Sunday, September 2, 2018

Understanding Conditioning -- Volume Ten

Rising to the Challenge

'There is no good or bad news -- except how one responds to those challenges.  One can go into a irrecoverable downward spiral, or use it as a springboard for getting where one has never gone before.  In that way, every crisis is a challenge to be the best one can be -- based on everything else they've ever done before.  Thus the present implies the past -- as well as indicates the future.  It is not just one more thing unrelated and unconnected to every other.  That is the context of every meaningful and successful action -- and not as a lot of failing people think, that they'll be the million in a million.  The million is the success -- proven time and time again.

Nevertheless, it is difficult for a few to believe that there is a reason things happen as they do -- rather than the majority is always wrong, and they alone, know all the answers.  Most of life knows all the answers -- and those that persist in their stubbornness, usually aren't around for very much longer.  Eventually, they just run out of chances.  That's why it is so important to get it right the first time -- and every time, in everything one does -- because that alone, qualifies them for the next.

But if they just fritter away their opportunities, invariably they run out of options, choices, decisions -- and then have everything dictated to them, as the only way it can be.  You don't want to get to that point -- when all the choices and opportunities are behind one, and only a certain rut lies in front of one.  That is also burning one's bridges behind them -- so they have nowhere else to go.  On the other hand, the wise tactician, multiplies the possibilities and options before them.  They grow their life -- rather than killing it, and do so until the day they inexplicably perish.  But that is not part of the plan -- to bring about their own demise, destruction and death.

Those are Darwin's losers; the winners find a better way -- even if they have to create it themselves.  When those individuals do, the whole of the species is advanced -- and not just the one over every other -- in a brutish struggle for scarce resources and survival -- as the only way they think life can be.  At best, it is just a repetition of the past -- and never breaking any new ground.  Of course, such societies have no future.  They have to create it -- and not just repeat their glorious past.

That is the challenge of life and living: one must get better.  The alternative, is to only get worse -- and it does not matter how many others one drags down with them, or exploits for a better position.  It is still a sinking ship -- no matter how they rearrange the deck chairs.  The challenge of every individual, is also the challenge of civilization -- with the fate of humankind hanging in the balance.  But all actions are not created equal.  Some matter much more -- because that is the spirit and understanding they are undertaken with.  Others think that nothing they do matters -- and is of consequence, and so they live their lives that way -- without any significance -- "sound and fury, signifying nothing."

It's not even a good game.  Life is just one entertainment and diversion after another -- or they are interminably bored -- mostly with themselves.  Every opportunity is lost.  They rise to no challenge -- and pretty soon, it is all over.  Those challenges don't have to be big things; they are more likely to be personal challenges and milestones -- that they fail to answer, time and time again.  But life is no other.  It is entirely personal -- and not about what somebody more important and well-known does, or does not do.

When one is only talking about what others do and don't do -- as the reason for success or failings in their own lives, all is lost.  That person has lost the significance and power of their own action.  They are the pawns in the game of life.

As Long As You Get It Right Eventually

Few get it right on the first try -- especially on the monumental undertakings.  Usually it requires many attempts to get it working in the first place -- especially if it hasn't been done before.  Of course it is very easy to do the same old thing over and over again -- but doing something different, and new, requires practice and persistence to get it right -- when it's never been done before.  And that's what one wants to do in life -- accomplish what they've never done before.

It doesn't have to be climbing Mt. Everest and all those cliched bucket list entries.  It can be different things for different people -- and will be, depending on what is really important, significant and necessary.  Most people don't have the luxury of having everything in their life in order so that they can do what is purely arbitrary in their lives.  That only happens in schools -- where the arbitrary is made to seem as important as the significant.  In real life, all that matters is the truly significant -- and learning what that is.  Seldom does one know from the very beginning.

One invariably learns that with each attempt -- what is successful, yet what is still not.  For many, that is good enough, and all they settle for -- the first whiff of success, and not refining and fine-tuning the perfection -- yet at some point, realizing that is good enough, but not before.  Where individuals draw that line determines their quality of life with each iteration.  For those who are improving, it's never the same -- they are doing something different, to break new ground.

To the untrained (undiscriminating) eye, everything seems the same -- because they don't know what to look for, and at.  They see only the gross movement, and not the fine -- which makes all the difference in every outcome.  It is what is known as the follow-through -- when most have stopped long ago, and some have already quit and gone home.  All those people know, is that they got home on time.

Those who go on to be ultimately successful, are those who are the last to leave -- leaving no stone unturned in their quest to discover all that can be discovered.  That is what drives them -- and not the clock.  And it doesn't matter how many times they get it wrong -- they keep trying to get it right, and that is what matters.  That's how they lives their lives -- to the very end.


That may mean reinventing life as they've come to know it -- but survival and thriving is much more important than maintaining whatever status quo is now failing.  Life is not permanent; it is dependent on the successful adaptations one makes all their lives, every single moment.  There is no happily forever after -- but happily for each and every moment won anew.  That is the best that can be done.

Life Tells You What To Do

If you just listen, life tells you what to do.  All one has to do, is solve the problem of their present predicament -- and that qualifies them for a higher challenge and calling -- and not that one has to aspire to reach the top at the very beginning, without solving anything.  That is the natural progression.  One simply has to do one's best -- at any task, no matter how menial and trivial it seems at the time, because that successful completion, is the foundation for every other subsequent challenge.

There is no skipping only to the top jobs and positions -- from not having done anything well to qualify for them.  If one thinks they can skip those important foundation-building exercises and practices, they will soon learn that they are missing that vital lesson when they need it most.  But if they have it in their arsenal and repertoire of skills and assets, it is there for the taking, and using -- even without deliberately knowing so.

Increasingly, that is how most skills are acquired -- without deliberation intention to cultivate that particular requirement.  It comes to support the more deliberate intention -- to solve a well-defined problem.  But the manner in which one achieves all that, is what matters even more -- and that's what many never learn, much to their regret, and eventual doom.

It's all the little things one accomplishes -- and not the few and rare big things one usually focuses on as landmark achievements.  But all the little things, added up over time, is a mountain dwarfing any singular achievement -- no matter how famous or infamous one hopes to become.  That is the clear message that all of life is telling one -- pay attention to the little things, the details -- for that is what distinguishes the great from the small.

The opposite of this approach, are the many who insist on telling life what to do, and how everything should turn out, regardless of their individual effort and attention to any part of life.  They merely want the results -- regardless of doing anything right to obtain them.  They think wanting it badly enough, is all that is required to achieving and obtaining anything, and predictably, are sadly disappointed when they realized that is not enough -- and think it is useless and too late to go back to the beginning and learn those things.  That's only the task of young people -- they think, rather than that is what young people do that keeps them young.

What makes them "old," is refusing to learn anything anymore -- but instead, telling life and everybody who will still listen to them, how life should be and turn out.  And so life batters and bruises them until they listen -- or simply continues to batter and bruise them the rest of their lives because they will not listen and learn anything more.  That is the hard way to go -- but many insist on it.  It is no accident that they look that way -- of living a hard life that ages them before their time.


They will even insist that nothing more can be learned -- especially from life because it has betrayed them at every turn.  But life is the greater, the sum of all things, and not one, no matter how great and famous they aspire to be, demanding that they alone, should tell life and everyone else, how it ought to be.  Life doesn't work that way.  It is a concert, and not any one person's exclusive solo -- no matter how the reporters want to make it seem so.  The world is not that way -- no matter how much one would like everyone to think what they tell them to.  That is the lesson of the ages.

One Day At A Time

A lot of people set out each day to solve all the problems in their life -- for the rest of their lives -- rather than just their most pressing problem, at any particular moment.  Obviously, that is putting the cart before the horse -- which doesn't work so well, if at all.  Problems arise one at a time, and not all the problems, at once -- diluting one's focus and attention.  Ineffective people, are those solving the problems of the past -- or future, while devoting no attention to the present moment -- which is the only reality that ever matters. 

Just talking with such people, is energy-draining, because one's attention and focus is constantly being redirected to the imaginary -- instead of the actualities.  It is their entertainment -- and only way they know how to be.  Their being, is becoming something other than they are.  And so the best advice for such people, is simply to be themselves -- and not the other they wish to become.  That is the genius, of knowing oneself -- rather than some other fantasy, of another they want to become.

Becoming other than they are, is the favorite "entertainment," of those who will never truly know themselves -- which is the highest attainment in any life -- to simply Know Oneself.  That really is the whole point of any life -- great or small.  It's not about the money, food, drink, or song -- but simply the awareness of the person one is -- and not what one wishes to think about themselves, or to have others think of them.  All that, doesn't matter -- not in the big picture, because they are just illusions and delusions that take one away from what they could be doing to actually make a difference in their lives.

