Health and Functionality

The older one gets, the more they realize that their very health and functioning is what really matters -- and not all the lesser concerns one thought was so important -- including how much one can lift in a gym, how many steps one should take to simulate "natural movement and exercise," etc. -- the point being to be able to do those movements throughout the normal course of their day, and throughout life -- as who they are.  That is the reality of each life -- no matter what they do.  The doing is the telling.

The theme that seems to be gaining prominence, is the realization that people, and particularly the young, are not be well-prepared to meet the challenges of the present -- particularly when faced with problems and difficulties -- as the people of yore.  Instead, they waste a lot of time playing video games -- often for hours each day -- while hardly moving from their couch.

So rather than looking like robust and dynamic individuals, capable of doing anything, they turn into couch potatoes -- hardly capable of moving, and even requiring assistance with their daily living.  As much as we can, we choose to do as much as possible independently as the primary expression of everything we are capable of doing -- which means maintaining those capabilities as required -- throughout life.  That is the meaning and purpose of "fitness" -- beyond all else.  Everything else just seems less important -- over the years -- and even counterproductive in many cases.

Until recently, it was even thought a prolonged period of complete dependency on others, was a final stage of life -- beyond retirement -- that might even last the entire latter half of life -- if one was so fortunate to live so long.  Of course, such lives were unprecedented because if people lived so long, it was because they excelled at maintaining their fitness beyond the rest.  And while entire industries have sprung up to keep others alive as long as profitable, lesser attention has been given to learning how to take better care of oneself.  The chief beneficiary in that, is the individual themselves -- in their own better quality and capacity of life.

In that way, the quality of life has improved directly, and not simply the cost and profitability of keeping people alive beyond what they can do for themselves.  That is the only way it can be done for mass numbers of people -- that each individual has to train themselves to attain that life, and no amount of other people, can do it for them.

Ultimately, that is the great equalizer in life -- not how one' began, and all the distractions subsequent -- before that final stage and act -- that can be increasingly prolonged.  If the only yardsticks for that measurement was what we first learned as young people, that usually eliminates the great majority of people -- but there is no rule against moving those goal posts -- as becomes practical and meaningful in one's own life.  That will best be determined individually -- and uniquely -- rather than by the arbitrary authority of those who would establish that criteria for everyone else, and particularly the young who can benefit from that guidance -- before one is well on their own path.

That is the ultimate objective of every learning, practice and exercise -- and not to abandon it as soon as nobody else is validating them for such efforts.  And these days, it is often the case that a few go into a lifelong downward spiral -- in full public view until they disappear completely because they no longer want to be seen, much less participate in community activities.  They even come to believe that they are "invisible," and so why should they care?

It's not that there are no longer standards -- but increasingly, they have to be set by every individual for themselves -- in the hierarchy of ascent to a greater life.  At that challenge, many implode because there is nothing within except jumping onto the latest new trend and bandwagon -- until they are let off, or fall off in the wilderness -- and are left entirely on their own.  It happens to everyone sooner or later.

From there, only a rare few continue on -- realizing that is what they have been practicing and preparing all their lives to do.  The rest will retreat back to the familiarity of the past -- even with its certainty of a dead-end, and no exit.  That has been the paradigm of aging in the past -- clinging to the past, rather than in creating the future paradigm that subsumes all that has come before into a more sustainable future.

So rather than lamenting what no longer works -- one must discover or invent what does work -- and makes a difference.  It doesn't have to be a 500 lb. bench press, squat or deadlift -- but the full range (articulation) of such movements -- without impediments and resistance.  That is making all movements possible, easy and functional -- rather than the present course of making it more difficult and impossible -- until the predictable abandonment of all further efforts and hope because it is just "too impossible" anymore.