The Hardest Thing to See is the Obvious

As one who has spent over fifty years instructing people on exercise, very few are willing to accept the obvious -- that the primary function of their own muscles, is to shape the condition they are in -- directly and immediately.  Many teach that only as a product of time -- in one year, something miraculous happens that transforms them totally -- and not that that possibility exists presently, but obviously, some have a greater skill at doing that than others.

Competitive bodybuilders look the way they do, because that is the way they want to look -- so that even the novices have that "look" -- of a bodybuilder, because it is a "conditioned" response.   That is what their conditioning does -- but that is not the only condition possible to be in.  But unless one has their own unique sense of aestethics and ideals, they will default to what everybody else looks like -- which may not be their own best shape, or condition.  They are trying to be somebody else -- and as long as one does, they cannot be the best at what they alone are meant to be, and manifest.

That's always what I found disagreeable about competitive bodybuilding -- in that there is a stereotypical ideal that only a few conform to, while rejecting all the other possibilities of supernormal development.  In fact, those with too freakish development, are penalized for wrecking the symmetry of the preconceived ideal -- which is that people have to look like stereotypical competitive bodybuilders, rather than actualizing their own unique possibilities.

But that is not the green light for the lazy and cynical, that being in one's worst shape and condition, is as good as being in one's best -- because everything one does and thinks, and even thinks of doing, is determined by their conditioned readiness to respond.  That is to say, that one will be ready to respond to challenges that arise, because one has the immediate capacity to do so -- and not only what one hopes to do a year from now, or at some more ideal time and condition in their minds.

That is the difference between those who do, and those who only think they can -- and think that is the same.  Thus they feel, what they can see themselves doing in some imaginary future, is what they actually are capable of doing, or in fact, have already done -- in their mind's eye.  And for such people, those fantasies and delusions become even more "real," than their actual experiences and actualities -- which is the mental illness called cognitive dissonance.  Their report of reality, cannot be confirmed, tested and verified by any other independent observer -- not previously told what to think and see.

A lot of that kind of "learning," is passed down as the academic tradition -- of agreeing to what the duly-certified authorities have said everyone must believe -- and not that there could be another way of seeing things.   Any other possibilities, or truth, are not taught -- even if they could be more valid, and obviously closer to the truth, they don't want to believe.

So the conditioning of the mind as to what is possible, and what is not possible, usually preserves the status quo except when there is extraordinary insight that supersedes that past conditioning -- and bumps it onto a different trajectory, a different pattern of being.  That is why a lot of people's conditioning programs, keep them the same -- rather than changing them immediately, effectively, and then permanently.

A clear and elementary example is the person with a pot-belly -- who can still effect a pose in which that shape and condition disappears -- because they have "sucked" it in.  Instead of doing fifty situps -- or even a thousand -- hoping to make that appearance permanent in that roundabout way, it is obviously much more effective, and self-evident, that they can produce that "condition" directly and immediately -- and that should be their "practice" or exercise, and not all the others they are doing, that don't produce that immediate appearance and effect.

There is nobody who is in poor or undesirable condition and shape, who doesn't have any muscle.  But their muscles haven't been trained (conditioned) to do anything they want to do, or would be beneficial to do -- but instead, they are useless and unexercised to produce those effective responses -- which is nothing more than to relax or to contract, as appropriate for the situation.  And the socially desirable response, would be to be in the best shape and condition possible -- unless it was perceived that being in a "damaged" condition was more advantageous -- which undoubtedly, is a bad lesson to learn, and poor outlook to have in life.

Such attitudes and outlooks, damages one psychologically -- into thinking one is powerless on one's own, but if they attach themselves to some larger group, they can be powerful -- or at least, untormented.  In being harmless and impotent in that way, one thinks they can escape the notice and wrath of more powerful individuals they think will taunt and bully them as they learned on their first days on the playground as kids -- and the wisdom of not standing out, or ever standing alone -- even to be one's own best.