Knowing those differences, is what differentiates the successful from the unsuccessful -- who can't tell that difference.  And that is why they are unsuccessful at everything they do -- because they cannot distinguish and discriminate the significant and important, from the insignificant and unimportant, and so are always doing the wrong things -- at the wrong time, thinking it doesn't matter.

They characteristically think that just doing anything, is as good as doing the right thing -- thinking nobody can tell the difference, and it is simply enough just to "look busy" -- and get paid the same as those actually doing something productive and worthwhile.  Needless to say, they miss the whole point of living and learning -- and simply grow old and more useless every day.  They may even think that the whole object in life -- is to get as many others doing as much for them, as they could be doing for themselves -- as the ultimate objective of their lives.

The supremely healthy individual, is one capable of doing as much for themselves as possible, and in that way, become civilizations and cultures in themselves -- by building their lives one day at a time -- as though everything mattered.  That is a life of significance -- because they have made it so, and not thinking that all in life is simply entertainment, and then they die.  That is the obvious danger of contemporary culture to many people, so bored that they think that the quest in life is for more entertainment -- while doing nothing of consequence to improve their own lives.


Of course such a thing is possible -- every moment of one's life -- taking it one day at a time, with attention to detail -- and leaving the great task of changing the world, to the delusional and bored.

The Meaning and Purpose

The meaning and purpose of life and everything else -- is simply to get better, no matter what one is doing.  That is the simplicity of life and everything one is doing -- and not simply to repeat what one is doing for as long as one can.  That makes life and everything one does  -- meaningless.  Yet that is what many people do -- thinking that is the whole object of life -- and why it becomes more meaningless every day -- rather than more meaningful.  So that is what one must ask of oneself in everything they do:  Am I getting better or worse?

Obviously, that question takes on greater importance in age and time -- that is the ultimate test of everything one does.  Is it possible one asks, to keep on improving throughout life -- or does there come a time and age at which only getting worse is possible and realistic?  That is the question and challenge of every moment.

We invariably fail when we begin to ask that question wrongly -- in thinking we can only do what we have only done before -- and not move on to do things differently -- which makes improvement not only possible, but easy, particularly and especially, when the familiar and routine, becomes problematical and difficult.  Therein lies the problem -- and quandary.  The familiar and old, have become the difficult, and even impossible -- and the only way, is to make it easier again, by finding some other way -- in which improvement is not only possible, but necessary and inevitable.

But the problem is that we never seek and explore another way -- but keep trying to do the difficult and impossible, harder -- even if it kills us, rather than to find an easier way -- even if it is as simple as moving in the most basic ways.  Often, that is because we have forgotten those lessons we formerly learned -- and have forgotten because they worked, and thus we abandoned them, or simply took them for granted.

Yet that is the reason we often hang onto to those things we have forgotten why we have them -- not because they no longer work, but we no longer use them -- but there may be something else we can use better now and more productively, but refuse to embrace as what we must now.  Of course it is preferable to embrace them willingly rather than reluctantly, and with great resistance.  That is the challenge of the new, undiscovered and untried.  That does not need to be the more difficult -- but in fact, is the easier way -- that we simply refuse to adopt as they way it must be now.  That is especially true when the old ways used to work -- but no longer do now, and instead of changing, we think it has become hopeless, because everything seems to have changed -- as they always will.

But individually and personally, can one keep changing with those times -- or will one continue to keep on doing what one has always done before, even when they are no longer working? -- and maybe they never worked so well at all?  One will never know that -- unless they try something else -- that might.  Otherwise, they think there is nothing else -- and nothing works anymore, even if they used to -- but not anymore, and it never occurs to them, that maybe it did not work at all.

That would not be the exception, but the rule -- with most things in life.  Thus frequently, what we thought to be true -- no longer is, and the opposite is now true, or what is now accepted as the truth of the matter.  So the problem is what we believed to be true -- and never bothered to find out otherwise -- until many years later, and hopefully not too late.

But if it is still a problem, and getting worse, we really have to do something about it, and obviously differently, or it simply will continue to get worse -- and the whole object in life and everything we do -- is to get better, and we often lose sight of that, as busy and committed as we have come to what doesn't work -- and no amount of time, energy and commitment will change that -- because we are on the wrong path, and will not accept that


That is the simple truth of all we do.  We have to find an easier (better) way -- when what we have been doing, is not working, and no amount of more -- will make a difference.

The Basic Function of the Human Body (Being)

The most basic and fundamental function of the human body is to produce flow -- and when that ceases, the health of the body begins to malfunction and inevitably die.  So the quest of every individual, is to optimize that flow -- which is literally the lifeblood of health and well-being.

In every organism, that central and vital role is played by the heart (cardiovascular), but it is not the only organ system in the equation.  The other great role is played by the neuromuscular that directs the flow to wherever it is desired most -- as the expression of what it believes is important to do.

That is to say, that whatever is expressed (used), is that body's priority of everything it could be doing -- from virtually limitless possibilities -- as humans are the most versatile, nonspecialized of species.  However, specific individuals will be notable for their much higher degree of proficiency than most others, because of their particular genetic makeup, which to a lesser degree, can be emulated by the rest, as well as perfected even more by the gifted in that area.

Altogether, that contributes and manifests the richness of human societies and civilizations -- so remaining in that flow, is where one desires to be.  That brings new life, information and possibilities into an otherwise isolated and stagnant worldview -- both in the inner and the outer.  That is the meaning of being "one" with the universe -- that the individual life be aligned and a reflection of the rest of reality -- and not some vision apart from it, or in constant conflict determined to impose their unyielding view upon a constantly changing (fluid) world.

Life doesn't work so well that way.  But it is more than beliefs and ideology that makes it so.  Science is the attempt to make the explanation fit the reality -- and its failings -- rather than demanding that the realities conform with what one would like it to be, with no regard for the actual outcomes and experiences.

In individual lives, the essential question is whether one feels their life is getting better or worse -- and how that assessment is borne out by the observation of behaviors and appearances.  Therein lies the value of the gift of seeing oneself as others see them -- and not simply living in the fantasy world of one's delusions -- in which anything goes.

That's why we have competitions -- as well as doctors, teachers, and accountants.  They inform us what the score is -- and not that one is always the champion of whatever league he imagines to be playing in.  It's good to make that contact -- maybe even running for election, writing, creating something tangible, having an actual conversation, learning wholly new and different ideas, etc.  That is the key to remaining in the flow -- healthy and vibrant.  Once one grasps that concept, then it is easy to see why a body dies, and before that, becomes dysfunctional.  It is never used (exercised) in that way -- even if one did once, a long time ago.  That is not enough to keep one current, and in the flow.


So to properly begin the day, it is beneficial to actually move into different poses, postures and movements -- to review all those possibilities -- even if one does nothing else.  It is enough to know what one still can do -- in fact, and not just the thought and memory of it.  "Yes, I can do that" -- while doing something else entirely, or nothing at all, or merely understands what needs to be done but doesn't do it, is the beginning of that separation and fragmentation of reality, and is powerless.  The integration of thought with action, is the road to wholeness.  It doesn't have to be made difficult.  The movement itself has magic.  That is change.

The Biggest Difference

The simplest, most obvious thing, is the most difficult thing to see.  That is simply what we take for granted, and never question -- and the key to any problem, is asking the right question -- as obvious as it seems.  Most will not think to question -- anything.  They will take everything for granted.  They will even regard it as their entitlement -- that they deserve it just by being alive -- until one day it is gone, and they are at a loss as to how to get it back, and that is the story of how most people age badly -- and have no idea what to do otherwise.

There was a time when everything seemed to come easily -- and even effortlessly-- and now nothing comes, no matter how much effort they put into it, or imagine they are putting into it -- just by thinking about it endlessly -- without doing anything actually.  Therein lies the difference-maker -- the difference between one and nothing -- even the littlest amount of actual doing, rather than all their thinking about actually doing something.  They even think that there is no difference between the actual doing -- and thinking about that doing, while actually doing nothing -- but again, they cannot tell that difference, and take it for granted that they are the same.

In the healthy, they are the same -- but in the unhealthy, they are not the same -- and it is that fragmentation, division, and conflict between thought and action (actual), that is their essential problem.  Thus it has been commented and observed by the wise throughout the ages, that every great change and undertaking, begins with a tiny step -- and that action alone, has great power, while no amount of thinking, no matter how great, without any resulting action, will make any difference.  And that, is the simplicity ad power of life -- no matter what one thinks.

