Alexandersmap

    Category: Health

    • The Attractiveness of Adventure

      “The very basic core of a man’s living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun.” — Christopher McCandless

      Watching the eclipse of the moon this morning, I thought about how beautiful it was, but also about who was actually seeing it with me. The adventurous are always attracted to others with the same gumption to do outrageous things. Those who seek to wring the most out of life are appealing to those who aspire to add vibrancy and sparkle to their days.

      Right on cue my bride stepped outside, groggy and unsteady, but willing to give it a go with the moon and binoculars. It’s not the first micro adventure I’ve coaxed her towards, and I appreciate her willingness to subtract sleep for experience. Box checked, she was back to her appointment with her pillow.

      Lingering with the moon a bit longer, I thought about the attractiveness of adventure. We seek adventure to feel most alive, and naturally feel the energy emanating from similar spirits. This is true in youth, but equally true as we age. Some of the most vibrant people I’ve known are most attractive because they live a full life. They live outside the norms of society, breaking the established “rules” for living a typical life in favor of adventure. You simply can’t live your own full life inside the box someone else built for you.

      A sustained, vibrant life builds upon itself, it doesn’t subtract years from our lives through poor choices. Aliveness and vitality are the opposite of self-destructiveness and living on borrowed time. Bad habits will choke the life right out of us, so we ought to choose wisely in our quest for adventure. By all means, listen to your mother and wear sunscreen, but don’t hide behind the shades your whole life.

      We never know what we’ll attract into our life until we step out of the cage. Joyful experience is indeed attractive, and we become more attractive in our aliveness. The living are most attracted to those who live a full, adventurous life. A richer life experience, engagement with others living on a higher plane, and deeper realization of our full potential await us when we live our lives with an adventurous spirit.

      I’ll see you out there.

    • Personal Summits and the Pursuit of Vibrancy

      “There is an ecstasy that marks the summit of life, and beyond which life cannot rise. And such is the paradox of living, this ecstasy comes when one is most alive, and it comes as a complete forgetfulness that one is alive.” — Jack London, Call of the Wild

      Usain Bolt is 36 years old as I write this. He’s a young man, nowhere near his peak in life, but well past his peak as the fastest man alive during a string of unforgettable Olympic performances. Some people, like gymnasts and figure skaters, reach their physical peak even sooner than sprinters. Are they all past their moment of ecstasy? I should think not. They’ve descended from that summit and begun their climb up another.

      There are naturally many peaks and valleys in a lifetime, but two obvious benchmarks are physical fitness and mental fitness. When do we reach our peak with each? Physically it’s likely when we’re younger, relative to a lifetime. Mentally, well, who’s to say we can’t reach our summit towards the very end of life? The combination of the two equals a level of vibrancy worthy of the pursuit, for in pursuing vibrancy for our entire lifetime we’re extending the potential of ecstatic living well beyond the norm.

      In my mind, there are few sins so egregious as extending life without health. This is important. It does not matter if we can extend lifespans if we cannot extend healthspans to an equal extent. And so if we’re going to do the former, we have an absolute moral obligation to do the latter.
      David A. Sinclair, Lifespan: Why We Age—and Why We Don’t Have To

      If there’s a call to arms in Jack London’s Call of the Wild quote, it’s to remember that we’re alive for a very brief time, and we ought to work to extend our functional vitality for as long into our senior years as possible. And as Sinclair says, there’s an obligation to improve health for the long haul, not just the healthcare industry’s obligation, but ours. That begins with fitness and nutrition, exploration and stretching our perceived limits, and of course moderation and omission. We weren’t put here to live in a bubble and eat nothing but kale, that’s not ecstasy, instead we ought to seek activity that enriches us, gaze upward and climb towards higher summits than we might have otherwise. And in the process, use the climb to look around and appreciate just how far we’ve come.

      Slàinte Mhath!

    • Old Souls and Young Hearts

      When we come across young people who exhibit a level of maturity beyond their years, we often describe them as having old souls. Many of us believe that the job of parents is to raise children to be old souls from as young an age as possible. Teaching life skills that will carry them a long way in life is the obvious primary mission, but also critical is to avoid leaving as much of our own personal baggage on their shoulders as possible. The best parents are both instructive and inclusive with children. When they feel a part of the conversation, they feel enabled and drawn into the world. When they’re constantly berated and corrected by parents, they feel inadequate and diminished. Thus old souls are formed by inclusive parenting.

      Young hearts think in possibility, take leaps of faith, seek adventure and break rules. Certainly many young people have a young heart, but many don’t. Just so, there are many old people with young hearts too. It’s an exclusive club, revealed with a secret handshake and a twinkle in the eye—you know the young at heart when you encounter them in the wild. And if you’re inclined to do things that others feel aren’t appropriate for your age and status, well, you might have a young heart too.

