Go Ahead, I Dare you

Everyone confesses that exertion which brings out all the powers of bodyand mind is the best thing for us; but most people do all they can to getrid of it, and as a general rule nobody does much more than circumstancesdrive them to do.
- Harriet Beecher Stowe, abolitionist and novelist (1811-1896)

Checking the dates of birth and death of Harriet Beecher Stowe we can see that what seems to be a condition of modern times has existed for at least well over a century.

In her day, wars were common, more common than today, such that most people experienced at least one war during their lifetimes--usually one per generation--and were either conscripted or volunteered to fight in one. It may have been unhealthy, as war zones then had environments similar to the most polluted cities today. It may have been risky, but young men went to fight for "freedom" or to prevent being attacked by "the enemy," so the risks were deemed worthwhile.

Though they didn't sleep well or eat properly, they got a steady and dependable pay envelope, which was more than could be said at home for many. For young men who didn't want to use their brain much, war offered excitement they couldn't get at home. The average lifespan of men was just over 40 years in those days, so risking their lives for some pretty lively excitement seemed worth it. Even if they died in battle, they would only die a few years younger than the average man in their society.

Today we have young people who would rather die of a drug overdose than do a job that required them to expend physical energy. Even taking drugs itself shows how little they use their brains to learn that both their physical and their mental health could be affected.

Are we naturally lazy or do circumstances drive us to it? As an educator and student of human behaviour, I would have to say the latter is more correct. Only those with physical impairments--many of which go undiagnosed for years--are lackadaisical as children. Those who develop chronic fatigue syndrome or fibromyalgia later in life were often not terribly energetic as children, though this has not been studied much.

Most kids are very active both physically and intellectually. Don't two year olds and three year olds have a reputation for asking enough questions to drive their parents to distraction? Asking questions is an indicator of an active mind. Their play tends to be fairly physical in nature at that age, perhaps because they don't have the intellectual development to engage in more mindful pursuits.

Somewhere along the way most people stop asking questions. In fact, it has become so common that it's considered a sign of incompetence in some business communities to ask for help or to ask questions that might annoy or embarrass the boss. If you don't know, at least don't let everyone know you don't know, just shut up, is the rule of thumb.

So we produce a society made up largely of intellectually stunted adults. The thinkers are considered the weirdos, the troublemakers, ones who could possibly be dangerous if given their way.

Intellectually stunted adults who just happen to have a cultural tendency towards obesity, mostly due to the fact that they embrace any activity that requires little physical effort and as little mental effort as possible.

To ensure that the adults produce children with the same preferences, we create a fear of having our children out by themselves where they might learn something other than that prescribed by school and the family. So the kids stay at home, play video games and visit porn sites or chatrooms on the internet, if they aren't participating in some sort of social networking system such as YouTube.

Yet it has become not just the social norm, but social and even legal requirement that kids should be tended by adults all day, every day, such that they can never learn anything not on their required community curriculum. The intellectually and physically lazy adults don't need to teach the kids to be lazy because the kids pick it up from their role models who are required by law and social norms to force their children into social conformity. In so doing they become mentally and physically docile themselves.

Go ahead, dear reader, get angry about this. I dare you. Use your intellect and emotional energy to give me example after example to show that I am wrong.

That would require you to think critically. Are you up for it?

I am. Do it.

Bill AllinTurning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for parents and teachers who want to grow children who are not bound to social norms that will make them into fat, lazy, unthinking consumers.
Learn more at http://billallin.com

Why You Won't Likely Become Senile

"It is a mistake to regard age as a downhill grade toward dissolution. The reverse is true. As one grows older, one climbs with surprising strides."
- George Sand

We come to believe that most people who live long enough will become forgetful, absent minded, even confused about many things. We call it senility.

Isn't senility an inevitable disease for most people? No. It's the most preventable disease we know about. Senility is the direct result of mental inactivity for too long.

Most of us know that our muscles atrophy if they are not used. A person with a broken leg, for example, might find the muscle mass in the healed leg much reduced when the cast (or other device) comes off from what it was before the break. Senility is nothing more than atrophy of the brain.

The brain atrophys when it isn't used enough for problem solving and heavy thinking. Our brains, like the rest of our bodies, are built for heavy work. If they don't get enough work regularly, they lose the potential and strength they once had.

"Use it or lose it" applies as much to the brain as it does to the rest of our bodies.

Heavy brainwork even uses up a fair amount of energy, about 31 percent as much as heavy lifting. But we can think for longer than we can lift heavy weights, so thinking is good exercise.
Watching television is not brain exercise. The brain gets less exercise when we watch TV than it does when we dream.

A working brain solves problems, creates new work or considers the various factors that influence a given situation. Television does that work for us, which is why some programs for adults aim at a mental age of early adolescence. Our brain gets almost no work when we watch television.

Senility can be turned around if caught in time and if the person wants to change. However, it requires considerable dedication and determination for a person who is not used to using his brain to work it heavily for an extended period of time every day. Reading a newspaper is good if the person thinks about each item he reads. Reading books is another excellent form of exercise for the brain.

Nature provides that we can become something more than we ever were before as we age. When our bodies stop performing the way they used to when we were younger, our brain should be able to take over and turn us into a new and magnificent person.

Those who have accomplished this change know how dramatic it is and how much better they feel about themselves while their bodies get achy and creeky.

The biggest hurdle is to persuade a lazy brain to exercise when it has been so comfortably ensconced in lassitude for so long.

But it's worth the mental exercise to avoid becoming a breathing vegetable in a nursing home for the last years of our lives.

Bill Allin
Turning it Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to make our senior years interesting and fulfilling.
Learn more at http://billallin.com