Being Your Best Doesn't Have to be an Extreme Sport

It's obviously the intelligent thing to do -- to always be one's best, even in "retirement." Actually, there is nothing more important one should do at that stage of one's life, because that health and well-being is the criterion of how well one is doing -- when there is no "other" to tell them how well they are doing anymore.

That is a very difficult thing for those who have been raised from the cradle to nearly the grave with somebody else always telling them what to do and how to live their lives -- from the schools to the unions (trade associations), coaches, political parties, and of course, newspaper opinion writers -- on top of one's requirement to hire somebody else to tell them how to get into "shape," and "how to" live one's life, as though that could be done for any other.

So whether one is beginning kindergarten or retirement, they should ask whether what they are learning, helps them discover the truth of anything for themselves -- and not just how to follow orders of those who know best for everybody else, what they should be doing -- as though they knew, and had a right to tell them what to do, what to believe and repeat (propagate) as the political/social correctness (consensus).

The "truth" is in the discovery, and not the answer; it is a journey, and not the end of the journey, at which one no longer has to learn anything more. That is always the beginning of stagnation, deterioration, and ultimately death -- because there are no more worlds to conquer (discover).

Fortunately, we live in an age in which constant, if not endless discovery is possible -- with some great invention or innovation merely awaiting discovery because the present controlling vested interest (hegemony) has prohibited such knowing. In health and well-being, that is that one has to run the gauntlet of the health care system and sadistic personal trainers to break into the clear beyond of perfect health -- or is there simply higher walls to climb beyond that -- endlessly, until one can die in peace?

Thus many are reluctant to even begin that journey -- that merely gets harder, the better one gets. Is that how it is supposed to work?

Health is not simply being young -- and doing the same things they do, but beyond that, is doing things differently and better, so that they are no longer hard and difficult -- like with any other learning and rewarding participation. One doesn't simply do it until one is permanently disabled so one can no longer live an active life anymore -- with a good excuse for not doing so, and can place those responsibilities in the hands of the health care system from here on out.

The major function of the brain is not thought but the production of health for that individual, which is not produced by the separation of mental from physical activity, but is the integration of the entire being so that the thought conforms to the reality -- rather than superimposing one's beliefs over those realities, which is the struggle.

If one does nothing else, one should move their head, as the key to maintaining and strengthening that connection -- instead of moving every other part in preference and priority to it, because that structural and integral maintenance and improvement creates the biggest difference in change, which is why the most visible sign of deterioration of the health of the entire being, is the atrophying of the muscles of the neck. When there is optimal flow, the muscles, blood vessels and nerves show it in their appearance, as well as function -- as that sign of vital well-being.

Meanwhile the heart, on which so much attention is focused, already beats 100,000 contractions a day -- without further extraordinary effort. So the relative increment (rate of change) of moving the head 360 degrees (full contraction), is much greater doing 100 repetitions -- than working the heart even harder than it already does, while the rest do nothing -- and predictably atrophy, as the accepted norm of the aging (deterioration) process.