      To get anything done in this world, we must have a healthy combination of old soul and young heart: Maturity and insight mixed with the Moxie to just do it already. Old souls with young hearts make the world go round. Inventors and pioneers, musicians and poets, fighter pilots and social leaders who dare shake up the status quo, all have the right stuff. Bold, but not reckless, they seek expression in their chosen craft.

      We forget, sometimes, that older people with young hearts get a lot of things done too. We can accomplish so much more as we get some momentum behind us if we choose to pursue our own passions. Age is simply a number—it’s fitness, health and vibrancy that fuel the fire, whether you’re 23 or 103 or somewhere in between. If we’re lucky and blessed with enough runway, forward propulsion and lift, we just might soar. Life is best lived with an old soul and a young heart.

    • Riding the Shining Sea Bikeway

      Rail trails offer a great opportunity to walk, skate or ride without dealing with the resentful glare of automobile drivers who believe they own the road while controlling your life in their distracted hands. The Shining Sea Bikeway ups the ante with beautiful views and a diverse landscape. The trick on this trail is to avoid being too distracted yourself as the views stack up one upon the other.

      The trail lives up to its name, with views of Buzzard Bay across both of the Sippewissett Marshes (Little and Great—but aren’t they both great?) and of Vineyard Sound and Martha’s Vineyard as it hugs the beach. Shining Sea runs from North Falmouth to Woods Hole, offering plenty of options to linger for time on the beach, stroll through woodland trails, or a visit to the many shops and restaurants of Main Street in Falmouth and Woods Hole.

      As a sucker for salt water, it was easy to fall in love with the beachside section of the trail. Here you’re treated to those expansive views, the latest trends in beach fashion, and a monument to the trail’s namesake, Katharine Lee Bates, author of “America the Beautiful”, which ends with the famous line, “from sea to shining sea”. Very few Americans can recite every verse of America, the Beautiful, but everyone knows that last line.

      The magic on this trail is in riding through a tunnel of woodland canopy, salt march grass, past that beach sand and finally to the trail’s terminus at the Woods Hole Ferry. For a cyclist with dreams of never getting in a car for a vacation on the Cape and islands, the Shining Sea Rail Trail makes a strong statement of what’s possible. For this cyclist, it was an opportunity to give the feet a break while getting some exercise with a view.

      From the North Falmouth terminus, it’s a 21 mile (33 km) round trip. That’s very manageable on a good bicycle. The human body connects with a bicycle in five places, each essential to a great experience. Perhaps none more than the seat. My bicycle seat was apparently designed to maximize suffering, but no matter, a sore saddle wasn’t going to ruin one of the prettiest rail trails in the northeast United States. The seat is replaceable, the memories will last far longer.

      There may be no better time to experience the Shining Sea Bikeway than autumn. September is a great time to get the warmth with the crowds, and October should be spectacular for fall colors in that canopy. It’s a trail worth considering if you’re interested in experiencing Cape Cod without the hassle of driving in traffic.

    • Go Be It

      “The most difficult thing is the decision to act. The rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do. You can act to change and control your life; and the procedure, the process, is its own reward.” — Amelia Earhart

      I woke up sore all over, with muscles tight and grumpy, protesting the last week of doing what they’re supposed to do but somehow forgot about in lazy compliance with the mind. The soreness is a lag measure of work applied, simply that, and eventually the lag will be replaced by acceptance of the new reality. It was certainly far easier to get out of shape than to climb back to shape. Such is the way.

      Decide what to be and go be it… simple on the face of it because it is in fact that simple. The hard part is hidden under the surface of those words: Go be it. Talk is cheap, and decisions without action are nothing but talk until we drag ourselves along for the transformation.

      It’s far easier to have a bit of wine and cheese after a long day than it is to change into workout clothes and earn the right to wear them. It’s far easier to start our work a bit later, and end it a bit earlier. And it’s far easier to doom scroll on our phones than to turn off all distraction and dance with the important but not urgent tasks that move the chains in our lives. But there’s a reason easy has a negative connotation. Deep down, we know it in the moment.

      So sure, I’m sore today, just as I’ve been sore for well over a week. It’s just the gap between where I am and where I want to be expressing itself. And what is expression but the manifestation of a feeling? Whatever discomfort we feel in the moment is part of the process of becoming, a manifestation of what we want to be. It’s that voice in our head reminding us that this time, if we stay with it, we might actually be it.

