, the problem is not the solution -- but merely multiplies the problem into a bigger one.

At the present time, it should be obvious to most people considering a future, that crowded big city environments are not viable on their present course -- nor are settlements in pristine forests -- so the answer might lie somewhere between those extremes -- as the best of all possible worlds.  That is still a choice for most people -- rather than to live a horrible life where one presently is, and so the greatest task of organizations and individuals, is to find that optimal for themselves -- and not just settle for their dismal prospects remaining where they are.

In a previous time, the best advice was to go West -- until everyone took that advice and those areas became too popular and crowded as well.  But now, the best advice to increase one's prospects, would be to move inland, away from the overcrowded coasts, where many places are offering attractive inducements to move there.  What has one to lose?  One has a chance for a fresh start -- and that should never be taken for granted, or overlooked.

Nobody ever had the right to be overwhelmingly successful being where they are -- no matter what.  Ultimately successful people, had to move into the void of greener pastures to make their lives and fortunes.  It won't happen living in their parent's basement.  They have to be forced out of the nest -- to fly, otherwise, they will simply soil their own environment until they are drowning in it.  That becomes the problem of hoarding on the other end -- when one is simply holding on to everything, and letting nothing go.  Then one is buried by all that trash.

So what is the world telling us now?

People in Good Health Live Longer and Better Lives

 Do everything possible to be in one's best health.  It seems so simple and obvious -- yet escapes so many.  Many hope to be the exception to the rule -- or just don't know any better, or care to.  Usually they come from a conditioning in which they've never questioned the information they were spoonfed from their earliest years not to question -- even using sugar as the primary reward for inducing and reinforcing behaviors.  That's where it all begins -- and unfortunately, never ends for those who age and die way before their time. 

The number to be concerned about is all causes of mortality -- rather than just the one particular certain industries are promoting -- even if it is "heart health."  All death is characterized by the stoppage of the heart -- unless of course, the heart continues to live on beyond the point which all other functioning has ceased -- particularly vexing if one is responsible for that continued maintenance.  Thus, the more meaningful functioning is more likely to be neuromuscular and cognitive functioning -- by which which we recognize the individual responding and reacting to its supporting environment.

It is far more appropriate to think in terms of neuro-muscular functioning rather than nervous and muscular apart from each other -- because they are so codependent on each other.  As such, ancient thinkers recognized the advanced integration as the highest intelligence -- which is the reason for the establishment of the gymnasiums and the monasteries for the exercise and practice of highest actualization and attainment.  

So now in these times, to actually outlaw such institutions of civilization, is particularly disturbing -- because what replaces it?  The mass media would like it if they do -- because the opportunities for control is that much greater, when there is no checks and balances of others present.  Control then can be absolute.  

We call that relatively new development -- "self-isolating activity."  One has the illusion that they are engaged with others and their environment, while it is wholly contrived and exists only in their brain -- with no corresponding external reality.  That was what was called in earliest times -- "delusions of grandeur"" -- where one simply retreated more and more into the inner realms in preference to a shared reality.

Nowadays, in many cases, it is called any number of diseases and conditions -- but the result is still the same -- the deterioration of one's abilities to respond to the exigencies of the realities of their time and place.  Some merely call it "age," and insist there is nothing further one can do about it.  But many insist that begins at graduation from high school -- or even kindergarten, at which point they stopped learning anything else, and further.  A few even pride themselves on such an achievement -- as enlightenment.  To them, it is a return to the womb -- where one no longer has any responsibility for one's own nurturance and actions.

So independence and self-reliance is further discouraged -- as the cultural imperative to be the mass rather than the individual.  Individual means not apart, but the whole, and indivisible -- contrary to the popular meaning of that word, while mass, is really to be only a part, or a small part of something much larger than themselves -- and only to play that part.  As such, it was invariably a fragmented perception of the totality -- as though reality existed in that way.

That misunderstanding, is the reason things do not go as we expect them to -- often with disastrous results -- one still maintains, proves the futility of any understanding on their part.  Yet it is seldom the case that one knows "too much," than it is likely that they know too much of what is not valid and true -- which is always worse than knowing nothing at all, because what they know, is likely to be the opposite of things as they actually are, and work -- while those beginning with an acknowledged complete ignorance, are likely to find out what is true and valid -- without the presumption that they know better.

In this way, knowledge can become a handicap -- as the separation between their knowledge and things as they are -- grows wider.  If that is the case, then how does one begin integrating that knowledge from the actuality?  That is the very reason for the value of exercise and practice -- as it is the integration of mind and body, and its highest attainment -- health.  In colloquial terms, that would be "firing on all cylinders" -- from which all else merely flows.  They get it right first, and not just hope that it will all come together at the end.  It doesn't happen that way.  That is merely wishful-thinking -- the belief that simply persisting at all the wrong things, will somehow be miraculously transformed into some kind of utopia -- in another time and galaxy.  The universe just doesn't work that way.

Obviously, healthier individuals do their best -- including and especially at surviving.  Not all life is equal in that way.  Some may pull ahead for a short while, but only a very exceptional few, will continue to improve with time -- mainly because of what they are doing.  There are always exceptions -- but that is the generally well established rule.  So, far more important than extraordinary life support, are the things one does to provide extraordinary support for themselves -- and that is validated and actualized by their health.  All that matters is what one can do for themselves -- and then the rest may be helpful, but never in place of.

Try as they might, there will never be equal outcomes -- no matter what one does.  There will be differences of outcomes -- depending on what one actually does.  That should be no secret -- or worse, forbidden and suppressed knowledge.  That will do no one any favors -- and make all the dysfunctions of the present time inevitable for those following that advice.  So the question is not how to enable such people with greater dysfunctions, but how do they not get there in the first place -- by developing good (healthy) habits?

At that juncture is where contemporary society has fallen off the tracks.  Good outcomes don't just happen.  That is the selection process.  Yet somehow, we have been brainwashed that only the opposite is right -- no matter how disastrous.  Why should so many be in poor health -- from their own doing?  But that doesn't mean that healthy people will live forever.  They will simply continue to live better -- for as long as they do, and that is good enough for even the most highly intelligent person to do.

That is simply making the best and the most out of their lives -- and they can be very happy with that.  That is as good as life gets -- and they are at peace with the universe, and one with it.