Age is No Excuse

 Age is No Excuse

Sarcopenia is described as muscle atrophy due to age — but nobody is getting younger with time, while many suffer muscle atrophy at any age — due to lack of the proper exercise. So sarcopenia explains nothing — while seeming to explain everything. That doesn’t do anybody any good — but makes a lot of self-styled “experts” very proud of themselves — for knowing something that doesn’t explain anything, or make any difference.

Even champion bodybuilders will explain their lack of present results due to age — rather than improper training methods. If methods work well, they prove themselves to be the exceptions — and not the same old things that aren’t working for everybody else — with a different explanation, or excuse. And then we just multiply the explanations and excuses — rather than find a way that actually works.

Many still think that the major rationale for exercising is simply to burn as many calories as possible — as though that were a good in itself. It’s also the reason people buy a car — thinking that the objective is to burn as much fuel as possible — or a bicycle for that matter. Then they wonder why they now have to deal with expensive repairs for excessive and premature wear — always missing the point. The objective of every effort, is to produce a desired result —and not simply, any results — that often leads to further problems and complications.

The expressed and intentional reason for exercise is to prevent malfunction and dysfunction as the primary objective — and not as an afterthought — after meeting the arbitrary objectives of random activity. A lot of people get lost in thinking that everything else but the deliberate intention to improve one’s health and functioning — is the greatest purpose, and not the competition and performance. That is to say that what matters is not doing it for the sake of any one else, but solely for one’s own benefit. Otherwise, one will stop doing it as soon as the instructor is not there to tell them to do it — for their approbation — which invariably happens as we get older, and are left to our own devices.

At that point, some people just fall apart and stop caring as soon as they are no longer the center of attention. That eventually happens to all of us — some sooner than later. The problem is not the health care system — but the self-care structure and environment each person builds throughout their entire lives. That’s the main difference between those who thrive in their later years, and those who disintegrate as soon as there is no one there to tell them what to do. That is the role of the coach, teacher, pastor, spouse, boss, or any other significant other — but the most significant, must be the individual themselves.

That is the importance of exercise and discipline; that is one’s categorical imperative — or basic drive and orientation in life. That makes the most difference. That’s what shows — in everything they do and are. There are no guarantees for eternal life and youth — but they do the best they can at every moment because they know the cause and effects, and not just the randomness of being. Those are two very different types of people: one believes that nothing matters, while the other believes that everything they think and do matters — and makes a difference.

It doesn’t matter what one can’t do — or no longer can do. What matters is what one can do — and does it, and the results are the proof that it works — or not. If not, one has to discover what does work — even if it takes the rest of their life. What more important thing is there to do — for oneself surely, but for everyone else as well. That’s how great discoveries are made — even if it was just to find out for oneself — the truth of the matter. One doesn’t know and then confirm what one already knows. No, they find out what they don’t know — but presume they do, as the fallacy for why it doesn’t work. It would be an easy thing to simply conclude, it doesn’t work so it must be age — and feel quite satisfied that one has explained everything there is to know.

But even now, a few people are emerging who are unlike everybody else we’ve seen before — not because they are young, but because they reach unprecedented levels of health — that even young people don’t achieve. So rather than age explaining everything, it really explains nothing — but we presume to know. It’s not just the longevity experts who are making these discoveries, but everyone manifesting it in their own lives — as the proof of what they know. That is how the new reality comes into being.