That thought without action, is the world of illusion and delusion -- where nothing makes any difference, and so nothing matters.  So to know even one thing, no matter how small and insignificant, already puts one way ahead in the game of life -- because one knows one thing -- rather than everything that doesn't make a difference.  They know the one thing that does make a difference.  And from that, all other things become possible -- and even easy.

In a very simple world, that is knowing the difference between one and zero.  Entire civilizations, worlds and universes can be built on that powerful (simple) understanding -- not unlike we know today as though none other has existed before.  But it too, was built one step at a time.  It didn't come into being all at once -- as though from some great master plan that everyone, or even some one, knew from the start.  One person took a step, and then some other did also -- and then at the end of the day, civilization moved forward.  The primitive mind, thinks it is their job alone, to tell everybody what to do, and how to think.  That manner of thinking, is a return to the Dark Ages.


Under such world views, nobody is allowed to move forward -- until the self-chosen one allows them to, and of course, nobody is allowed to move ahead of that self-proclaimed "leader."  Often, they will refer to themselves as the "enlightened" (progressive) one -- the guardian of the sacred and righteousness (correctness) -- and those who don't adhere, must be mocked, persecuted, and stoned -- as in the good ol' days.  The story is amazingly familiar and consistent throughout the ages -- and is celebrated throughout the year and every year -- lest we forget the very foundations of our present civilization.

Making the Best of Any Age

Younger people want to be older, and older people want to be younger -- so obviously, those who are happiest, are those making the best at whatever age they are -- and not wishing things were different before making the best of each and every present moment.

There are countless dysfunctional people who know exactly what they would do if they won the lottery -- but have no idea what to do under their present circumstances, and are not even going to try.  Instead, they will go into denial that things as they are, is trying to tell them something.  It invariably, is what they don't want to hear -- and deal with -- as the way things actually are.  So they go on to solve some other problem -- imagined or real -- to distract them from the present urgency, hoping it will pass and resolve itself -- as many problems will.

But that seldom gets to the root of the problem -- which causes it to reoccur, more virulently the next time -- until finally, "the shit hits the fan," and life cannot go on any longer in that denial and neglect.  Often, it is one of these famous incidents that become known to the public because of its violence and bizarre circumstances.  And the question that immediately comes to mind is, "What were they thinking -- if they were thinking at all?"

Often those reporting such events, don't first question the particulars of such bizarre events as the first line of defense for an unsuspecting and generally trusting audience.  They think it must be true or why would someone bother informing them of such a thing?  Sometimes they do because it is profitable for them to spread such misinformation -- if the truth won't sell.  Thus they prefer a falsehood that sells well, to a truth with diminishing customers, because once those people know the truth, they have no need to buy more -- of what doesn't work.

That is life in the small pond.  They have to sell more to the same people, rather than one to an ever-expanding universe -- who only need one.  But such products, change the world, and life as we've known it.  They are the products and services of a certain age and time -- that was the springboard for even greater products and innovations -- rather than allowing the same old problems, to simply persist and haunt humanity forever after, as the infamous age-old problems

But are they really the problems of age -- or something else -- something much more fundamental?  And that is the lack of understanding things properly -- invariably because that which was assumed to be true, were never questioned in the first place.  Even the thought of it, is mind-boggling and even insulting to those who thought themselves educated and rational.  What if those problems, are not caused by one's genes, but one's behaviors?  And so when one changes the behavior, those "genes" simply disappear -- or more accurately, are not expressed.

In much the same way, capacities that are never expressed, weaken and may finally be extinguished -- for lack of use, while less desirable traits, are reinforced as the person one has come to be -- and that is true at any age.  That is what we know commonly, as the "lack of exercise."  People are, what they actually do -- and not what they wish to become.  That is just the simple truth of life and living.  So it behooves one, to be that person -- who does that, and not simply know better while doing something else entirely.  And so the difference between the person they are, and the reality they wish to live, grows wider with each day.

Even doing only one thing repeatedly and constantly -- to the exclusion of everything else, will not make one more fit to do everything else -- contrary to what the promoters of that one thing as the only thing will tell us.  You have to do everything else, to be able to maintain those capacities.  That is particularly true with the most versatile and adaptable species -- that are capable of such a wide range of expressions and articulations.  What capabilities are necessary to maintain at at least a functional level all one's life?  That is what has to be maintained -- more than doing any one thing, however repetitively and exclusively.

That which we do most often, is that which is easiest to overlook -- such as sitting, lying, watching television, and compulsively eating, let alone the smoking and drinking with their well-known adverse impacts.  Yet admittedly -- or not, they account for fully 90% of our health problems, when the alternatives, are limitless.  It need not be difficult -- and that manner of thinking, makes it prohibitive -- while those barriers should be lowered as much as possible, to make the doing as effortless as necessary.  That has been the wrong-thinking -- or even lack of thinking, from those agencies and persons charged with encouraging the wider adoption of healthful behaviors.

Beginning is always the hard part.  Once a person has begun, momentum takes over -- and becomes difficult to stop.  So the question to consider offhand, is not how difficult it should be, but rather, how one gets one started -- and once started, should not be discouraged.  Even if done wrong -- because the practice inevitably becomes self-correcting.  "Practice does make perfect" -- as long as it is not made increasingly more difficult as a requirement of that performance.  That's how many go astray -- in thinking that the objective of any practice, is to make it increasingly more difficult.  In doing so, the practice becomes easy, rather than increasingly more difficult -- which should be obvious that one doesn't want.  Done that way, one will eventually have to give up such a practice -- rather than persist in it all one's life, as the foundation of well-being, throughout one's years.


Too many focus on the destination at the end of the journey -- rather than the beginning, which necessarily is the foundation of where one hopes to be.  If the beginning is undertaken, the prospects for that undertaking is auspicious -- over never having taken that first step.  That is the graveyard of most ambitions. Never getting started, never knowing what to do first.  All their energies are focused on what to do last.

The Integration of Knowledge (Wisdom)

Ask ten people what they think "Yoga" is, and you're likely to get ten different answers.  The literal definition is that it means "yoke," and then, "union, and finally, "integration' -- which is the connection of one thing to everything else.  And that way, all three answers are correct and meaningful -- for one thing is tied to every other.  That doesn't necessarily make it spiritual or sacred, but is the thread that runs through all things -- which is energy.

Of all the things people can do, many are beneficial, just as many are harmful -- and distinguishing one from another, is the wisdom one hopes to attain in this lifetime.  One is successful to the extent that the former, overwhelms the latter -- through trial and error more than academic learning, because the former is what one has to learn uniquely on their own.  Academic, or theoretical learning, is what somebody else has told us is the truth -- but for many, that is all they know, and have never found out the truth of anything for themselves -- by themselves.  But that is the valuable learning -- that is the outcome of individual experience and results.  That is who we are.

"Exercise" is not merely practice and useless, but means "use" itself.  To exercise one's faculties, options and rights, makes them manifest -- and moot if not.  People become good at what they practice -- which is what they actually "do."  It is an entirely different matter if one only imagines or think they can do -- without actually going through the motions, or integrating thought in action.  That is when reality is made manifest.  Despite what the pundits "know" and are certain about, they go ahead and play the game -- to find out what actually happens.

And that is how it is with all of life: it doesn't matter what one thinks is real -- until one finds out for themselves if it is.  Not everyone will encounter the same results.  For that, we have to dig a little deeper. and find out the difference in outcome, even when both think they are doing the same thing.  When the results are consistently different, some greater principle is at work -- and not simply that one practitioner is more devout and deserving than the other, is the only explanation possible. 

Usually though, one more devoted to their practice, will experience greater results than the less dedicated -- all things being equal, and they seldom are.  The world was not made that way -- with each an interchangeable part with another.  Industry tries to achieve that universal interchangeability, so one needn't reinvent the wheel each time one fails.  It is enough just to replace the part that failed -- after it is determined what failed.  Often, that is not obvious, but requires extensive trouble shooting to find out -- while many do not get to realizing that something is wrong and malfunctioning.  They think that is how it is supposed to work and be -- broken and badly.

That's why it is necessary to categorize and catalogue the movements each body should be capable of -- as the standard of what should be possible, in the normal human body.  Those movements, postures and poses have not changed much over the course of 5,000 years -- and are easily recognizable in the contemporary exercises of today -- from the pushup, situp, and jumping jack -- even without any apparatus.  The familiar basis of productive exercise, is the movement within the body -- and not any external measuring device.  All it takes, is an awareness that that is true.

