Exercise is Finding Out

Why is exercise so hard to do?  It depends on what one means by "exercise."  A lot of people think they own the category -- rather than it being the unique way each individual finds out who they are, and what their ultimate capabilities are.  So why would some people not want to know that?  It is because they have been conditioned to think that only other people are fully worthy of such challenges and calling -- but not themselves.  Such people have long consigned themselves to being spectators for the lives of others -- so what they do, is not important -- when it is the most important thing to do and find out in every life.  That is what matters.

Many millennia ago, it was thought that only one person mattered -- the person at the top, and it was the duty of everyone else to serve and sacrifice for that one person, and the lives of everyone else did not matter and could be sacrificed for The One.  So if such a personage died, all those who knew or served them, could be dispatched to keep them company along the way.

But as time played out, it was increasingly realized the one needn't compete to be exclusively that one person with all the spoils, and there could be societies in which there was enough to go around for everybody.  In such a society, many could be winners -- and not just the one.  Then many more had a vested interest in the success of that society rather than everyone only battling to be the one on the top -- and once there, they expended all their resources and energies to keep everyone else down.  Invariably, such societies would disintegrate and disappear, and generations later would run across their artifacts and wonder, "What were these people thinking?"

That was old world thinking, and the new world thinking is the exploration of vastly more than that.  It is not merely a new generation of oppressors and people who want to be the boss of all the others -- but the much more expansive question of what one would do if each were their own boss?  How would each manage their own lives?  What was important to do, and what did one not want to do -- but thought they had to?

In that old paradigm, "exercise" often was that compulsion to do what they really didn't feel like doing -- and would do anything to avoid.  But lost in that resistance, was the realization that they themselves could define the rules and parameters of the games they played -- and make them as fair and rewarding as possible -- rather than just setting themselves up for failure and humiliation.  It doesn't have to be that way -- though countless minds think that is the only way possible.  We recognize such minds as undeveloped and unfulfilled -- because given the freedom and liberty to do all things, they seek only to destroy the freedom and liberties of everyone else -- and not to become as great as they can be themselves.

Such people are invariably the products of poor conditioning and traumatic experiences that limit their ultimate growth -- that those without those limits imposed upon them were not crippled by and set back.  But a few overcome them, and the exceptional even rise from those formidable handicaps that make them extraordinary persons.  While nice to read about and learn about in other lives, it is much more important to do one's best in their own lives -- as what is most important.

Those expressions and activities are the exercise of each life -- from potential to fullest articulation (actualization).  That is what is worth knowing -- and not what everybody knows -- because only one knows that.  That is the secret of successful and fulfilling lives -- and not simply wondering all one's life, what could have been.  The only way to learn that, is to find out -- to the fullest extent possible, physically, mentally, emotionally, socially, etc.  That is the exercise of life -- finding out.  It is not enough just to "know better," but making no attempt on their own, to find out the truth of that matter for oneself.  That art and skill are lost in an age in which all the answers are provided to them -- without having to make any effort of their own.  And so one thinks they know all the answers -- when they have not even begun to ask the right questions -- so that kind of knowledge is invariably irrelevant and just a mind full of useless information -- signifying nothing of any consequence and difference.  It wouldn't even begin to tell the difference.

It is a mind disconnected from any reality -- and thinks that what they see on television, videos, and print, have more reality than what they are actually experiencing in their daily lives -- and the "results" they are getting.  Invariably, what they think they are doing, differs greatly from what they are actually doing -- and that is why they get the results they are getting.  Their thoughts are not aligned with reality -- which is the whole purpose of the exercise of their faculties.  They don't really know what they have -- until they express it in the actuality -- and actually make that connection manifest -- which is to say, "Make it happen."

It doesn't just happen because one wants it to more than anybody else.  More often than not, it takes hours of practice, to manifest the results one wants -- even with the greatest of talent, and optimal conditions.  But usually, it is not like one is the only one trying to accomplish that -- as probably a few other prodigies, see the value of doing so as well.  How each goes about it, is frequently the story of competitions -- but that is not the only thing going on.  Probably as much, or even more, is going on unwitnessed -- and in that way, it is important for each to be their own judge and jury of how well they are doing for the countless hours that are the majority of their lives.

If only they care, that is not nothing, but the most important of the audience -- especially when their moment is out of the spotlight.  At that point, even the best and most famous, find themselves in a vacuum many are hardpressed to fill for the remainder of their lives.  It is easy to understand their motivations and judge their success while they are still vying for the top of the podium -- but whether they can sustain themselves beyond those glory years is everyone's greatest challenge yet.  That's why so few, if any yet, make it to 100 -- in peak condition.  Most have lost a step or two, while many have given up entirely, and are ready to go at the earliest moment of expedience -- when they could be reinventing the rules for their survival advantage. 

It's not about cheating death or cheating age, but fulfilling it to its ultimate purpose.  What they should have going for them is the wisdom of experience.  That doesn't necessarily mean remaining young and foolish forever -- but taking that wisdom and experience to another level that hasn't been achieved before.  There is no greater challenge or calling -- because it is not just one's own, but the legacy of all human knowledge and being up to the present moment.  It's not just longer lives in a deteriorating condition -- but health beyond what has been achieved up to now.  Implied in this is longer lives, but more than that, it is a vastly greater health that makes length a moot point.  One would presume that it would mean a longer life, but it is more than just hanging on for dear life -- but attaining and actualizing a more robust, vibrant existence never witnessed or even imagined before.

That's really the story of humanity.  At some point, greater quantity produces the conditions for the critical mass that makes a qualitative quantum leap inevitable.  That's how life evolves -- and has not simply repeated over the millions of years.  That's how change happens: slowly at first, and then explosively -- past all our expectations -- into the unknown, that then becomes the knowable.  And the only way to get there is not for a few, but for as many as possible, to embark on that exploration -- and task.