Better or Worse

 People won’t want to hear this — but walking on a spot (in place) is SUPERIOR to actual walking. The greatest advantage is that one can do it in the comfort of one’s own home (controlled environment), rather than the much more perilous random conditions one is likely to encounter walking around most cities — and particularly hazardous now that public officials don’t enforce safe and drug-free environments, in addition to treacherous sidewalks.

The key thing that makes the step in place superior as an exercise is the range allowed by tailoring the conditions to optimize safety and performance. The extreme is the knee-lift that can be achieved by marching in place. That is contrasted to the much more limited range of movement in barely lifting one’s feet — as most people do — in walking. That is the essential movement — repeated over and over again so it becomes conditioned automatically. That is the purpose of exercise — self-conditioning — rather than being conditioned by everything else — much of it extraneous.

Increasingly with years, is the realization that one can’t be doing things that aren’t working — for the dwindling remainder of their lives. At some point, they hope for a resurrection to their best selves. That manner of thinking can be programmed into all the moments of our lives — but obviously not what got us to this state. Then one is shocked into the realization that everything they do matters.