And that is particularly true, the older one is.  The functioning of their own body, is the ultimate measure of how well they are doing.  Just that, is enough to tell one what they need to know -- when they need to know it.  But one won't know that, unless they take that inventory daily, if not momentarily.  That is the only way they know with any certainty, that they actually have that capability currently, and not just the vestiges of a memory long since unexercised, and probably extinguished for that lack of use.

Unless those neurons have been fired recently, it is premature to assume that one still has those capabilities -- at some basic, minimal level.  That is to say, that one doesn't have to run a marathon to know they are still capable of running -- if they really had to.  Mostly they need to know, if they are just capable of such a movement at all -- because it is merely repetition after that.  Can you do it once? -- even without any resistance?  That's all one needs to know -- with certainty.


That is the simplicity of exercise, and how little one needs to do.  But one simply has to do that.  That is not too much to demand of oneself.

The Power of Exercise

The biggest difference anybody can make in their own lives is to exercise -- because that is invariably the person they are.  Nothing else is possible.  You are what you do, and if you don't do anything, the results are obvious.  That doesn't mean that a person has to climb Mt. Everest (or the peak of their choice) to prove they are fit -- or die trying to do so. 

One just has to be able to do everything they normally do -- as best as they can, and maintain those capabilities as long as they live.  That's really a simple task -- made difficult by doing otherwise.  Usually, they get distracted onto doing things that subvert that health and well-being -- with the rationalization that it doesn't make a difference.  Thus they are convinced, and convince themselves, that things that matter, don't -- with disastrous consequences to follow.  For a while, they say they should have known better, but after a while, they make no pretense for falling apart -- with no will or skill to make it otherwise. 

Then the worst just happens -- and they are powerless to do anything about it.  For a few, that is the beginning of the end -- of increasing hopelessness and despair, and the feeling that they will ever master and be in control of their lives again -- as they might once as a young person believed.  Now those dreams are over, and they can only look forward to diminishing health and well-being -- because it is "too late" to do anything about it.  But so was every moment before then.  That is their conditioning, that is the "shape" they are in.  It is both physical and mental, and their whole adaptation to life.  That is the person they've become.

So how can one NOT become that person?  That is the difference between those who are succeeding and those who are failing at life.  One is the master of their own destiny, while the other is the victim in every other's path.  For these latter individuals, life is more about what others can do for them, and less about what they can do for themselves.  Inevitably, there is very little they can do for themselves -- which is the skill set they never acquired some time in their lives -- having missed the whole point of what life was all about.  They never matured, and blossomed into a free and independent person -- at some point in their lives, and preferably, in the best years of their life.

For most, that is the golden years, and the golden age -- of when they do.  Instead, they were too busy chasing finish lines and fulfilling bucket lists -- to have remained at home, taking care of business -- and all those housekeeping chores that the wise build their lives upon.  They were out chasing fame and fortune -- at least in their own minds, while their own foundations were crashing down upon them.  One wondered -- when if ever, they would ever awaken to that awareness -- which was the only thing separating them from the happy outcome they sought, while choosing to chase the wrong things -- even if only because "everybody" else seemed to. 

But was that truly "everybody else," or merely the false idols held up before them? -- all seeking that same, elusive fame and fortune? -- they would give everything they had, until they had no more to give.  Still, they could replenish the well -- if only they knew how.  That was not something they thought important to learn -- as they were confident there was always more where that came from.  In that way, the best often become the last -- trailing badly as they limp and hobble their way to the end -- thinking they would always maintain their advantage at the head of the pack.  They only knew how to win -- and when the winning stopped, they had no idea what to do -- and so they perished, or merely shrank into a shell of themselves -- rather than reaching a higher level with every passing phase.

Such people, only want to stay young forever -- rather than growing into each successive stage.  Those were the best years of their lives -- that they now merely want to relive forever -- even if only in their own minds.  Far better would it be for them to exercise the best version of their present selves -- as though that was all that really mattered.  That doesn't mean simply repeating the past -- as though that was the only thing that mattered.  Surely what matters now, just as any other time in the past, is finding out what one's present (actual) capabilities are -- whatever that might be. 


That knowing and discovery, is what is important -- at any stage, and condition.  That is discovering "reality," and to know that, is worth all one's fantasies -- no matter how lavish and glorious one thinks they used to be. 

Practice Makes One Good at What They Do

That doesn't mean that practicing anything -- any ol' way -- will make one good at what they want to do.  What they hope to get good at, and what they actually practice, may be two different things entirely.  If they practice badly, they will do things badly -- and not that any amount of inattention to what they are doing, will make them proficient and expert.  They are simply practicing to be "bad" at what they do.  That is the objective for many -- who think there is no difference between doing something badly, and doing it exceptionally well. 

One can easily be deluded, and that is why it is important to check in with others for their opinions and perspective, and not dismiss them if they are not what one wants to hear -- that one is the greatest that ever was, and ever will be -- and cling to that belief despite everything telling them otherwise.  That is why a lot of people who only watch television all day, think they are capable of doing everything better than what they see -- because others make it look so easy and effortless.

But one never finds out the truth of that difference until one actually goes through the motions -- and then realizing that a somersault is not as easy as it looks, and what seems impossible at the start, becomes graceful and effortless -- along the way.  That is not their final destination -- but just one more milepost in the journey of their lives, and there is no going back, or standing still.  Life is movement, and thus, momentum -- either getting better, or getting worse -- but there is no just standing still.  Only the frightened mind, fearful of any change, hopes that they can simply remain the same -- forever, but that is not life, or any living being.

So at all times, one must ask themselves, "Am I getting better, or am I getting worse?" -- and if so, know to change one's course and direction.  Obviously, doing the same ol" things that made them worse, is not going to make them any better -- and so they have to start with just doing things differently, and let the results tell them what to do next.  One doesn't need to know the ultimate destination -- to start heading in the right direction, even if they have to try all the others first.  That is also the learning process -- and not simply never making mistakes.  In fact, the most successful people, will tell everyone that is how they got there -- and not that they started at the top -- fresh out of the Garden of Eden, and now are just trying to find their way back to that perfection, which they invariably call, "Paradise."

They wish to believe they started out perfect, but over time, lost their way -- and not that that work still lies before them, and they have to prepare and embark on that journey -- no matter how late in life.  Of course it is much easier to start as soon as one can -- but there is nothing more important to do -- at any stage and age in life.  That is the business of life -- all the little things and details that add up to the big things.  That is how one gets there, and not just by proclaiming their intent the loudest.

One has to get good at life and living -- and not just demand that that be so despite of everything they actually do.  It never happens that way -- no matter how many others one can recruit to join in their demands.  They have to do something -- besides demanding that others have to change the world  -- and their lives, for them.  That is the only way things ever get done.  The people who actually want them, have to get them -- for themselves first, and then it is possible for all the others.  But simply demanding that others deliver that to them, is the reason things have always stayed the same.


Nothing will change until they do.  When that happens, everything else is possible.

An Independent Life (Putting It All Together) 

The most disturbing thing of people feeling a lost of control over their own lives and destiny, is the increasing reliance on "other people" to fulfill their basic (daily) needs.  So increasingly, they feel their lives are beyond their own control -- and all they feel they can control, is the remote for their television and entertainment.  They may even feel privileged and "progressive" to have reached such an advanced state of "interconnectedness" -- that they fail to realize they have become entirely helpless in living their own lives -- and are even advised to become even more so.

It is good business for those who provide their "services" -- for those who no longer can provide many of these things for themselves -- and increasingly lack the competence and confidence to do so -- which seems quite a perversion of how we think life should be for the best.  Early in life, they thought nothing less for themselves -- until increasingly reaching a point sometime in their lives when they experienced a definitive turning point -- and felt resigned to the kindness and mercy of others -- who could not resist the power of feeling others totally dependent and indebted to them for their continued existence.

That is the modern version of power -- just as these of an earlier time relished their power of life and death in the most brutal ways that now have become so subtle and insidious.  If we can make a whole category of people helpless, we have an unlimited source of customers for our own services -- and they never change so that they don't need us anymore.  They are our personal "cash cows."

One is simply the "pass through" -- for others getting paid (rich), while they never get better -- but only increasingly worse, and dependent on even more costly services.  That certainly distinguishes life at the bottom -- where those are regarded as expendable and disposable, and openly prey and exploit the most vulnerable, and not merely gullible.  In that scheme, the most "successful" regard themselves as the ultimate exploiter -- at the top of the the pyramid -- outsmarting all the others.

