The Quality of Life is Change (and Movement)

The quality that distinguishes the living from the dead (inanimate), is its ability to change (move) rather than remain fixed and constant for all eternity. That's why it is very disturbing to go to the homes where people are dying and no longer living fully, or even barely -- and may continue on in that way for decades. For such people particularly, it is necessary to get back to the rudiments of movement and through that basics of understanding, achieve their momentary greatest shape and functioning -- much as the world champion athletes also have to do in order to achieve their peak performance.

Many will be surprised to learn that the great champions do not all bound out of bed and run a marathon before they settle down to breakfast and a hectic schedule of interviews, presentations and sales -- but are more likely to be the slowest out of bed, wondering if they'll even be able to get up that day, so exhausted and immobilized are they from the previous day's, as well as accumulative exertions. Eventually they don't, and decide to retire -- before they are routed from the platforms by the new champions. That is also life -- in the larger sense of that concept -- to keep improving itself beyond the individual exertions and outcomes. Life simply goes on -- with or without any particular individual, and dying and death is a part of that greater play of life.

Dying and death is what we have to come to understand, so we can better realize how we can live even better -- but we cannot achieve that just by denying dying and death as though it will never happen -- because it will happen to everyone of us. So by defining how we die, we can also determine how much better we can live -- and not just die for many years and fear that end. Understanding anything, is the ending of that fear -- and the ending of anything, is the beginning of something else, and so is essentially understanding and embracing change (and movement) -- so that when things change, we can change with it, and not just as the dying do -- wish that everything will never change, and so they withdraw further into their self-isolating worlds that do not, until there is no difference.

One doesn't have to change the world, in order to change. Change comes about through the simplest of movements -- and not the most complex -- at the very beginning, because the smallest real difference, sets in motion a different course of events. But if one thinks that one has to change the world before they can make any change in their own lives, then they are paralyzed by the overwhelming impossibility of such undertakings -- including "winning" before even deciding what they want to do.

And so the wisest piece of advice, has been that in order to go (get) anywhere, one must begin with understanding the mechanics of a single step -- but before stampeding off to be first at the starting line, one should ask even, what does a step consist of? Can one in fact, take that first step while still in bed, or even for that matter, seated? That is, is it possible to "walk" while seated, or even lying?

That seems like a preposterous and absurd question one should not even think to ask, but without considering it, the bicycle or airplane would never have come about -- because the first airplane required one to be in a lying (aerodynamic) position, and the former required one to be in a sitting (ergonomic) position to actualize into reality -- by which walking (locomotion) became optimized a hundredfold.

The purpose and meaning of human existence (organization) and industry (work) is not simply to do what has always been done at the most rudimentary level, more, faster and requiring more effort (manpower) -- but even better, to achieve miraculous results with a minimum of the consumption of those resources -- until we have arrived at the genius of the present time as the computer in its many forms and applications -- that make life infinitely better than was even imaginable a short time ago.

Then that measure (magnitude) of change is profound -- changing everything else, along with the course of history and development (evolution), that we call "progress," and not merely repeating the same things we've always done before, so that the future can only be a diminishing vision of the past as the prime of one's existence -- and not a better life than could be imagined even a short time ago.

That is the real power and meaning of change brought about through the simplest proper understanding of movement, and not the fog of complexity it has become -- to disguise any real insight into that process with all the "sound and fury" signifying nothing of any great consequence, but undoubtedly consuming all one's time, energy and resources -- as though that in itself, was the measure of anything of consequence.