    • The Passing Lane

      “We are all of us clocks whose faces tell the passing years.” — Arthur Stanley Eddington, The Nature of the Physical World

      The older you get—and I’m in no way conceding I’m old yet—the more it feels like life is lived in the fast lane. not in that cool Eagle’s SoCal vibe way, but in that “Where did the time go?” way. We are each passing the time, while our accumulation of wrinkles and grays keep score. The rings on a tree tell the story of years of abundant rain balanced by years of scarcity and drought, and so do our faces.

      Someone in the family recently tempted fate and announced he was cancer free all over social media. I sure hope he is, but can’t help but shake my head at the recklessness of his announcement. I’ve seen cancer return with a vengeance, reclaiming those who believed they were liberated. Does that mean we should we walk on eggshells? Of course not, but we shouldn’t tempt fate either.

      It’s never been about how old we are, but how healthy. As the years pass by we see too many examples of vibrant people rapidly fading away as they succumb to injury or illness. Each example informs, and we learn not to be reckless in our habits, with our time, or with our proclamations.

      Time flies by, and with each year we pick up another growth ring. Wrinkles tell a story of time and resilience. But we know that we’ll all enter the passing lane sooner or later.

    • The “What’s Our Fire” Exam

      “Proper examination should ruin the life that you’re currently living. It should cause you to leave relationships. It should cause you to reestablish boundaries with family members and with colleagues. It should cause you to quit your job.” — @naval

      We march through our day-to-day life without serious thought about the big picture. What really matters to us, and are we moving towards that? Sometimes examination tells us we’re on the right track, sometimes we find more smoke than fire. But we ought to sort out what’s going on either way.

      Examination doesn’t invite trouble, it offers a lifeline. We get in the habit of saying things that won’t rock the boat. I’d suggest that the boat ought to be rocked now and then. There’s nothing wrong with a spring cleaning for the soul. Purge all those pent-up resentments and simmering anger and give them air to breath. They’ll either ignite into a bonfire or smother for lack of fuel. But we can’t just live every day ignoring the growing inferno without being burned alive from the inside-out.

      Socrates famously said that “The unexamined life is not worth living”. Are we meant to be a torch or merely kindling for someone else’s dreams? Think of the things that we accept in our life that are frivolous and inconsequential on the surface, and worse, distract us from the things that might be life-changing given the chance. The thing that makes Naval’s statement incendiary is that we may find we’ve just been kindling all along. Isn’t it fair to ask, what is our fire, anyway?

    • You Are What You Eat

      “The longer your food lasts, the shorter you will.” — David Sinclair

      Simple tweet from Sinclair that elegantly sums up the mission: eat fresh, natural food without preservatives. Eliminate the sketchy processed foods from our diets. Stop piling on junk atop junk for our bodies to stress over. We all know it intuitively yet make exceptions for what we chew on. We forget the long game for the savory moment.

      When you read a statement like that, are you inclined to dismiss it? Challenge it? Or accept it as a wisdom nugget? Do you change the way you eat or defer action to another day? If we are what we eat what exactly are we becoming?

      The shorter the truth nugget, the longer it lingers in the mind.

    • Plans

      What is an intention when compared to a plan? —Amor Towles, A Gentleman in Moscow

      What you intend to do is meaningless.

      What you actually do is everything.

      What requires a why for fuel in its darkest hours.

      What flounders without a plan.

      Habits carry plans to their completion.

      Plan your habits wisely, then follow through as if your life depended on it.

      Doesn’t it?

    • To Let It Go

      If I could through myself
      Set your spirit free, I’d lead your heart away
      See you break, break away
      Into the light
      And to the day
      — U2, Bad

      When you think about the trajectory of U2 prior to the ubiquitous madness of Joshua Tree, it was Bad that became the song the crowd took possession of. The band carries it, always, but it soars with the collective energy of the crowd. It was the performance that everyone was talking about during Live Aid (at least until Queen took the stage). U2 grabs moments in that way, elevating a simple song about heroin addiction into so much more.

      This desperation
      Dislocation
      Separation, condemnation
      Revelation in temptation
      Isolation, desolation
      Let it go

      Each person who hears the call in Bad feels themselves in it. We never dabbled in drug addiction but we have our own demons. Listen to it now, with the perspective of a global pandemic and yet another war and the collective addiction of social media and its demand to pick sides. Listen to it now having lost something of yourself. Listen to it having seen parts of yourself slip away. It takes on a meaning it didn’t have in simpler times.

      Even with—especially with—this bruised and battered lens of 2022, the call is the same: To wake up and find hope somewhere above the darkness in the world. Above the darkness in ourselves. To let it go and set your spirit free. It remains a timeless call waiting to be heard.