But real success is getting beyond all that dependency and co-dependency to become an "independent" person (mind) -- not thinking in such terms, but providing as much for oneself so others never need to consider doing so for them.  Such a life these days, seems almost unthinkable -- so reliant have many become on information and input provided for them -- disturbing the stillness and tranquility of their own minds in deference to the most intrusive and persistent.

Just as "scarcity" has been replaced by "abundance" in a generation, many have not made the shift to adjusting their strategies and orientation when the rules of the game have changed so drastically -- and the danger is no longer underconsumption, but overconsumption -- even to one's own destruction.  Thus, obesity and excess are the markers of advanced decline -- and the minimalist lifestyle of only what one actually needs, seems ingenious.

That is the new paradigm for this age -- and not that of the previous generation's -- of acquiring and accumulating as much as one can -- even if it risks burying them, as hoarders are wont to do.  Such people feel they are "dependent" on their possessions for their well-being and prosperity -- even as it "owns" them and dictates their lives.  As such, their whole lives can be seen as an "obsessive compulsive disorder," having little to do with meeting "actual" needs, and have become ritualized to where no deeper insight is possible.


Of course that is mental illness -- that many increasingly fail to recognize, or are taught not to see -- as all delusions are encouraged, as though that was a public good. That increases the "GDP"  -- the greater dependence.  It's good to be able to disconnect from the grid of predetermined choices and fates -- and write out one's own.  But one has to ensure that they haven't lost those capabilities -- in exercising them from time to time -- if not oftener.  That's how one knows they are still capable of doing these things for themselves -- and not have these memories and experiences merely planted in their heads -- as though they thought of these things themselves.  Or did they? -- and how will they know the difference?

The Purpose of Life is to Get Better

From time to time, everybody loses their way -- but the categorical imperative of every life, is to get better -- all the days of one's life, and when they no longer do that, their prognosis in life is not favorable, and diminishes daily.  That purpose and clarity, is what distinguishes the quality of lives under all conditions -- at every age and stage of life.  When people lose that edge and drive to get better, they fall behind and are less competitive against all the challenges they will face -- even if they are self-imposed.  And for many in modern life, that is often what they are up against -- the handicaps and disabilities of their own making.

In former times, the competition in life was provided largely by others -- or the conditions of their environment -- but in a time when those are greatly self-chosen, those limitations are largely of one's own making and choosing, rather than the inevitable for all.  That is the reality we finally realize are the limits of our lives.  But many choose badly, or fail to acknowledge that what they accept as the immutable and unchangeable conditions and premises of their lives, are in fact, their own choices and abdications from those choicees -- that result in their bad outcomes and predicaments -- that continue if they continue as they have been.

There is nothing inevitable about that.  Life could be very different -- very easily and immediately -- just in choosing to make it so.  It should not be difficult to convince anyone of that -- but it invariably is -- because of their conditioning that life is so -- and many well-meaning but wholly misguided, will insist that those lives must continue as they are -- rather than changing everything, so as to remain viable, and even become formidable once more.

That is not the world most have prepared for -- but fall into the predictable pattern, because it is easy to exploit -- for another's benefit.  That is the world of exploitation, and at best, mutual exploitation -- until one will have no part of it anymore, and breaks directly into the light.  However, the forces and institutions of the status quo, will not allow one to go so easily -- even if they could.  It is for that reason, they invested years of conditioning -- to maintain that "state."

So those "breaking free," generally have to pioneer their own ways -- just in living their lives differently, intelligently -- and not in the failing ways that are well-documented and reported -- as to how life must be, for everyone else.  The successful paradigms are not reported or even "noticed" because they have no opportunities for exploitation by others.  The benefits go greatly to the one exercising their lives in that way -- and are self-employed in that way.  They are their own bosses, and best customers.

Such people are "retired" from the conventional world in that way -- but obviously more engaged, active and involved than people have ever been before -- in wholly integrated lives, rather than the fragmented and conflicted lives of the past, in which the best that could be hoped for, was to continue to live as they have always done so before -- but no longer breaking new ground in the development of their lives.  That model cannot sustain lifelong improvement -- because that is not even a possibility to their way of thinking.

One hundred years ago, that was not possible for most to become "fit" to build up their bodies in the way it has become commonplace to see these days.  What changed?  It was largely in thinking that it could be so -- and so easily accomplished -- especially when one could easily access all the information that institutions largely managed for their own advantage and benefit up to then.  That's how the world has changed -- but the defenders of the status quo, are the last to let everyone know.

A few still insist, that information is exclusively their job and jurisdiction -- while the multitudes go rushing past them -- to obtain the benefits that those few think are their job to mete out only to those signing up for "their" programs -- while undermining the confidence in every other, and particularly the notion, that one could competently do anything for themselves -- because they haven't been duly certified and licensed to do so -- by their confederates.


And so they proclaim triumphantly, "The more things change, the more they stay the same," and "history always repeats itself" -- as though they were the great and inviolable truths of human progress.  People do improve -- and that changes everything.

Looking Backwards

The major problem of extended lifespans -- is the notable failure of the expressive and cognitive  organs located at the extremities -- of the head, hands and feet, even while more centrally placed organs like the heart, lungs, digestive tract remain viable and intact.  However, when that disengagement occurs, the quality of life and living, is greatly compromised and limits the full enjoyment of every capacity.  That is particularly so with the functioning of the brain -- which of course, plays a major part of all functioning.  There is nothing that is not connected to it -- and thus should be recognized as the critical path upon which all functioning is dependent on.

Thus the curse of otherwise "healthy" modern life, is the failure at these extremities (articulations) -- usually labeled as arthritis at the hands and feet, and dementia in the brain -- particularly in those people, more susceptible to poor circulation to those extremities -- which can be greatly rectified, by using the musculature at those extremities -- to function as adjunct hearts dedicated to the purpose of increasing the flow from and to those areas -- of notably poor circulation.  Obviously, that contributes greatly to their dysfunction and disease -- when because of their genetic blueprint -- those areas are not serviced by the nervous and circulatory systems as a priority or even adequately, by practice and (pre)disposition.

That is not immutable -- but greatly influenced and determined by actual behaviors, exercise and conditioning -- because that (mental) functioning occurs not only internally -- but is manifested externally as well -- by the frequency of such movements -- or absence thereof.  It is the lack of this responsiveness, that is what distinguishes these conditions in such individuals -- that increasingly grows worse, with up to now, no remedies for their improvement.  They simply get worse -- because there is no improvement (movement) in their responsiveness.  At that point, many just do not care -- or act like it.  Again, that is the problem of diminishing responsiveness -- they act like they just don't care, or fail to respond appropriately -- anymore.

Yelling louder will not result in greater acknowledgement or compliance -- nor increasing the bar for appropriate responses -- as many unthinking demand.  So of course such people become increasingly frustrated -- that their demands go ignored, which may be precisely the response merited.  Eventually it becomes the way it is -- especially when the basic needs can be satisfied anyway.  That is the classic codependent relationship.  The more one can get by doing as little as possible for themselves, the greater that dependence will become -- at the expense of the remaining viable life.

That is the personality as well as culture fostered in failing segments of the population.  They don't get better -- and can only get worse, unless they take drastic action for their own improvement.  It cannot be done by others -- for them.  Yet it is the simple ability to turn their heads in a 360 degree rotation from left to right -- and back again -- that optimizes the circulation to the brain, as well as the musculature of the expressions of the face -- that characterize liveliness and animation (responsiveness).  Those features don't come automatically -- but are expressed and exercised by those who wish to optimize their effects.

People with winning smiles, practice it.  People with dour expressions etched on their faces, have gotten that way by practice and conditioning.  That should be obvious to anyone with the least consciousness of human behavior and expression.  But cultures can be in denial -- and even convincing, that everything is the opposite of what is plain and obvious to any observer.  Instead, they prefer to have "expert" opinion decipher and explain everything to them -- so nobody has to think for themselves.  It's much easier and more profitable that way -- even at the cost of many lives.  That would be the continuation of the status quo.

It doesn't matter how many lives are sacrificed that way -- as long as the status quo is defended and preserved.  Usually there is some person receiving most of the funding for this -- and the situation to get increasingly worse -- as long as they are "in charge."  That's what they're getting paid for.  Thus, they never want anything to change -- and they make a good living from the way things are, and hope to remain so -- for the foreseeable future.  That is their "job security."

