MM#304--Walking is NOT Optional + The Elephant in the Room

Welcome to the Theory to Action podcast, where we examine the timeless treasures of wisdom from the great books in less time, to help you take action immediately and ultimately to create and lead a flourishing life. Now here's your host, david Kaiser.

Hello, I am David and welcome back to another Mojo Minute. In our last Mojo Minute we talked all about sitting as the new smoking and how we need to incorporate more movement, and not just more exercise, but more movement in our lives. Well, that's a quick call on the phone where we were able to pace back and forth to keep ourselves moving, or if that's a quick jaunt down to the supermarket, perhaps by walking or taking the bike. More movement into our lives is what is needed. It's just not enough for us to go to the gym for an hour in the morning, bang out that workout and then jump in our car sitting down and arrive at our work to sit down for some four to six hours, only to get back up, run out to our car, sit down in that car to arrive home to have a dinner while seated, watch Netflix and Facebook Reels and YouTube Shorts if we're honest with ourselves for the next three hours with our family, all while seated. Do you sense a theme here? If we have an honest self-assessment and self-reflection, me included here, we have to come to our undergrips that we can be both active and sedentary. Active because we made it to the gym and we got our workout in yay, and we can be sedentary, because we then spent the next 12 hours of our day sitting down at work, in the car and at home. So we have to find ways to move more and be more mindful in our movements throughout the day. That throughout the day part is the toughest for all of us, but it's something we should strive for. Now back to our book of the day Move your DNA by Katie Bowman. She brings us back to the basics later in the book, saying this let's go to the book. Walking is not optional. Everything you've done so far adjusting your head, strengthening and mobilizing your arms, releasing your so as and preparing your feet and ankles will be directly impacting the way you walk. Instead of thinking about how to walk right, it is better to release your immobilities and constantly expose those new ranges of motion to the activity of walking. I'm always surprised when people say they find walking boring. Walking defines us as a species. It is not a luxury, it's not a bonus, it is not optional. Walking is a biological imperative, like eating and having sex, which is why we should, as a species, see the inability to walk without pain for what it is a huge red waving flag, calling attention to the state of other parts and processes necessary to perpetuate our humanness and, as we discovered, the fact that walking is almost essential to our very humanness because of all these different cells in our body, that sense that there is very movement in our bodies. How crazy is that there's also new technologies that are helping those of us confined to wheelchairs to try and stimulate the same walking sensation in the body so that they can become more fully alive and reap the absolute best human outcomes and optimization. Now, that's a pretty cool way, but before we conclude this mojo minute, I came across an even more profound nugget of wisdom that I'd love to share. Katie, in her book, relates the story of a most famous Indian parable, and it goes like this Humans don't seem to relate to their own beautiful mechanism in the same way as they relate to that of other creatures, probably due to the lack of awareness of happenings too small to see. There's an Indian parable about perception, and it goes something like this A group of blind men stand around an elephant and are asked to identify what is in front of them. The man feeling the trunk describes the elephant as similar to that of a thick snake. Another at the tusk knows that the elephant is cold, hard and sharp. A man at the side of the elephant describes a high barrel-shaped object. One of the legs describes thick pillars and another, at the tail, knows the elephant has to be thin, flexible, with a bush brush-like tip. In each case the man speaks honestly, his truth created by his perception. But amongst each other the men bicker and argue, leaving insulting comments on each other's Facebook pages, and denounce each other for their ignorance. The holistic perspective is one that considers every parcel to be true. Each blind man speaks truthfully about what they see, but also acknowledges the mistake in assuming the parcel to be the whole truth. Stepping back to look at the entire elephant and the entire environment in which the elephant dwells and Dr Feynman witnesses some of the elephant's biological processes at a microscope level changes what we see. It changes our version of the truth. Ah, it changes our version of the truth. Very true, very true indeed. And let's face it, we here at the Mojo Academy are on a relentless pursuit of the truth. A pursuit of the truth that can certainly understand different perspectives, but let's be sure we are clear. In our relativistic age there are many folks that are confusing the issues on purpose, they will say there are many truths and there is no truth. So in today's Mojo Minute, let us not fall into that trap. Let us be open-minded enough to see. There can be many different perspectives. But we should surely avoid the 21st century heresy that there is only my truth and your truth and there is no truth and there is no truth that is discoverable. That would be failing to see the elephant in the room, and that is the truth. It's a perspective, for sure, but not the full truth. Let us see the elephant in the room in the first quarter of the 21st century and if we do, if we do see the full elephant in the room, I promise because it is a truth as old as the planet we will be on the road to a flourishing life.

Until next time, keep getting your Mojo on.