Anyways, this is the result of me doing some stuff and then thinking about how it made/makes me feel afterwards, and how it's probably important that people do physical stuff because it's good for you. Trust me, the actual piece is better than the short description, but it serves as a door opener for people only reading what they're interested in.
So, hope you enjoy it, and know that I'm accepting of your judgements and opinions on my own judgements and opinions. Feedback on both subject matter and writing style are appreciated from anyone willing to take the time to pitch in their two cents, though given a busy lifestyle, go right ahead on ignoring that demand if you so wish.
I'm saying too much.
Physical Fitness in Modern Society by Mackinley Clevinger, January 22, 2016
Human behavior has changed throughout its history, different aspects of our lives rising and falling in importance to society as the needs changed and the system moved on from what it had once been. Casual violence, war, society structure, treatment of your fellow humans, recognition of the arts; all these things and many more have risen to prominence and fallen to dis-use time and time again over the course of our human history, and of late an important one that was once vital to human survival has fallen to the wayside, a forgotten aspect of our lives that benefits us in our entirety.
I’m talking about exercise. Training and honing your body to be able to do more than sit in a vehicle for half an hour, sit at a desk all day, and drive back home to lie prostrate for eight-hours. This part of our lives, physical health, has become all but ignored by the masses going about their day-to-day business despite the service it provides to other aspects of our lives.
The automation of once-backbreaking processes, the advent of technology that can carry and move our loads for us, these have made the valuable part of the human be the mind as opposed to the once unique nature of the body. Society doesn’t need us to be strong or fit for it to be able to function, so the instilled need for us to be fit is gone. We are no longer trained to hunt our prey, no longer raised from birth to fight a neighboring city-state, no longer expected to do drudge-work for the entirety of our lives.
Some of us still have to do work of this nature, but it wasn’t something you were trained and expected to do from birth, it was something that you’d typically fall into. Without this social call-to-action, our focus has shifted from the physical to the mental, which is a wonderful thing. Teaching children from a young age and progressively making every generation smarter is a good thing for us all, it promotes social growth and will reign in a better future for us all.
However, we’ve lost something in the process. Physical fitness isn’t needed anymore, so there’s no longer an expectation in people to manage themselves and stay healthy. There’s still a vestigial compulsion in people, a product of our bodies having been evolved to be and stay fit, but all it amounts to in most people is a vague ‘I should really start working out’ while they’re panting at the top of a single flight of stairs. We feel an urge, but can’t bring ourselves to do it because society doesn’t need it of us.
The mind and the body do not work independently of one another, and it’s difficult to see the reasoning behind expecting a society to function at its highest mental capacity when it’s been conditioned to ignore maintaining the health of its body. Humans have evolved to be able to run for long distances without any issue, able to outrun in distance and time any other creature on the earth, and yet we’ve come to the point where most people are worn out running down the block.
Without a healthy body, the mind suffers. Beyond the inability to use your muscles to do anything or run for any amount of time, you oftentimes feel sluggish and unable to focus on the task at hand, wanting nothing more than to shut your eyes and stop having to do anything until the feeling passes. How is it supposed to, when the root cause of that feeling is a body that can’t function properly?
As difficult as it is to get into it, given time constraints and the initial issues in making a body do work that it hasn’t had to do in ages, exercise is how you rid yourself of that dragging force which serves only to get in the way of living your life. Raising your heart rate and getting your blood pumping flicks the right switches in your head to bring you back from that slump and able to focus again, and doing so consistently creates a stronger and healthier body that is able to stay in that alert and focused mode for all of your waking hours.
Strictly speaking, exercise isn’t needed by society any more. Now, it’s needed by the people within society, individually. Without the need of survival for the continuation of our own lives or our communities, we need a different drive to inspire us to make the extra effort to keep ourselves physically healthy. We have to do these things for ourselves, take time out of our day and try something new with ourselves. Many of us have been slowly worsening during our lives, or just carried on with the same level of lethargy and physical exhaustion that makes our waking hours uncomfortable and to be dreaded every time we have to ascend a flight of stairs or stay focused for hours on end.
Many of us envy the things others can do with their bodies, the impressive actions a martial artist is capable of or the ability for a marathon runner to go all day without gasping for breath. We think that these are impressive things, see the year of effort behind it, and tell ourselves we can’t do that now, so why even try for it?
We want results, and they take time to come about. Honestly, exercise can be pretty painful at first, the aches and awkwardness as you first start can be a strong deterrent, but beyond those first few weeks or months of difficulty lies the same kind of skill you once marveled at. We create a roadblock in our minds between us and the target destination, and then figure that there’s no point trying because passing that roadblock would be too difficult for us right now. We can’t imagine doing these things, ourselves, even though it won’t be us as we are now doing them when it’s time to do it for real.
Everyone is capable of doing these things, though. Everyone is capable of turning their lives around from a path of lethargy and dragging your feet all throughout the day to a focused mind and toned body capable of doing whatever you want with it. No one achieved that end-goal in a day, everyone who impresses you has years behind them backing up that singular act that inspires and scares you, and the sooner you start your own journey towards the point of being the person who inspires others and beyond, the sooner you can turn your life around in at least one aspect and be happier.
Exercise belongs in our lives because it’s in our genes, our bodies want and need it to function at their best capacity, and fulfilling that biological compunction makes us happy. Having a body that doesn’t tire out as easily, being introduced to activities that interest us and let us use a body that is slowly coming together as a shaped tool of our consciousness, these are the things that bring a sense of fulfillment and happiness to our lives.
It isn’t the end-all-be-all to find a solution to problems you may be facing in your life, but if you’ve found yourself feeling sluggish and dreading the idea of a long bike ride or similar such activities, bringing exercise back into your life can and will help. Here’s something to think about: how often did Spartans complain about back problems or soreness? How often were Vikings listless in their lives, uncertain of what they should do? A maintained physical condition brings health and focus to a life bereft of it, and though society may have dropped it as an imperative, that doesn’t mean we, as individual people, have to.