So one must not depend solely on such experts who offer them no hope but to follow their advice -- even if it doesn't work, and offers them no hope.  For them to seek out any alternatives, they warn would be even worse -- because there is no hope, and one should not delude themselves that there is.

Life is not indefinite -- but there is always hope -- if not in this life, then there is the next.  But way before then, one has to do everything possible to improve in this life -- including trying everything possible to do so -- including the only plausible and sensible.  What can one lose?  One should have that attitude not only at the end -- but also in all the moments of one's life, because it is by having that attitude and understanding, that opens them up to all the possibilities -- especially the unthinkable and extraordinary.

But it always begins with a simple thing -- a simple movement -- that brings about the next, and shortly, takes on a life of its own -- that couldn't have been foreseen, from what one knew before.That is the simplicity of life and human evolution -- that life always returns to the basics and most fundamental things -- that were overlooked.  What capacities and functionality is most important to maintain and improve? -- even at 100?

Is that running a marathon or lifting the most weight?  Or simply the ability to say "No," to all that -- even in the most rudimentary way -- moving the head all the way to the left, and all the way to the right -- as the basic indicator of functionality and competence.  It's that easy, simple and obvious.  It is also the movement necessary to initiate movement at the most rudimentary level -- of turning the body from total immobility -- of the sort that inevitably results in bed sores -- from the lack of any movement off of the constant and unrelenting pressure points.

It is the same for lesser but increasing immobilities -- as the failure to turn over from a fall on one's back.  Then one is like the proverbial cockroach or turtle helpless on its back -- until it can muster a single burst of energy that turns them over.  That motion of the body is called "torque," or the twisting motion -- always originating at the extremity, called the insertion of that muscle -- because the insertion must always move towards the origin (base) in any contraction (movement).  That is to note, that the "core" will not move to the extremity -- but any movement has to be initiated at the extremity -- back towards the origin or core.

That is the critical understanding that most people lack of all movement -- that it has to be "fired" neurologically -- from the extremity rather than at the core on out.  Movement cannot happen in that manner -- because it is not hardwired to work that way -- no matter how many pushups or laps one does without that understanding.  Similarly, the problem of circulation is not critically one of going to the extremity, but coming from the extremity -- because there is no pumping action from the extremity to optimize the circulation -- no matter what its genetic predisposition.  So the solution is not to make the heart work harder and faster -- but to produce an alternation of the muscles at the extremity that evacuates the stagnant fluids accumulating at the extremities so that fluid can be revitalized and recirculated -- rather than allowing to buildup toxicities that destroy the oxygen sensitive nerve tissues -- eventually destroying the capacity to respond.


And of course, the situation becomes increasingly worse.  Thus if one were to prioritize those movements and capacities (organs) one wishes to to maintain and improve throughout a lengthy lifespan -- that is what one must do -- rather than all the superfluous activities that have proven are totally ineffective over time.   That is the only thing that will work with age.  One has to do the right thing -- and not just anything -- as though that were the same thing -- thinking there is no difference.  It makes a difference.  I doesn't hurt to start the proper practice at the earliest age one can think of it.  In fact, it will optimize improvement over a lifetime.

"Paradise" is a State of Mind

As increasingly many Baby Boomers retire, a few are looking for that perfect place to spend the rest of their lives -- thinking that it is one place for all, rather than that perfect place that exists only in their mind.  Undoubtedly, a large part of it has to do with their external environment, but even more has to do with the place they have achieved internally on their own -- and that is a state of grace, and peace of mind.  That is the happy place.

Each gets there on their own unique path -- as a product of their own living -- and responses to the challenges of their own lives.  Those challenges are different for everyone -- and what they make of it.  And of course, there are many who get lost along the way, as well as the many more who have no clue -- about their meaning and purpose in life, but have allowed others to determine their fate for them.

But to an unprecedented degree and extent, we should realize that life is what we individually make of it -- from all the choices available to us, and not the only limited few we choose every day to repeat -- even to the well-proven disastrous results.  Those are because of our actions and decisions -- and not in spite of them, and those who can accept that realization and responsibilities, go on to achieve that greater state of mind and peace.  It is not just for another to give to everyone -- no matter how great and powerful.  The power is one's ability to give to themselves.

The first line of defense, is realizing the control others have on their own thinking and the desire to control another -- in the various ways of daily interactions that make the world seem greater -- or less.  Often, that power takes precedence over one's own ability to determine for themselves -- as what it must be for everyone, as though anyone had that right.

Maybe in another place and time -- in another era.  But now, increasingly, the lives we live are of our own choosing -- if we choose to make it so.  Many would rather not have those responsibilities and would rather others simply tell them what to think and how to live their lives.  Then of course, their choices will be made for and by the other's benefit -- and not necessarily for their own.  That can only best be served by making those choices for oneself -- as best they can determine.  So the best they can determine, is the best they can do -- and to choose otherwise, is to abdicate that responsibility to all the others.  Those results, will be less than ideal -- obviously.  Included in this, are all the addictions and compulsions people allow to take over their lives -- that spiral out of control -- to predictably disastrous and fatal results.


Where did they go so obviously wrong?  Less obvious, are the poor choices that take one's vitality slowly -- over the course of their lives, preventing them from reaching the best of their lives.  That is by far, the greatest loss of opportunity in the world today -- still.  People not making the best of their lives -- and then wondering, "What happened?"  They may live their whole lives in that denial.

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.

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.

How the Mighty Have Fallen (Disintermediation)

In a time not too long ago, the people who held the power, were those who controlled the information -- and what people were allowed to think on any matter.  They may have claimed to know all the information worth knowing -- since they owned the printing press, and those who wanted to access it, were at the mercy of their approval and favor.

All that changed at the beginning of this century, although the seeds for that development, had been sown by all the generations previously -- by those who dared to challenge that authority.  That was true for Martin Luther, Columbus, Socrates, Jesus, Buddha, etc.  They challenged authority -- because they felt they heeded a higher one, and a bigger picture of what had been known up to then.

Now we know that nobody owns all the information -- or even their small part of it.  It can be known by anyone who wants to -- because they are not convinced that they can only access it through certain self-appointed authorities, who thought it was their job to keep all those unauthorized from knowing what only their self-appointed few had a right to.  That's how much the world has changed in such a short time.

However, not everyone who merely challenges authority, has greater authority to do so.  They may have rightly and deservedly less authority to do so.  Authority implies authorship -- or one who creates that idea, and not the countless many who merely repeat it -- while having no idea what they are talking about.  They simply copy what those they think know, are doing -- regardless of whether it has any basis in fact.  They are fond of saying that the majority is always right -- and that might, makes right, and is its own reason for being.

If someone else comes along and tells them to think differently, that is what they will do blindly -- as well, because they have no way of determining the truth of any matter for themselves -- which would make them an authority on such matters.  They would have come to that conclusion on their own -- and not simply accept what others say, without any attempt to discern the truth for themselves.  That form of mass control and propaganda, was perfected in the last century by the mass media and other institutions of mass control.  It was possible because of one-way broadcast media and tactics.  The one spoke to the many, but the many could not speak back, or even to each other -- because only the (self-)designated leader, had that authority -- to think (and talk) for everyone else.

That's what made certain individuals powerful (mighty) -- being able to convince the masses that they were, and having a few self-selected "other" voices vouch that they were.  That reached its height in the era of mass (media) advertising -- and the control of a fabled few on "Madison Avenue," being able to convince everyone of anything they wanted them to believe -- even that harmful practices were good for them.  Of course those who bought into that advertising (propaganda) paid a price with their lives and well-being in chasing and worshiping all the wrong things.  Most had no idea of what they were doing, because as "good citizens," they did and believed what they were told to.

Only years later, would they realize the consequences of those ill-advised behaviors -- as those impacts took their toll, although many attributed those ravages, as just the process of "natural aging," that all but an exceptional few, seemed to be immune from.  Such achievements however, were usually dismissed and derided as extraordinary and eccentric deviations from the norm.  Excessive eating, drinking, smoking, and vices, were encouraged as the privileged way to be -- and people knew no other.  Those who wrote and promoted such excesses, were usually their greatest victims of such unhealthful and unwise practices and lifestyles.

They were invariably those who thought it was their right to exploit all the others for their exclusive benefit -- rather than that everyone had a right to everything as well.  But that is a lot more than just about money.  It is more about having an equal access to all the information -- and not just what some other would want everyone else to believe for their own exclusive advantage and benefit.  Such people were the countless middle men (intermediaries) that required others to have to go through them, to get anything they wanted.  Thus, fewer people got what they wanted -- and only a few really got rich enough to afford what they truly wanted.

Now there are more millionaires than ever before -- but even more importantly, many more who have most things they really need.  The major division in the world today, are those who have everything they really need, and those who have everything that is bad for them -- and not knowing how to tell the difference for themselves.  Those latter, fall further behind with each day and acquisition.  It is not that they have nothing -- but rather, it is the abundance of all the wrong things -- that set them back further each day.  Those are plainly and obviously the victims -- but less so the enablers and codependents that eventually suffer from that same fate -- as their own "normal."

That pattern can continue for generations -- or end with a single individual -- who has the awareness to see their own thoughtlessness and end it there.  It's not the hardest thing to do but actually the easiest -- once they have that clarity.  The problem is that they truly do not want to see that clarity -- but want to continue as they have been doing -- with the deceptions, delusions -- thinking still to get ahead in their misguided way.  But they no longer have any idea of how that is accomplished -- or why it is they continue to do what they do.  It has all become obsessive-compulsive behavior -- with no rhyme nor reason for being.  That's just the way they are -- and expect to remain until they die, even realizing it is killing them.


It's because they expect somebody else to save them -- and not that they have to save themselves.  Another will not save them, they have to be their own saviors -- and in that, become the authors and authorities in their own lives -- rather than further removed from all those possibilities and opportunities.  That is how far they have fallen -- from their original intent.  They have become irrelevant and powerless even to themselves -- thinking it can only reside in others, the middle man, the intermediaries -- the false gods of a previous age.

War of the Worlds

One hundred and twenty years ago, H.G. Wells wrote the very prescient story of the invasion by gigantic monsters of formidable destruction from another world -- who briefly reign terror on the human population, but just as quickly and thoroughly, are overcome and destroyed by the bacteria and viruses for which they had never evolved defenses for dealing with.

Those who do hang around longer, evolve their defenses slowly over time -- so it is not as telling and obvious, but struggle throughout their lives -- as an attack on their immune systems, of which they are seldom certain or even aware they are engaged in.  They just know that something is wrong -- and appeal desperately for those who can make it right -- even if they can't, or have never been successful before.  But they are the "experts" -- and claim nobody else has a right to that jurisdiction.  Only they are entitled to all the funding even as their "cause" seems increasingly hopeless -- and getting worse under their guidance.

As always, a few do not succumb so readily, and dedicate their lives to finding a cure (solution) -- realizing that their (own) lives depend on it.  Yet to varying degrees and lesser extents, we are all engaged in that struggle to overcome whatever deficiencies and handicaps life has handed out to each -- as our unique lives and destinies.  As much as some would have it, we will not all have the same lives and outcomes -- but each will have their own unique challenges, and tasks to overcome -- not only while they are young, but all their lives -- which then becomes the summation and culmination of their existence.

Not surprisingly, it ends very badly for some -- often in some final, senseless, desperate act.  Most live on, while a rare few prevail -- and surpass the expectations for all others -- in finding a new and better way for themselves, and then passing on those new realities (adaptations) to the others.

We take a lot for granted -- as the way things are, and have to be -- while there might already exist cures for most common and widespread disabling conditions that have become major industries in themselves.  However, putting them all together into a formidable response to most everyday problems and tasks, has always been the great challenge of living in any age and time.  The lack previously, was easy access to all the information -- as well as the manipulations of it by one (or more) exclusive special (self-)interest group hoping to exercise their advantage over all the others.


In most cases, that arrogance is merely presumed -- rather than officially sanctioned -- or merited, as nobody can tell the difference, and are discouraged from making those very valid discriminations.  It is enough just to allow a few to make those discriminations for everybody else -- as the "correct" ones -- as though they knew, and had a right to.  Those were the days -- of another era, surely.

Developing Credibility

There are some people, who think they have to "fake it" -- until they "make it," but all they will be successful at doing, is pretending to be what they aren't -- instead of being authentically who they actually are -- which is the real accomplishment and success, of any person.  In that way, they learn what they know, as well as what they don't -- rather than pretending to know what they don't.

And really, that is the source of most of the problems in the world -- of those who don't know, not knowing they don't, and not being able to tell that critical difference -- which is the difference between those who succeed, and those who fail.  In order to succeed, one must know what failure is, and distinguish that from success -- or they will not know the difference, and so can never achieve success.

That is rather a simple thing -- knowing that difference.  A few though, have been raised with the credo, that the truth of any matter, is simply what they can get others to believe -- and there is no truth beyond that.  Obviously, those who operate in that way, do so having been raised and conditioned entirely in a socialized environment rather than a natural one -- meaning that the "right" opinions matter more than their actual consequences.

Things instantly and arbitrarily manifest themselves -- because that is what the political leaders have decreed, and not that there is a process for which they came into being.  Food manifests in styrofoam wrappers, and not from the producers who grow and prepare them for marketing through systematic and arduous processes.  And so when things don't turn out as they would like them to, the only course is to appeal to those in charge -- rather than providing for oneself.    In fact, that is immediately dismissed as unrealistic -- rather than how things actually come about.

Cause and effect is lost -- or never taught in the first place.  Of course such subjects are at the mercy of the powers that be -- always beyond themselves.  Thus the struggle, is to be one of those powers -- or at least seem to be.  That is the necessity to seem to be other than one actually is -- and mastering that, as the primary skill and objective of those living in the freedom to choose their own fates and destinies.  In the past, most people never got there -- mainly because all were struggling to be the one at the top in that society -- to tell everyone else what to do, and how to think.  They felt that that was their duty and entitlement, that was their destiny -- to rule over all others.
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But with each successive new generation, such obviously heavy-handed bonds have been erased from memory so that the present one is unaware of such conditioning -- that has gone on for time immemorial.  Thus the insightful personages of human history and evolution were those who pronounced that to see that conditioning, was the key to mastering reality.  Otherwise, one is like the countless many, who can't tell the difference, and don't care to.  It is enough for them, just to watch passively while others tell them what to think.


In that world, are many faking their credibility -- simply because they can -- to an unsuspecting and undiscriminating audience.  It doesn't matter if they know something -- only that others think they do.  Those are their "credentials" -- something quite other than credibility.  Credibility is what can be proven in the present -- and not only what they have claimed to have attained in the past -- as though that standing is permanent and irrevocable -- rather than discovered from moment to moment.

Truth is always discovered in the present moment -- and not simply a remembered happenstance long ago -- retold to yet another generation, as the "official" teller of that story.  Usually though, they make up and replace it with their own story -- that they alone are the truth -- from here on out.  So anything they say, is the truth -- no longer requiring any other authentication or validation -- in actual experience.  The truth is what actually works -- and not all the excuses and explanations for why nothing works as they say it should.

Breathing Better

A hot topic going around in the "self-help" circuit, is teaching people how to breathe -- as though that was not a natural, and even autonomic function for most sentient beings.  Invariably, that is what every living being must do -- and not that it is optional -- even from birth, or as a few will claim, becomes perverted soon after.  And thus the need for every individual to undergo retraining in this vital function -- rather than that it should be the least of one's concerns -- just like the heartbeat.  Of course if one is intent on selling a heartrate monitor to every living person, one will convince everyone of the importance of knowing momentarily exactly how one is doing at any and every movement -- as though having that knowledge, conveyed great advantage in the struggle for survival.

That being said, how we breathe, is not as important as what we breathe -- because while it might be the same for everyone in that room, how each reacts individually to that universal, may be entirely differently.  That is particularly so with those who have allergies and other respiratory difficulties -- and a very simple and easy way to observe this in oneself, is simply to purify the air as much as possible -- not using very expensive and sophisticated equipment, but actually using the most simple and basic -- of the readily available anti-microbial  (doctor's) masks one can get at most well-stocked stores.

Even the cheapest available, will claim to be able to filter out 99% of the bacteria, viruses, mold spores, mildew, allergens, dust, dust mites, human and pet dander, and particulates from combustions -- and the slightly more expensive ones with activated charcoal, are even more effective at eliminating odors and fumes.  The practically almost universal availability of these antibacterial masks, make it the first line of defense for those with chronic or acute respiratory problems.  It is tantamount to wearing an air purifier -- powered simply by one's own breathing.  It is as effective as any costly and often noisy, mechanical and electrical air purifier -- with virtually the same effectiveness, though certainly a lot more convenient as needed, or preferred.

For those who are really serious about changing the world -- nothing makes a greater impact on one's personal environment than the simple use of these devices -- which are not simply a modern invention, but go back as long as people sought to protect themselves from hostile conditions.  That might have been the dust from the hot, dusty desert -- or at the other extreme, warming the bitter cold winter air as it entered one's nasal passages.  Those are the obvious conditions such accessories would convey an immediate advantage -- but in today's world, the assaults and dangers may be less visible and obvious -- unless there is obvious thick smoke, fumes and smog around us -- in which case, many are seen with these protective masks as standard wear.

The hardest thing to see, is what is all around us -- like the air we breathe -- some easier than others.  A few seem to have unexplained difficulties for no obvious, apparent reasons -- usually caused by that individual's adverse reaction to something in the air we all breathe.  Those are attributed to "allergies" -- which we all have to some extent or another, and to different abilities of tolerance.  Some will continue to inflict that difficulty on themselves despite the well-known cause for that individual -- regarding that as the cost of the choices they've made -- to keep a pet they know they are allergic to, or have their sleep disrupted by a person whose snoring is due to such constriction in their air ways as they sleep.

Many of these respiratory and breathing difficulties, could be first screened by the use of an antimicrobial mask -- that eliminates 99% of the impurities and irritants -- and then go from there, to see if there is something more systemically wrong with that individual.  Included among that, is the conclusion that one needs to learn how to breathe better -- because first and foremost is the more important consideration, of what exactly is the quality of the air one is breathing. 

It is like the quality of lighting -- that most will dismiss as being equal, when in fact, as in most things, quality and not simply quantity, makes the difference.  That is the advantage touted in full-spectrum lighting -- when one has most of the benefits of the sun, while not producing the negative side-effects -- while one is at it.  Some light, though many can see by it, is not of sufficient quality to produce the healthful benefits and stimulation of full-spectrum lighting, which notably produces growth even in plants.  Not all light has that effect.

Thus as we move more into a future of artificially created environments, one can custom-design many of the inputs that formerly were left to chance and good luck -- in evolving an optimal environment for every individual.  But that has to be done by each individual -- and not someone generalizing for the masses, with an eye on cost-containment as the overriding principle.  That becomes the beginning from where each will have to optimize those conditions to their own functioning and tolerances.

A few may conceivably be able to live next to the freeway -- while most would find it intolerable, unpleasant, and stressful.  Studies are presently underway that proves that living next to the freeway -- is not as preferable and healthful as living in some pristine forest or at the sea -- but the commute would be prohibitive.  So one has to choose one's poison -- in the smorgasbord of choices available to most people today.  Most are not even aware that they're making these choices -- and think these decisions are made by a few for everyone -- if not rightly for everyone.

But some may find the room too warm for them, while others think it much too cool, and a remarkable few are not bothered (or so they say) with the most noxious odors that pollute the very air they breathe.  Such people should not be appointed to the air quality board for determining that for everyone else.  Rather, such jobs should be assigned to the most sensitive and aware -- to whom such differences are apparent and obvious.  That is to say, the most discriminating and discerning among us.    These are the modern day equivalents of the "canary in the coal mine" -- who ensure the lives of all the others -- as the first line of defense and detection.

They are literally, the first responders -- the first to know that something is amiss, and to respond appropriately -- rather than those in denial that anything can be wrong.  Those latter would be the rearguard -- the last to know, and the last to defend the status quo -- while the rest have long moved on to safer ground.  It literally takes all kinds -- to ensure the survival of the corps (species) -- or critical mass.  That is how societies survive -- and evolve -- to higher ground.  Each hopes to play their part -- in the greater purpose that is survival at the highest level.  That is the actualization of human being and purpose.  It's true of all species -- whether they realize it or not.

Evolution is not only biological and individual but also cultural -- in the strategies societies adapt and adopt.  Some flourish, and many die out.  Not all will survive equally, indiscriminately.  Choices have to be made -- and some will be better than others.  That is the reality -- that makes some lives better than others, and most importantly, better than it would have been for every individual.

At the end, it may seem like big differences -- but began invariably, with the smallest attention to detail -- that adds up and compounds over time.  That's when life and species seem to diverge -- some preferring to remain as they always have been, while a few decide to chart a new course -- and if successful, go on to experience unimaginable success, they hardly seem to be the same species.  They certainly have different prospects for the future.

While one is breathing as much toxic fumes as they can tolerate -- the other is purifying that very same atmosphere into life-enhancing health, well-being and functioning.  To say that they are reducing their chances for illness is understating the obvious.  Ostensibly, they live in the same world -- but with such a world of differences -- largely self-chosen, if only they knew all the possibilities.


That's no longer simply a matter of education -- but 21st century human's ability to learn what they need to know -- as they need to know it, when they are prepared to do something about it.  So it is not just one thing -- but everything they know that is rethought, re-examined and renewed -- every day of their lives, and that is what keeps them alive, vital, growing -- until the end.

Putting Things into Perspective

Things are good or bad -- depending on how one looks at it.  One cannot avoid bad things by simply avoiding all risks, all chances, all choices -- as many increasingly live their lives -- which is really, a dying of sorts.  To live as fully as possible, means to live on that edge of discovery -- of finding out what is true, and what one does not know and is uncertain about.

The most common form of this withdrawal from participation and engagement, is when one thinks they are too old to do anything anymore -- for surely, that is the beginning of the end.  One does not have to be clinically diagnosed as having no hope for recovery -- to give up.  It happens all the time, even to everyone of us.  We reach a point which we will not go on -- and in many instances, that is wise and justified.  Is the reward worth the risk?  And then, do we have a choice?

Sometimes there is no choice but to go through the fire -- hoping there is safety beyond.  Most of the time, it is not as dramatic, but no less significant -- as when one is pushed off an island, and lands on the other side.  Anything would be better, than what is not working.  That failure has become their certainty -- and all the other choices, represent escapes from that dismal fate.  At that point, one is a fool to cling to that certainty that is one's doom.  They have nothing to lose and everything to gain -- by simply trying anything else.

That's how the future lies for everyone -- the choices they make to go on.  But those who choose to live too closely to the edge, risk falling to a premature end -- as certainly as those who will never go there, nor anywhere else for that matter.  They've chosen not to exercise all their options and possibilities -- but just to exist as long as somebody else will keep them alive.  Taking care of themselves, let alone taking better care of themselves -- is no longer a point of discussion.

It is the work and job of others, to make them well -- and even provide a little more each year -- automatically, and unfailingly.  That is what their lives and society has come to -- and all they need do is show up and vote, once a year -- if that.  That is all they think necessary, for everything to turn out well, and not that they have to take personal responsibility and accountability, and see success through to every detail -- personally.

It's easy to lose sight of that perspective -- in a world of conveniences.   That means getting back to the basics -- just as Henry David Thoreau wrote in his time -- as the fundamental grounding each must revisit in their lives, as often as possible.  That is what makes life meaningful -- and not the sound and fury -- signifying little of importance.  All that, is merely entertainment -- distractions and  delusions preventing us from seeing the obvious -- preferring the illusion to the realities of our daily living, which is the reality of our lives.

Then the "story" is preferred to the simple truth of the matter -- as though nothing has any significance in itself, but must be woven into a greater cause before one is motivated to do anything.  The simplicity of purpose is lost so one will not move as a simple honest expression of one's being -- but is justified because it is good for the heart, or cause one to live a year longer in a vegetative state, or some other consideration far removed.

It might be for that million dollars one will need in the last year of one's life being sustained by an army of caregivers on artificial life support -- and the dire consequences of what will happen to you if you do not have the resources.   The alternatives are too horrible to entertain.  But way before that, how does one live their lives to not get into that condition?  Certainly that path of deterioration is not inevitable to most -- but is the worst case scenario for only a rare few -- that should rightfully not be viewed as the rule upon which all of life is predicated on.  Yet that is what some are dedicated to convincing us of.  That is their livelihood in this world -- to sell us of whatever makes a living for them -- and not that it is totally and absolutely necessary.

Can we save every species from extinction -- or guarantee every life at any cost?  That's never been done before.  That is the very process of life, death, survival and evolution.  Things don't just stay the same -- for eternity, no matter how much one wants to micromanage it.



The most difficult part of any task, is just getting started -- or going from zero to one -- which usually makes all the difference in the world.  Once one has actually started anything, the rest is fairly easy -- and often takes on a life of its own -- the one thing leads to the next.  And so it is observed, that a journey of a thousand miles, begins with  single step.  Fortunately however, most journeys are not a thousand miles long, but usually just a jog around the block, or stroll to the corner grocery store.  But even then, a few people have a problem with that -- and shortly, they have a problem with even the smallest effort.  At that point, everything seems like a moonshot -- and just as likely to happen.